I recently watched a video on the dangers of “socialism.” It was an animation and was intended to be humorous while delivering its message. The illustration given was a classroom where it was announced that everyone would get the same grade, averaged from all the tests. After the first test, everyone got a B, the next test, everyone got a D, the last test, everyone got an F. This is how socialism works, apparently.
The problem with the illustration is that the subjects are of two distinct personalities: selfish and lazy, which is how anti-socialism people view the world. You are either selfish and in it for yourself only, which is why you are a capitalist, or you are lazy and don’t want to do anything, which is why socialism is so great for you.
The world is so full of absolutes right now, it’s disgusting. You are either Left or Right, Pro or Con. And that designation, aside from having no variance, also has no subsets. There will always be those that will fight for a cause and those that don’t care about it. There will always be people who care about doing a good job and those who don’t see the point in it.
Here’s an anti-socialist viewpoint: why have garbage cans on the street? Eventually everyone’s going to just throw their trash on the ground, because there’s no gain in using the garbage can. All the effort of trying to keep the streets clean is wasted on those that don’t care, so why bother. I mean, either you’re 100% for litter control, in which case you’d handle all of your trash needs yourself and have no need for government-subsidized garbage can entitlements, or you’re not, in which case the ground is your garbage can.
Flippant as it is, it exposes the hypocrisy of anti-socialists. If it’s something they support, good, otherwise, fuck off. These people want life to be a’la carte. They want to pick and choose every single piece of their life experience. So why not?
Yes, why not? Everyone bitches and moans about their tax dollars going to pay for something that they hate. So why not let them choose? Why not? I think we have enough diversity in America that everything would be funded as it’s needed. You’d have your rich, educated types diverting their tax money to education programs, earth and hippie types allocating for environmental causes, farmers propping up agriculture subsidies, rednecks and bulletheads giving all their tax dollars to defense. Despite all the stereotypes, it would all work out. And you’d have normal people allocating some here and some there, balancing things even further.
So all this stuff about Congress budgeting and allocating and taxing and robbing people to pay Paul, it all goes away. Each year, the income tax forms are collected and everyone has contributed a flat tax of 10%, 12%, 15%, whatever. Everyone has indicated on their tax form whether they want their taxes spread equally or according to the category assignments provided. You will actually have a tangible value assigned to the service, instead of “These people insist their service needs more funding.”
Stop This Shit
https://blog.cheapism.com/lies-teachers-told-17314
I don’t do many commentary posts, but this article really dug at me and it came on the heels of a response I had given somewhere about Mike Rowe. The commonality in both of these is that there is a line, and it’s not exactly a fine line, where information becomes inflammation.
To start with, the title is “50 lies you learn in school”. Before you’ve read anything, the article is implying that teachers, the people trained to educate you, are purposely lying to you. In order to lie, you have to know the truth. So the article is saying that your teachers know the truth and have intentionally told you otherwise.
If you go through this slide show, you will start with moments of, “Ok, I didn’t know that”, and “Huh, neat” but then, less than halfway through, you’re hit with “You can’t end sentences with prepositions.” Whether or not you agree or not, does this sound like a lie? By the definition, yes, it is a lie. However, that statement is not what is taught. You would be taught, “You should not end sentences with prepositions.” And that is not a lie, because it is not being presented as a fact or a rule, merely a guideline. The same thing with “You can’t begin sentences with conjunctions.” A style guide is just that, a guide.
The other type of tactic this article uses is on display with “The tongue map”. The slide says “The tongue map drawn back in 1901 is a lie.” And this is what REALLY pisses me off. It is not a lie when you do not know any better. The slide immediately says, “Scientists now know…” which means they were not intentionally hiding the truth back in 1901, they just had limited information at the time. This is repeated over and over with “facts” that had to be revised as more information became available. That does not make the original facts “lies”.
Another tactic is playing with words. “There’s no gravity in space” is clearly a lie. Why? Because the proper statement is “There is not a substantial amount of gravity in space.” The article proposes that not being explicit enough is a lie. Then the slide show starts to get into fringe medicine, such as “You need milk for strong bones” which cites as a reason some potential cronyism by an executive. There’s a couple of “facts/lies” I have never heard before in my life. “Blood is blue in the body”?
All in all, this is a terrible article, and let me now explain the Mike Rowe connection. There is a growing wave of anti-intellectualism here in America. It is dangerous as fuck and since about 2016, it’s been blowing up everywhere. It is the absolute proof that Idiocracy is coming to pass. It’s not enough that people are not taking the time to educate themselves, which is damaging enough, but now there is an active effort by some people to discredit other people who are intellectual.
Here’s the gist of how it works. You find some information that used to be considered factual, but because of additional study, is now considered wrong. And that former information is not labeled “obsolete”, but is instead touted as a “lie”. The argument is that the “smart people” lied to you all these years with that incorrect information. But the insane part of that argument is that it was the “smart people” who corrected the mistake.
The goal of this article and other examples of it (like Mike Rowe’s position on science) is to cause people to distrust information from learned sources. They want people to ignore “best practices” because they are not completely proven yet. Even if they are proven, what is proof? They want everyone to live in a “We just don’t know enough yet to make a decision” mindset. Conservative to to the point of regression.