So, I'm not really sure where to start with this one. Below the break, there is a Facebook exchange between myself (MH) and someone (JM) I knew in high school (Mormon religious views not-withstanding, he is a die-hard Republican). I have seen for years now this hatred on the right, for homosexuals, for minorities, for the impoverished and the disenfranchised, but I had never personally known anyone with these beliefs. Well, okay, I've run across a crazy Republican conservative here and there, but I have never found out that any of my 1-12 (went to a different kindergarten) friends had so much disillusion and hatred in their hearts. Even though typing tends to make most writings and post less emotional and more logical/thoughtful, there was one point in the following conversation in which he stated the following about homeless in America:
Not fair, we 'should' live in a free society where i can choose to help a beggar on the street or spit in their face because that's my right (and it would be their right to punch me in the face in response.)
Yes, JM actually said it was his
RIGHT to spit on people because life had dealt them a bad hand. Now, I know that giving handouts to people is not popular (heck, I don't want my hard earned dollars going to someone who is just lazy and doesn't want to work), but every single homeless and unemployed person would rather be a functioning member of society...EVERYONE of them. You will get the occasional "I'll just skate by on welfare so I don't want to work" attitude, but if you present them with a $1,000/month welfare check or an education with the accompanying 80/week; $100,000+/year job, very, very, very few of them will turn down that offer. The homeless, the unemployed, the uninsured
don't want to be that way, but, for whatever reason, at that point in their lives, they are. When individuals cannot find compassion for that, especially when the claim to be religious, well the, that is a sad day for us all.
As for the bigger tax issue (and most Republican issues period), I realize this is a lost cause. When you're trying to argue logic and facts versus convictions and beliefs, it turns into a one-sided discussion which you can never win. The other side will rationalized every statement you make to distort the truth to their advantage (Glenn Beck, case and point).
So, after 3 paragraphs, I finally want to make my point; sorry for dragging you on for so long, I was venting a little because, as hard as I tried to not read the response JM, I was equally uplifted by my friend SB's response. SB grew up in a conservative household (as kids, we never talked about social vs fiscal conservative, and frankly, I didn't know there was a difference...all I knew was that his family voted Republican and mine voted Democrat). Once we got in college, we talked every now-and-then about politics, but we mostly realized that he would never agree that I was right and he would never convinced me to come to the dark side. However, more times than I would like to admit, he made points that I agreed with and likewise, I made points that he agreed with. This really confused me because I thought that if you were a Republican, you had to be lock-step with the talking head (even as a 24 year old law student or a minimum wage office worker). SB, even before this post, showed me that there can be smart Republicans with smart ideas that can actually have conversations and contribute to political discourse. SB is a fiscal conservative but has a moderate social stance. Basically, he wants government to be responsible and conservative with their spending, but agrees that government spending is necessary (although he thinks the social safety is too large). However, he feels that government should stay out of people's social lives (ie, gay marriage, abortions, etc), even if he doesn't agree to it. I know, I know, you think I'm talking about a leprechaun, but this mythical conservative really exists.
So, with that background, I present the following scenario. JM posted video on Facebook about college Republicans phrasing close-ended questions to achieve the answers they wanted to get. I replied with 2 comments: 1) the basic premise is false that GPA and monetary wealth are not the same...not only are they not they same, but apples and oranges are more similar than GPA and money. The only thing GPA and money have in common are they both have numbers in them and 2) Republicans, both young and old,
LOVE to pose questions to semi-enthusiastic, "well, I guess I'm informed" Democrats so that they get the answers they want. I was trying to merely point out that Bush did the same thing to McCain (both Republicans) in 2000 when calling white voters in SC asking if "they knew that McCain had an illegitimate black child, would they still vote for him?" McCain never had an illegitimate child, let alone a black child; but the seed of doubt was sowed. To these two
FACTUAL statements, I got a bunch of bigotry and rationalization from JM, mostly towards the
social aspects of taxes. However, SB stepped up also on the fiscal issues and, as a Republican, defied logic, and both challenged a "brother" and made several good points.
P.S. Because I want to see a Republican, conservative, Mormon view's on gay marriage and abortion, I had to ask him about his opinion of government and society. I will keep you posted to any responses in the comments.
P.P.S. JM also brings up education. I would like to point out that without the help of any spell or grammar check, I only had 1 apparent grammar mistake (that vs which...
which I'm working on; after consulating
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/that-vs-which/, I realized I need to limit my use of parenthetical clauses...basically, always use "which" if you just used a comma). However, "educated" JM had 8 grammar errors, including 4 spelling errors. I guess he might have a 89.5 in math, but my guess is he didn't do so well, in English.
P.S.P.S. I find it disturbing that 2 people "liked" JM's position on spitting on the poor.
P.P.S.P.S. Okay, I don't know if this is an actual jumble of letters, but looking into it, I found that the first post script is P.S., the second is P.P.S. (post post script) and the third is P.S.P.S. (post script post script), so I just assumed the forth would be P.P.S.P.S. (any grammar nerds out there, please let me know).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new best thing I've ever seen.
MH
There are two inherent problems with this argument:
First, academics is not a free market; GPA is capped at 4.0. You cannot work extra hard and get a GPA of 20 (yes, academics is very similar to socialism...you only work hard enough to get the grade you want and once you have that grade, you stop working). If this were the case and you pose the same question to the students, you would get different answers.
Secondly, for taxes, you’re asking EVERYONE to sacrifice a proportional amount of their comfort (yes, money truly is comfort above the excess of buying basic food and shelter) so, as a collective, society can grow. We’re not asking ONLY the rich to pay taxes.
