I’ve been asked by non-hunters a couple of times variations on “you think it’s fun to kill innocent creatures? Are you mental?” I replied that of course killing isn’t fun. But it got me to thinking… what IS the “fun” part of hunting? Continue reading
Category Archives: Philosophy
More on redistribution
Charity is a vitally important component to any civilized society and as such, government should be kept completely out of it.
The first amendment touched upon the concept that a most highly important societal aspect or institution should be hands-off (no government involvement) but it is not well understood. We tend to focus on the particulars (religion, speech, the press, redress and assembly) but ignore the principle behind it.
More on Markley’s law
PETA is now promoting the idea that eating chicken will result in a small penis and other problems.
Well sure– If the idea that animals are essentially equal to humans doesn’t stop us from eating animals, then we might as well take the penis angle, because apparently people care more about penises (and sex) than practically anything else. It’s bound to get a few more, uh, members.
This is part of a long term trend. Leftists used to attack people they don’t like by calling us “fags” or “queers” but since they now have to pretend that they’re promoting the rights of homosexuals, they have to turn to other methods of distraction. Hence Markley’s law, and the recent PETA story is part of the same trend of using sex as a cultural/political lever.
A common phrase used back in the 1960s and early ’70s (the Vietnam war period) was “Girls say yes to guys who say no”. It’s an appeal to young, horny men, telling them straight up that they’ll get laid more if they at least pretend to help support the Progressives and the communists.
It’s a common theme among communists, to get the vulnerable young people on board, and sex is a powerful lure. Charles Manson used young women as bait to sucker young males into the group, and Sun Myung Moon, Jim Jones, the Heavens Gate Cult and others in a long line of socialist predators (but I repeat myself) followed very similar tactics. Islamists, we are told, will be treated to a harem of dozens of virgins if they die in the great and glorious jihad (and Allah will be super happy about your killing people too, but seriously; virgins!). They could just as well promote a new scientific study which finds that reading American freedom blogs will result in sexual dysfunction, and so the 72 virgins in heaven might go unsatisfied, and we wouldn’t want THAT to happen would we? If they haven’t done it already, they will.
Nothing changes. PETA has just put a slightly different twist on it, but their new spin has a lot of precedent. It is a good one though, as the left has also been trying to make us fear our food, our water, our air, and our neighbors, and this gimmick hits on at least two fronts.
And so I say to PETA; Good one, guys! Right on! You’re in good company. Keep up the good work. You’re completely insane, sure, but you’re giving it the old college try, you’re learning from your predecessors, and that deserves some respect.
Parenthetically; if animals raised for slaughter are as good and have rights the same as people, then people are no better and have no more rights than animals raised for slaughter, which is the whole point of organizations like PETA even if most of their members are clueless kids just trying to get laid. Remember it.
On Race Gunning and TV
I don’t do race gunning for the most part, which of course qualifies me as an Internet Race-gunning Expert.
I just finished watching an episode of 3 Gun Nation. By the way; Internet TV is really the best way to watch TV. You don’t have to program a recorder to catch your favorite shows. They’re all recorded on the server, so you just go and pick out what you want, whether it’s live or whether it’s two years old.
First impressions after the episode; Wow, but there are a lof of gun malfunctions! It seemed that every shooter had to deal with a malf on at least one stage. I do not know. Is it that the guns are so specialized that they’re accepting less reliability as a role of the dice, such that when the gun doesn’t fail you get a super duper stage run? OR, is the show edited so as to highlight malfs? After that experience, I can almost envision a moment in the sport wherein someone uses a stock standard gun, wins, and is accused of having had an unfair advantage.
Watching the shooters do their run-throughs prior to shooting a stage continues to mildly disturb me. I’m thinking of a skit. It’s a defensive situation, and the defender demands a run-through before the bad guy is allowed to commit his horrible act of aggression.
