This teacher is truly a genius!

[Pryderi]

My fucking conservative repugnican brother sent me the following bullshit:


An economics professor at a local college made a statement that
he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an
entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked
and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great
equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment
in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades would be averaged
and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and
no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a
B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who
studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the
students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who
studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied
little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The
scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all
resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of
anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them
that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is
great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all
the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.
-----------
Would anyone care to help me craft my response?

[denimgirly]

1. Abolish the Fire Department and Police Stations then cuz that is Socialism!

Dont mix silly analogies to apply to everything....We tried privatizing the Fire Department and that was a disaster....

There are key fundamentals where socialism is a necessity and benefit society as a whole....one of those is socialized universal healthcare (it even saves money and provide better care than any other system). This single-payer socialized experiment has been tried in EVERY industrialized country on earth and has succeeded....only the U.S. has refused to make the switch and thus far is one of worst performing countries -- one of the highest in infant mortality (some 3rd-worlds have better values than America), and lower life expectancy rates. Being in America with its privatized healthcare system is in essense like living in a 3rd world country.

[tabatha]

2. Tell them to abolish the biggest socialist organization in the entire world.

The US military.

[denimgirly]

3. I am with you -- the US Military is a waste of Money.

It is only a way to protect the rich and make privatized companys even richer using the peasants money to pay for it.

[Nedsdag]

15. Abolish the state university system.

No more Universities of Florida, Texas, Michigan et al.

[Turbineguy]

4. I didn't know

Obama was a socialist.

Snopes declares it "Legend" http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

It's kind of like how we got into Iraq. Wingnuts don't like reality based policies.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. "Go fuck yourself, you ignorant piece of shit."

[FormerDittoHead]

9. I like this one. n/t

[Lemonwurst]

6. It's almost not worth any response, but...

...just ask him if he thinks he'd be among those who studies hard.

Because that this little story is only believable to those who never learned what socialism really is - and in keeping with that kind of laziness, are happy to just be told what to believe regarding President Obama's guiding principles.

[Ozymanithrax]

7. First, it is a lie. Never happened.

See Snopes...Social Injustice.

Yes, it is a nice legend that reinforces fear of socialism, which is really what is being sold here. But a lie is a lie. Freedom is dangerous. Choose to be brave. Quit hiding under your bed from the big bad socilsm bogeyman. Like the Great God Pan, Marx is fucking dead.

[Jennicut]

8. First of all, if the teacher really had done that he would be fired. Second of all, Obama is far

from being socialist. He is center right or center left on many issues. A real socialist doesn't really exist in politics in the United States. Maybe Sanders? He calls himself one.

[bluethruandthru]

10. I love how he called it "Obama's Socialism".

A standard phrase for the righties. I'd love them to tell us just what Obama has done that's remotely "socialist".

[Perky]

11. Call Bullshit

First of all if the Teacher actually exist he ought to be fired for being a moron who is clueless about the President. the President's Ideology or what socialism is. No college would let him do this, He has no business teaching economics and for flunking students on such an asinine approach to grading.

As for his name and the college and if your brother can't tell you then call him on it.

[mitchum]

18. Sounds like your slackass brother is projecting his own laziness onto others

Very revealing

[KingFlorez]

12. When you have to make up things to make a point, you have no real argument at all

[dalaigh lllama]

13. Maybe you should do a capitalist version of the story

and have the kids pay money for their good grades -- I'm sure the ending of THAT story would be dire, too.

[tanyev]

21. Yeah, a smart aleck slacker legacy student ends up in the White House.

[dalaigh lllama]

22. Ha! Perfect dire ending!

Now someone with decent writing skills just needs to write it up.

[nykym]

14. Wheather it is the truth or a lie

it sounds like the way our Congress works!

[mitchum]

16. Taunt him with the knowledge that you got both the heart and brains in the sibling sweepstakes

[rug]

17. Have him take points from the rest of the class to give one person an A.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Challenge him to go to the website of the Socialist Workers' Party

and then ask him to tell you what part of their problem Obama agrees with (or to find one point that they agree with Obama on).

[izzybeans]

20. There is nothing in the psychological research literature that would

suggest the assumptions of this economist are correct, especially with regard to the third test. First, a good proportion of motivated students aren't in it for the grade, so the assumption that an A is the carrot on the stick is wrong -its the knowledge. Second, these students interact with the others and will sanction them if they free ride. Third, even assuming the second test results are plausible, the motivation to succeed collectively will increase not decrease if this teacher was worth a squirt of piss. It would be obvious why, the motivated students would still get their A (in real terms), with sanctioning they pull up some of the free riders, and if everyone was made aware of this trend, they would work to correct it. It's called rationality, something many economists are ironically confused about.

I'd suggest this "professor" quit with the mind games and do some actual research. You can build any outcome into a computer model and simulate it with your parlor games, you can't will it into existence with your professions misplaced legitimacy.

[immoderate]

23. OK, everyone with less than an A is dropped from the class, and the marks are curved.

Let's see how he likes REAL competition.

Oh yeah, and there's no problem BUYING a grade.

(I am also of the opinion that this never really happened. :)The Obama social program? Ha!)

--imm

[Duer 157099]

24. Tell him that story has more to do with NCLB than anything else

Anybody who goes to school for grades rather than learning will probably not learn much anyway.

The truth is that many people are actually motivated to learn for the sake of learning. But no doubt he won't believe you as it's probably not within his experience.

I think that a person who is motivated in business would *still* be motivated even if they only (only!) made 2-10 fold more than other people. Just because they don't make 100 or 1000 times more would not de-motivate such people. And those are the types of people that a society actually would benefit from being in business, not the greedy assholes who only give their best effort if they can become multi mega bazillionaires.

[vaberella]

25. Hah...actually normally the first round would be correct.

Possibly the first two grades. But the following exams would have increased because of the benefit. The last outcome is entirely impossible and doesn't make sense for the human condition.

[baldguy]

26. You can tell this is a RW mouth-breatyhers' fairytale.

Because the "economics perfesser" calls the minor adjustments that rational people like Obama recognize need to be made socialism.

[applegrove]

27. Abolish state colleges - NO WAIT A SEC!! that is probably want the neocons

want to go down next after they have dismantled the public education system.

[Ildem09]

28. Your my be the biggest dumbass ever

Seriously. If this is your contribution that you think is so fucking great? you must know jack about Socialism, or better yet Democratic Socialism. Lets start with the concept that the higher your taxes the more disposable income you have. Thats right Johnny those damn socialists in Sweden have more disposable income than you do. damn those taxes.

your analogy =epic fail