Depending on how you phrase a question, you can skew the answers to anything you want. Republicans are GREAT at doing this, even to their own people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispering_campaign Yesterday at 5:35am · Like
While not a "free market", academics allows nearly all of the same choices. You can work hard and succeed, or slack off and fail. The idea is to point out that, just as in all things monetary, GPA is directly related to the amount of effort put in. And yes, is also affected by the opportunities you were born into, natural talent, etc. just as income. In the end, its an analogy. An analogy will never be exactly the same as what its describing, but can still be used to illuminate a subject. In this case, the idea that both are earned through work, represent your success in that stage of life, and affects your future lifestyle.
If you start talking about taxes like that, then at the end of the day, you can probably create an argument that you can win.(Perhaps both sides can phrase statement and questions in such a way to create an advantage = human nature not republican conspiracy).
What are taxes? In their most basic and broken down definition, taxes are the fees that any person is required to pay to receive the services of the governing body. The government is a service provider(as hard as it tries not to be). So then the question becomes, does a millionaire use roads more than me (No, i love driving), does a millionaire use police/fire more than me, are they more protected by the same aircraft carriers and coast guard patrols? The answer will be no as you continue to go down the list. They receive the same 'benefit' as a majority of people, and significantly less benefits than someone on welfare, receiving pell grants, medicare, etc.
So why should someone who made a million dollars be required to pay 400,000 dollars to receive the same government that I receive for about 10 grand?
Because you want them to help raise up society? Not fair, we 'should' live in a free society where i can choose to help a beggar on the street or spit in their face because that's my right (and it would be their right to punch me in the face in response.)
I would only comment that if you actually more closely frame a GPA to the distribution of wealth, i.e., make it so people have GPAs of 3.000001 vs. 3.1 to simulate people having millions vs. much smaller levels of wealth, you would more accurately analogize a real life scenario. In that framework, losing .0000001 of your GPA would have little to no effect on that person but when combining those many fractions from multiple people and giving them to someone else, you would possibly be giving them considerable help. I only mention it because even in your scenario, $600,000 is still a whole lot of money, where as 40% of $20,000 means that person is only making $12,000. Your disposable income with $12,000 vs. $600,000 is considerably different. Said another way, the difference between a 4.0 and a 3.0 on your academic life is considerable whereas the difference between $1M and $600k on your standard of living is arguably considerably less.
Moreover, I think there are potentially some problems with your notion of "society" as a general principle. If you want the freedom to do as you please, why have any society at all? I think society and general notions of civility exist because by helping each other, we are able to do more in the aggregate than we can do alone. Governments do more than provide services. Governments also provide some degree of stability through regulation. Otherwise, there would be no one to prevent your professor from failing you simply because he does not like your look, while you are spitting in the face of that beggar. Then your hard work for that GPA would mean nothing at all anyway.
Yesterday at 2:52pm · Like
Well, as an sidenote, I disagree with you. I think the difference between a 4.0 to a 3.0 is exactly the same as 1 M to 600k? It all depends on what you go on to do afterwards. I know a lot of people with 3.0's that make a lot more money than me, so to them, losing 1.0 GPA didn't make a difference in the world. Just like the millionaire who makes another 10 million next year and the year after, that 400k isn't going to put them on the streeets.
21 hours ago · Like
But it's not your place to decide what's ok to take from them. They EARNED that money. Just like in school, a 4.0 represents a tremendous more amount of effort than a 3.0.
What if I choose to not take any risks, just work 9-5, never try to excel at anything, while someone else with my exact same ability goes and takes out a second mortgage on their home to start a business, works 70-80 hours a week, gives up time with family, gives up a lot of the 'comfort' of life, all because they want to be able to know they can retire comfortably or for whatever other reason the are free to have. (You should know a thing or two about 80 hour weeks).
Why does the government have the right to take more from them, when they and I have the exact same talent, the exact same ability, and the only difference is they gave up a lot of the fun of life because they placed more value on money than I did?
I'm pretty sure there isn't a problem with the society I described. I created the strongest nation ever created in the history of the world(arguably). Immigrants didn't come here in the 1800's to collect a welfare check that was paid for by the millionaires of the day. They came here because they wanted the same ability and freedom of the millionaires - to succeed or fail by their own talents and abilities.
A teacher can choose to fail me, a business can choose to take advantage of me, etc. and that's the glory of the free market. If a business takes advantage of its customers, eventually it stops having customers. If a university is known to not be fair, not only will students stop attending, but businesses will stop trusting the grades. Yes, the government is needed to 'protect' society. There are certain things that require a government as opposed to just the free market. But the government does not need to shape society. That is solely the opinion of people, to shape or not to shape. There is a choice, and as is evident in the last 200 years of America, I personally believe that there is more advancement when the government doesn't try to shape society.
(P.S. For the record you gave a bad example. Teachers can and do choose their grades. Sophomore year- Trigonometry - Ms. Thompson- I had an 89.5, Someone on the track team(I think it may have even been Mike) had a slightly lower grade than me, she rounded him up to an A and left me at a B. So..bad example.)
Wow, I didn't want to comment on this thread anymore because it will just turn into a yelling match, but if you truly believe the "government does not need to shape society", then you believe in same sex marriages and allowing for abortions?
By the way, his example illustrated your "work harder, do better ideology" rather than disproving it. Think of Mrs. Thompson as a consumer of my overall character and personality, that of being extremely smart in math AND good at track, as the free market choosing to give me a higher grade than you. I put in 3 hours a day for 3 months straight with co-consumer in both demographics, so why should I be penalized for my sacrifice?
15 minutes ago · Like