There’s a conflict between calling it practical shooting and having a nice and safe spectator sport in which every shooter can maximize his performance. Wouldn’t it be just as fair for the shooters, and yet more of a practical exercise, if no one got to see the stage before shooting it? Or maybe have at least one stage no one sees before shooting?
On TV in general, a camera, a microphone and an editor can be used to depict reality, or to change it all around and mix it up. Say you want to experience the taste of a new apple variety, or you want to bring that new variety to the public. So you hire a chef, and by way of impressing us with his skills he dresses up the apple by baking it and covering it with caramel, cinnamon and nutmeg and topping it with a dollop of whipped cream.
It may be a really great dish, but in the processing you are robbed of the experience of the apple itself. Same goes with TV. If it’s a motorcycle show and I want to know how the engine sounds, they rob me of that experience by ALWAYS overdubbing heavy metal music on top of it. If you want to know something of the pace of the shooting event, you have to sort of guess, because of the fast editing and the slow-mos.
The roots of modern tribal culture
Ancient tribal cultures were held together by the common cause of survival. The desire for control of the tribe had to be backed up by strength, sharp senses and good judgment, or the tribe would either fail or select a new leader by any means necessary, and quickly.
In our industrial society, with property rights, specialization and mass production of everything imaginable, what is the jealous megalomaniac to do so as to get people to submit? Strength, sharp senses and good judgment are better utilized in the markets or to improve one’s own property, and so those attributes don’t go looking for political power. The megalomaniac doesn’t have the fear of starvation or wild predators, he doesn’t have that common, obvious, consolidated will to follow along just to eat or to keep the rival tribe at bay, so he has to invent fears and uncertainties, and inculcate them into the society. He needs you believing that you need him. He needs to be needed, therefore he cannot abide the strong and the capable. He cannot abide a well-functioning, prosperous society. He needs you on your knees.
So the next time you find yourself wondering how someone could say something so toweringly “stupid”, do such “stupid” and obviously counterproductive things or be so “irrational” and contradictory as the average politician, wonder no more. There is a clear, deadly method to all the madness. Be sure– the wannabe rulers and plunderers (same thing) need you to be uncertain, fearful, upset, angry, off-balance, distracted, pointing fingers at “the other guys”, confused, and on the whole, weak. Otherwise you’d never give the son of a bitch the time of day. As it is, you hang on his every word, most especially when he’s being a total jackass. See how that works?
Don’t fall for it, Grasshopper. When Megalomaniac (any politician or policy wonk) gets you into a heated argument over policy details, stupid plans, silly assertions, statistics, global economic theories and so on, he’s got you right where he wants you. Whether you go along or rebel, you have been played.
“Oh; you don’t like this particular megalomaniac? No problem– There are hundreds from which to choose. Why, come right over here, My Friend– I just got this one in on trade, just this morning as a matter of fact, and she’s a real gem…”
Changing the world
It’s talked about quite a lot. Obama ran on it, but I have yet to hear anyone ever specify; FROM WHAT, TO WHAT. To hear someone embrace “Change” without specifying “from what and to what” is more than a little disturbing. It has to mean that you believe things to be so bad right now that they can’t get any worse, and that therefore ANY change will be for the better. I’ll have to assume that you’re motivated purely by angst, and that will never turn out well.
Change means you’re moving away from some particular situation or condition, and toward some other situation or condition. If you’re going to advocate unspecified change, or talk about changing the world as though it should be taken as a given that changing the world would be a good thing, then you’re insane. Simple as that.
If you’re telling me you want to change the world, you’d best be specific as to what you believe is wrong with it right now, and be specific about your premises, ideals and goals. Then we have something to discuss. Otherwise I have no time for you.
The vim and vigor of youth
Tea party favorite, Marco Rubio has become a tragic figure. Now we must do what the Progressives want, or Obama will do worse by executive order. It’s one or the other, Marco says. No way out. No hope.
