My response to my republican brother and the "Genius Teacher"

[Pryderi]

the link to the email my brother sent me about Obama's socialism being a failure can be found here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x213655#213683

Here is my response:

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.

Prior to the experiment in socialism, the class average grade was a C.
Realizing that in order for everyone to succeed they would have to work together,
the best students offered to help fellow classmates that were struggling.
The resulting study groups increased everyone's morale and forged new friendships.

The first test after the experiment began showed that the class average grade improved to a B!
Although the A students weren't thrilled with the grade, they were impressed by the impact
they had made on improving the class's grade! The poorer students were feeling better
about themselves, were grateful for the help they had received and vowed to do even
better on the next test!

When the second test approached, the entire class studied voraciously and even came
up with their own self-tests based on the material in each chapter! The entire class
pulled together as one, they had vowed that no classmate would lag behind.
They worked with the coordinated dedication of a seasoned military unit!


People working together can not only create a better world, but improve individuals as well!

[Puzzler]

1. Good response, but your brother's email "begs the question"...

... by assuming that Obama is in fact a socialist.

[mitchum]

2. And that's why your mom likes you best

:)
well done

[Pryderi]

3. the original text from my brother:

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.

[Hissyspit]

6. Obama's socialism? What fucking socialism?

What a stupid email.

[bulloney]

11. How can anyone judge whether Obama's policies succeeded or failed after one year?

How can a teacher put together a lesson plan based on policies that haven't even been in place for a year? How can the teacher draw conclusions when there hasn't been time to see if the policies worked or not?

I tend to agree this is one of those urban legend e-mails that float around.

Kinda like the one about the Middle East owners of a carryout celebrating the 9/11 attacks and the supplier who discontinued services with them after seeing their actions. That was proven to be a fallacy.

[The Genealogist]

4. Nearly 100% of these urban legend-based forwards I get come from RWers

I don't do forwards, and I do not like getting them at all, but I get particularly red-faced when I have idiotic RW urban legends to deal with. I also say NEARLY 100%, because my cousin, a life-long democrat, also forwards these things to me sometimes. The other day I got from him one of those little RW attempts at humor about President Obama being a Kenyan. There is never any sense in setting straight the senders of these things, either, as they will not listen to anything not stamped "approved" by Limpballs or any of the others who create their lame dialog for them.

[Pryderi]

5. I'm thinking of forwarding the response I created to all my right-wing "friends"

[The Genealogist]

7. I would certainly not discourage your doing so

of course, it might be more effective to forward the e-mail to a brick wall. Brick walls are as dense and dead-end as any RWer, but the brick wall generally has more brains and better conversational skills.

[tanyev]

8. I'm guessing that's what interns at RW think tanks spend their days doing.

Producing the crap and then emailing it far and wide.

[Pryderi]

9. Is there a LW think tank that I could intern for? :P

[Orangepeel]

10. I appreciate the effort, but I don't think you should give credence to the premise

Nobody in the US Government, and certainly not Obama, is anywhere close to talking about averaging anything.

If we want to use an educational analogy, Obama's economic plans are more like giving all kids access to a tutor and making sure the lights stay on at poorer schools.

[otohara]

12. Here's the Snopes Response

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

[4_TN_TITANS]

13. Do these stories have any factual basis

on actual events, or is this just more rightwing strawman logic?