It happens to the best of us. We were all warned about this in the 1970s. Remember it. You may be all full of piss and vinegar now, in the comfort of home, with the deli just a hop and a skip away, but you WILL be afraid.
Then again, there is something we all need to ponder daily. We get frustrated at this or that Republican for his “having no courage” or for being “stupid”, etc., BUT in order to “fold” due to your cowardice or your stupidity, you must actually have had principles in the first place rather than acting like you had them so you could win an election.
The point is; there may be cowards and there may be idiots, but just as often there are schmucks who just play us for votes because they like playing the game. It helps them feel better than you.
If three percent of Americans were actually behind the American Revolution, I’d say there are far less than that number of principled members of Congress today. That comes to maybe five people.
In other words; there is no political solution, so you’d best be looking elsewhere. Politics is a distraction for the most part.
The Birth of Ideology
August 4th, 2013. The Non Sequitur cartoon strip has “the birth of ideology.” Fundamental denial of reality, then parsing words in really silly ways to “prove” you are right. Yup. Pretty much. Comments are interesting, too. Shows some serious ideology.
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2013/08/04
More on national sovereignty
As we all know perfectly well, we must respect every nation’s sovereignty. It only makes sense. Every nation has the right to self determination, including oppressive, murderous authoritarian slave states. It is their people’s natural right to live under such conditions and it would be pure arrogance and shameless aggression for us to even think of trying to change them. If you say so much as one word to the contrary, you are a disgusting pig.
Furthermore, Americans are arrogant and bigoted if they wish to enforce any semblance of American national sovereignty. What a bunch of heartless pigs we are for even thinking the words “American sovereignty”. There is rightly no such thing. We should be, no, we had damned well better be, ashamed of ourselves. Everyone knows this perfectly well.
Just say “NO!” to crime prevention
The video posted here reminded me of something important.
This lept out at me like a cat with firecrackers exploding at its feet;
“The question is…how do we prevent people from committing crimes in the first place.”
No it isn’t. NO IT ISN’T!
The question IS; how do we protect liberty and dispense justice equally and reliably? The concept of crime prevention doesn’t even belong in the conversation, that is, if we’re talking about legislation, which we are.
How many people understand this? It’s there in that pledge, thingy; “…with liberty and justice for all.” Note the absence of any mention of crime prevention in the Pledge. You don’t find it in the declaration of Independence either, unless by “crime” we mean government overreach (in THAT case it’s in there, and I’m all ears if we’re having a conversation about preventing government overreach).
You can in theory have liberty and justice, OR you can have “crime prevention” legislation, but they cannot exist simultaneously. They’re mutually exclusive. The former defines a free state and the latter a police state.
The term “liberty and justice for all” takes crime as a given, a fact of life (if there’s no crime, there’s no need for a justice system). It’s an acknowledgement of the obvious – that people can do bad things. Because people can do bad things, we need our liberty protected and we demand justice. The term enshrines our right to self defense, free speech and all the rest, and promises a system of correct, organized, consistent and predictable retaliation (justice) for criminal acts.
I don’t think this is widely understood anymore. It certainly isn’t taught, and yet it is at the core of American Principle. Liberty and justice are two sides of the same coin. Crime prevention legislation is an entirely different coin, of a currency we want nothing to do with. I could say this a thousand different ways, but who gets it?
No, Little Grasshopper; crime prevention is the excuse of every police state. Having your rights respected and protected and having a proper justice system is the best condition of government you could ever ask. The prevention part is a combination of individual self defense and moral leadership, and neither of those are government business. That’s your job as a citizen. Crime prevention is your job. If it could be done with government force, (and all the worst places you can think of) would be crime free.
My alternate quote of the day – Me
In comments here;
“The bottom line is; we have authoritarians and anti-authoritarians living in the same society. Each is attempting to foster its separate, incompatible doctrine. Neither can afford to tolerate the other.”
It’s more like we’re living as separate societies in the same country, and that we have incompatible world views rather than “doctrines”. Neither world view can tolerate the other, because one example is often capable of poisoning, or infecting, a whole lot of people.
The authoritarian’s fantasy of a glorious regime can be highly threatened by one “upstart” who simply will not be intimidated or fall in line. The ideal of liberty in the minds of anti-authoritarians can be poisoned by the emergence of gangs as they infiltrate the political and media infrastructures.
So far in this post I’ve treated authoritarians and anti-authoritarians as separate but equal, but there is of course a major difference– The anti-authoritarian (libertarian) can best further his goals by being straight forward and honest, while the authoritarian must use deception, fear, anger and doubt.
One is honest and motivated by love while the other is a lying sack of shit motivated by hate trying to appear good and reasonable only as a means of getting its greedy way. One is honest with himself to the greatest extent possible while the other must avoid reality or be exposed and discredited. One builds and provides while the other is a deadly parasite, and yet one can be seen as mocking the other for its selfish goals.
Which are you? Most people are confused on the matter, believing themselves to be one when they are the other. Further; you can at times actually be doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Feints within feints within feints. What a tangled web we weave.
You can dress the conflict up in millions of words, appealing to various motivations and emotions, but it is still that simple, age-old conflict between love and hate, or liberty and tyranny.
Each sees itself as a liberator, too, and again it is because the mere existence of the other is a threat to its own existence. One is poison to the other and so it longs to be free of that poison.
How many ways can we say the same things? Millions and millions and millions. We fool ourselves into playing the same deadly game over and over.
Quote of the ages
“‘Love thy enemy’ does not mean kiss him and invite him into your country. It means stand up and fight, with grace.”
— Roy Masters, “Advice Line” April 29, 2013
He was speaking of what he refers to as the Dalai Lama’s cowardice in dealing with the Chinese, but the quote rang out to me as with regard to radical Islam. Years ago in Idaho, we had a Neo Nazi group calling themselves the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian Aryan Nations. They were racist socialist revolutionaries who managed to use a bomb or two, causing some property damage. They were rooted out of Idaho for the most part, and good riddance. I didn’t like some of the methods used, but good riddance. They weren’t from around here, and they figured that since most people in Idaho were white, their white power, anti-Semite nonsense would be tolerated. They figured wrong. I bring them up only as a comparison to the even more virulent and dangerous radical Islamists, who’ve been allowed into this country, often welcomed with open arms. If we had the same recognition of bigotry, promotion of violence and power-lust regarding the Islamists that we had with the Aryan Nations we’d be raiding certain Mosques and other organizations in the U.S., but violent bigotry that hides behind Christianity is a vastly more convenient target than the exact same violent bigotry that hides behind Islam. The difference is of course a result of political subterfuge and we can’t fight it because we’re short on grace.
It’s like our societal immune system is degraded, leaving us open to all forms of infection.
Ain’t it so
“The economic AND the personal sphere.”
Those are Rand Paul’s words from CPAC, and as much as a like what I see in Rand Paul, that phraseology really bugs me. That’s like saying we must pay attention to the weather AND the temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, cloud cover and wind as though the term “weather” doesn’t already take those other things into account.
As a business owner, that attempt to separate the economic from the personal has never made any sense at all.
In fact, it is impossible to separate the economic from the personal. Name any “personal” subject or issue and tell me it has no economic implications whatsoever. Name any economic subject or issue and then tell me it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal choice.
Tax me, limit my business activities, my investments, get between me and my bank, and you are directly attacking my personal choices. Try to tell me who I must or must not associate with, how I must interact with others, or what I can do with my body, and that is a direct attack on my economic liberty. One equals the other. There is no moral or logical separation between them.
Yes yes, I know that we’re supposed to separate the personal from the economic, as though they’re different, for political reasons, but that’s a ruse. A trick. I will not step over the line into Crazyland just to make someone else’s politics easier, or to assuage their guilt. No, Young Grasshopper; there is just the one word that matters, the one that encompasses everything, and you’re either for it or against it – liberty.
Taking a step back
If the origins of American ideals of liberty were understood and widely embraced, we wouldn’t need to be defending the second amendment. Understand the former and the latter comes naturally.
ETA: I got that from my son, who seemed fairly miffed that I was talking so much about the second amendment. He is quite convinced that I don’t get it, and his evidence is that I talk about it so much. I’m finding that I cannot very well disagree.
Perceptions
Joe and I, and several other bloggers, have referred to this photo as an example of how different people can look at the same thing and see something completely different;
You see either a beautiful young woman or an old hag, or maybe both in rapid succession. It depends on your “wiring”. My theory is that most men will key in on the young woman because our brains are wired to notice them, but I have no evidence whatsoever to back it up other than watching other men in their cars or out and about, looking at young women. If the military could devise a system that efficient at locating enemy combatants, we’d never lose a battle. (Yeah; I see you guys zeroing in on all the women – it’s like a magnet drawing in all those iron filings you never knew could possibly be on your floor, or something)
A search for that image brought me to this site, which is great. I now do not remember what exactly it was I wanted to say using the above image as an example, but that first link also links to this site, where I found a great gift. The person who does most or all of the posts demonstrated the concept, and did so with regard to gun rights! This is a VERY beautiful juxtaposition (or something) on the subject, on a site that SPECIALIZES in perception and illusion art. How great is that?
First I found this, posted on January 12, 2013;
“We should all stop being petty about each other, learn to be tolerant, and stop aggressively intruding our ways on others. I think if we all learned to do this, we would find our place under the sun, and these differences wouldn’t even be brought as important.” (emphasis mine)
Excellent (the author sees the beautiful young woman). I couldn’t agree more.
And then I found, written by the same person (Vurdlak) on December 16, 2012 (on page three as of the day this is written)
“I have to say I’m still under shock after reading what happened in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut (USA). My heart is broken, and I can’t seem to understand how such horrible things are even possible. What is happening with our species?! I also read how pro-firearms lobby suggests that every teacher should be allowed to keep firearms in their class (for protections)?! Are those lunatics for real? What makes you think this wouldn’t cause another incident??! I for one wouldn’t feel safe sending my kids to school where teacher keeps a gun in his desk. All this literally makes my stomach hurt. Owning a gun should be heavily regulated, like rest of the world does it – period.” (emphasis mine, for various reasons I’m sure you understand)
And there’s the old hag, and the author is just about ready to beat the shit out of you if you insist it looks like a young woman if you look at it differently. It don’t think it can get any better than that.
I could go on and on with a thousand or more words, fisking that last quote, but I think this audience already understands it completely.
Anyway, to change the subject entirely; check out those links. WOW! I got lost in there for about an hour before I knew it. Now my eyes hurt a little bit. I love that stuff (you probably should avoid it of you’re epileptic – some of that stuff wanted to make me dizzy).
I now remember noticing sometime in junior high school that, looking at a shadow alone, you have zero information to tell you whether the shadow figure is “facing you” or “facing away from you”, hence the moving silhouette of the woman that can be seen to rotate in either direction. Did I tell you I love that stuff? Speaking of shadows; a few weeks ago my wife had a football game on the tele, and you know they use computers to “paint” the scrimmage line and the first down marker line on the ground for the TV audience, while showing the players above it. Pretty sophisticated programming, I figure. Anyway, the thought hit me at that time that it would be really stinking cool if there was a program that could delete the players’ images entirely, and only show their shadows, so you see a game played by teams of two-dimensional silhouettes painted on the turf, fighting over a two-dimensional “ball”. Yikes! Joe?
Another quote of the day – Me
If it’s the best thing I’ve read all day, why after all should I be prevented from posting it here just because I happen to be the one who wrote it?
Seen in comments at Uncle;
“Machineguns are in common use by military, and AS SUCH they are protected by the second amendment. Actually, if it is or can be considered an “arm” it is protected by the second amendment (the second amendment doesn’t have any qualifiers, exceptions or modifiers in it).
One might be able to make the case that strategic weapons like nukes and other WMDs are not, but even then you may be running afoul of the balance-of-power concept embodied in the second amendment.
In the American Revolution there were private owned war ships, were there not? Those would be analogs of our modern aircraft carriers and destroyers.
And don’t give me court precedent bullshit. If precedent defines (redefines) our rights, it means that any and all rights degrade and evaporate over time. No thanks. I’ll stick to original principles.”
There is a common error committed by our side. It is the use of arguments along the lines of, “Machineguns are ALREADY banned [and so leave our semiautomatics alone].” That’s a bit like saying to the alligator, “You already ate my buddy (and I didn’t like him a lot anyway) and so you should therefore leave me alone (I guess because your appetite should already be satisfied, or something…)”
In fact, if they can ban the most common small arms used by military and police, and get away with it, they can certainly ban everything else, just as the alligator can eat you some time after it ate your buddy. The fact of the matter has been established, so at best you’re only arguing over the details of the infringements at that point.
The Hughes Amendment to FOPA of 1986 should be rendered null and void, followed by GCA ’68 and NFA ’34.
Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield
The defining American code is freedom. The defining liberal code is compassion. Conservatives have attempted to counter that by defining freedom as compassionate, as George W. Bush did. Liberals counter by attempting to define compassion as liberating, the way that FDR did by classing freedoms with entitlements in his Four Freedoms.
On one side stands the individual with his rights and responsibilities. On the other side is the remorseless state machinery of supreme compassion. And there is no bridging this gap.
Daniel Greenfield
December 17, 2012
Gun Control, Thought Control and People Control
[H/T to JPFO.
Nearly every paragraph in Greenfield’s post would qualify for a QOTD here. It is filled with awesome insights.
I decided to focus on these two paragraphs because of the last sentence of the second paragraph quoted above.
I’ve read that no two businesses or even species in nature share the same exact marketplace or ecologically niche at the same time. One will dominate and push the others out or cause them to differentiate themselves.
The freedom and anti-freedom, the left being the dominate flavor of anti-freedom, people are in a political struggle for the geographical niche known as the United States of America. There is no compromising with the other side anymore than there is compromising with someone that wishes to rob you or loot your business. There is only winning versus losing and protecting your property versus having your property redistributed for the common good.
The language of the left betrays this mindset.
In their “compassion” they will sometimes “concede” a “buy-back” of firearms they want confiscated. You can’t “buy back” something that was not yours to begin with. And you can’t “buy” something with money that you confiscated (in the form of taxes) from the victims you want to take the property from. But in the mind of the left all property, including money, is “community property” and there is no inconsistency. They don’t, and probably can’t, “get” the problem we have with their plans.
The anti-gun people claim removing restrictions against people carrying firearms on college campuses is “forcing guns on campuses”. Did you catch that? In other words we are using the power of government to force liberty upon them. One of daughter Kim’s economic class reading materials literally referred to the U.S. government “forcing free markets.” In their language and their world/philosophical view that makes perfect sense rather than being a self-contradicting statement.
They can barely understand that we don’t trust the government. They can understand not trusting the “right government” which in broad terms is a government which is not “compassionate.” But they cannot understand not trusting a government because of its size. The classic joke about the anti-freedom people fear Libertarians because they would take over the government and leave everyone alone is funny because it is true. It is beyond their philosophical framework to not trust the government based on its size. It simply doesn’t make sense. It is a nonsensical thought and in order to make sense of it they have to redefine the fear of large government in other terms such as “greed”, “selfishness”, or a as a close relative recently told me, “heartless bastards”. Gun owners cannot possibly be serious about defense against a tyrannical government and rational gun ownership must be redefined in terms of a hobby, penis substitution, or some sort of paranoia in order for it to make sense to them.
Any “compromise” they offer is defined in terms they understand. They are “compromising” by “allowing” us to continue our “hobby” by registering our firearms/magazines and submitting to a licensing process. In their minds this is a HUGE concession. In our minds this essentially defeats the entire usefulness of the right to keep and bear arms.
It goes deeper. They do not comprehend that the act of submitting to the government over a basic right is unacceptable. Submission to government/authority on every level is so fundamental to their nature it is like a fish in water. Any glimpse of “not water” is very brief and incomprehensibly hostile. It is extremely scary to them. More government is less scary and more “compassionate” to them.
They oppose us so vigorously and with so much violence because they see it as does a fish having their water removed. In their minds we have to be insane, incredibly stupid, or have evil intent. There is no other way to explain our actions and desires. Hence they are completely justified in killing us because if we had our way we would destroy their existence.
As Greenfield says, “There is no bridging this gap.”
I only see two possible outcomes and two ways to get there.
The possible outcomes are:
- One side will dominate and force the other side into virtual extinction.
- The sides will find different geographical niches. This option would mean the collapse of the union of the individual states.
The two ways to get there are:
- “Education.” The left has been working, successfully, on education for a century.
- Force. The left is close to reaching a critical mass and they now contemplate a victory through force.
The force option will result in massive numbers of people being forcibly imprisoned and/or murdered.
The big wild card in this deck is that the intended victims are arming up and training. The outcome is difficult to see. It depends both upon the order in which the cards show up and how the cards are played. For example had a “Newtown massacre” occurred before the Heller decision the course of history could have been drastically different. And so it is with our future.
I hate to go all Godwin here but I’m seeing the final option being played by the anti-freedom people as being the Final Solution to the “freedom problem”. Let’s play our cards well.—Joe]
Putting setbacks into perspective
Whenever I think things are going badly, and I’m bummed about
the prospects on the political scene, I think the barbarians are
winning, and it’s all going to hell in a hand-basket, I take solace in history.
Rome was the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, had built amazing feats
of engineering, and been sustained by astonishing feats of logistics, and had
many stories of unimaginable bravery and personal strength. It has existed
nearly forever, it seemed. Rome Was Eternal.
Until it was sacked. And repeatedly taken over by a
succession of military despots, kings, generals, armies, Senators, and foreigners,
and was sunken into the darkness of barbarism and illiteracy, even as each new replacement
empire claimed the mantel of “Rome’s successor.” Some people fled the invaders,
and hid in the nastiest and most inaccessible of the local swamps and fens,
amidst the islands and channels where cavalry and armies couldn’t go after them.
They fled the easy (but crime- and corruption- and invader-infested) life of the
hills and fertile soil of northern Italy. It was a hard life, with no powerful
protector, difficult farming, lots of places to wreck your boat, fetid water and disease, and no time
for anything as non-essential as high culture or art. They clung to life, remembered the best of Rome, and
did the best they could.
Nearly a thousand years later, the city-state of Venice was
one of the most powerful in the world, and its fleet (with help from Spain and
the Papal States) crushed and halted the fleet of the powerful Imperial Ottoman Turks at Lepanto. Ideas are powerful things, and humans are resilient. We may
not fight our way out of the darkness before we die, nor may our children, but
we pass on the good ideas and knowledge to them, and instill in them a sense of
history, and, one day, it WILL happen. Property rights, individual freedom, limited
government, and free markets work.
They will, eventually, take over, because they are more powerful than the
forces trying to limit them… but it may be a long, long slog, and will most assuredly
NOT be a straight line.
(History geeks, take note: this is the simplified version of
things, where the essence is correct, in the interest of telling a good story
with a powerful idea to put current events in perspective.)
A Redistributed Pie Shrinks, A Selfish One Grows
Assumption: People change their behavior when the perceived incentives (cost and/or benefits) change.
Assumption: The world is not a zero-sum game.
Any arguments or dispute? No? Ok, then, a thought experiment.
A typical grading curve in school is 90% A, 80% B, 70% C, 60% D, less than 60% fails, where there are many standard point-earning opportunities, and occasional “extra-point” opportunities, where each person earns their own scores. Maybe everyone aces an easy class with all 90%+, maybe a herd of sluggards all fail. Any number of points might be earned in total.
Tell a classroom full of kids that the grading curve is to be changed. In order to help out the GPA of struggling students, points will be redistributed. After each test, project, or paper, any points above a grade cut-off will be shaved off as “extra” and re-distributed to the lowest scoring student. When the lowest scoring student has been brought to the level of the next-lowest student, then the points are shared between them, because they are both the neediest at the bottom. No “extra” points can be “banked” against future mistakes. If not everyone is brought up to passing by this method when just extracting “extra A” points, then more points will be extracted from the scores at the top, and the 80%-90% scores will get cut to 80%, and all the extra points re-distributed to those in need of points to pass. If some are still failing, then all the now-B students will get knocked down to C’s, and those points re-distributed. Etc.
Question: with the changes in incentives, how will students change their behaviors?
Some will keep doing what they are doing, because that is just who they are, and they want to learn regardless of grade. Likely it will not be many. Many near the top will see all their extra points being sucked away, and they will stop trying to earn more than 90%; indeed, I’d expect a competition to see who can come closest to 90% most often without going under. Those at the bottom will work even less, knowing they will be given some extra help, so they will need more points than ever. Those in the middle will get frustrated, because they are not doing well, but they are not getting any help, because it’s all going to those at the bottom, who are not helped in the end because there are not enough points to bring a dozen zeros up to 60% and passing. The total number of student points, reflecting the growing knowledge of the students in the class (at least in theory), will shrink. The number of people passing will shrink. The attitude toward the subject and teacher will deteriorate. In the end, a few will still be trying because they know it’s the right thing to do, but it will not be anywhere near enough to help out the grade situation, so learning halts, because no new teaching can start until a passing grade on existing material in achieved.Classroom average GPA will head to zero.
Compare that to progressive taxation, welfare, the economy, and government.
For those on the left that don’t get it, allow me to spell it out. The formerly high-scoring students grow too actively resent the low-scoring ones because they are dragging the high scores down. The failing students actively dislike the strong students because they COULD be working harder to earn more points to pass around, but aren’t. Those in the middle can’t help those at the top OR bottom, but get caught in the middle and accused of being “other” by both sides. It’s a toxic brew that sows discord, hatred, envy, and sloth. It destroys the incentives to succeed, shrinks the point-and-learning pie, and hurts everyone, regardless of the stated intention to help those in most need of a GPA boost, because it fails to recognize that GPA isn’t the GOAL, it’s a BYPRODUCT of the goal, learning. The goal of the government should not be to get everyone to a particular level of income & benefits, it is to provide place, laws, and opportunities for a person to be able to do that on their own.
On the other hand, change the grading system so that failure to earn a passing grade means you cannot get a free lunch, and continuing failure jeopardizes your families’ voting rights or welfare checks or eligibility for other government assistance or jobs. Failing has real, painful, consequences. Helping a struggling student to pass earns you extra opportunities, or classes, or money. Getting high grades in difficult or high-demand classes can earn college / trade-school tuition money or even a cash graduation bonus. Doing well for yourself has solid, immediate benefits. People can take as many classes as they want, and earn unlimited points or cash, and it’s not being taken from the low-performing students.
Which would return better long-term results?
Yes, I know this isn’t a new concept. It seemed like a good way to give a concrete example of how my basic assumptions and principles about people and how the world works, and perhaps shed light on the folly of current programs, and suggest a more sensible approach.