Kid tries to sell socialism to former Soviet citizen..

You tube ^ | Jul 27, 2016 | Vladimir Jaffe

[gattaca]

Is this what college kids are learning?

[rlmorel]

I give this guy all the credit in the world. He is being polite to this mush headed kid...

[cranked]

LMAO!

[rlmorel]

Hahahahahahahaha! I love the way it ends...the guy comes up...

“Hey, you know what is happening at two o’clock today? We’re having a Die-In!”

Heheheh...the ex-Soviet guy says “What!?”

Can’t make this stuff up! Thanks for posting this...:)

[pinkandgreenmom]

My neighbor’s 7th grade daughter read Harrison Bergeron in public school. Her take away from in class discussion? The government legitimately should handicap people who have “too much.”

[pepsionice]

Vladimir Jaffe makes a lot of videos like this. You can probably find six hours of material that he’s done.

The problem with these kids is that they just walk into a college class, and Professor Jimmy tells them something, and there is no skeptic nature of what Professor Jimmy said. The weak argument, the marginal evidence, the lack of debate....all lead to students finishing up the class, and eventually a degree...who are worthless.

I went through the system as a part-time student in the 1980s and probably had thirty-odd professors. At least half were reading straight from the book and simply weren’t qualified for the job. I had some visiting Italian professor who barely spoke English, and he gave us all ‘A’s’ without a single test or project.

What Jaffe is doing....is suggesting they have a skeptical nature and question every professor.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[samtheman]

It’s always the case that socialism has never been tried before. They always say that, when they want to try it again.

[rlmorel]

Sadly, I think even well rounded kids are susceptible to this claptrap. And the “professors” know this all too well and exploit it fully because it makes them feel relevant.

Kids don’t have enough life experiences to understand. Besides, how often do you hear some kid come home from college for Thanksgiving, and they blather on about some symbolism thing they learned in English Literature, which everyone who knows already and discarded it politely rolls their eyes inwardly...if not outwardly.

Shaping young minds.

[samtheman]

The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.

[rlmorel]

Socialism is like a leftist perpetual motion ideological Ponzi scheme.

The people who know better and foist this on people all think to themselves “Ha. They ALL fall for it the first time...again, and again! It never gets old.”

[ArcadeQuarters]

Socialism sounds great. “Everyone is provided” by some unknown entity. Do the workers voluntarily work for free? Is it a slave class? Robots? Where’s all this free stuff coming from that I have a right to?

[higgmeister]

bimp for later

[Mi-kha-el]

Just send him to a North Korean re-education camp on full scholarship.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The problem with these kids is that they just walk into a college class, and Professor Jimmy tells them something, and there is no skeptic nature of what Professor Jimmy said. The weak argument, the marginal evidence, the lack of debate....all lead to students finishing up the class, and eventually a degree...who are worthless.

I had a teacher in high school who gave as an assignment the question, “Do we have to do what society says?” And we answered in class verbally. My answer, after much thought, was that “No, society does not directly control the individual, because freedom.”

The teacher’s response? “We like to use the word “society” instead of government,” (implying that that’s what it means). And also implying, I don’t know, that he had a mouse in his pocket or something . . .

I knew “instinctively,” back in the middle of the Eisenhower Administration, that that was wrong. But I could not assay to articulate a coherent response. It turns out that the answer was stated by Thomas Paine in 1776:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . . Common Sense

The guys in the YouTube video were essentially debating the definition of socialism; I propose a definition which will not please the socialist, but which might give him food for thought:

Socialism is extreme skepticism towards real, existing society - leading to naiveté towards government.

All societies have flaws, and any societal flaw tends to provoke a “there oughta be a law” response. Thus, cynicism towards society - which is the natural tendency of an industry which systematically reports bad news - motivates faith in government and intolerance of government inaction. And that is why journalists are almost exclusively “liberal.”

Socialism has a terrible track record of functioning as a rationalization for tyranny - in Russia, Cambodia, Venezuela, Cuba, China, and yes, in Hitler’s Germany. Accordingly it is only rational to be more skeptical of government, and less skeptical of society, than the socialist.

The American “conservative” - whose position was radical in 1776 - is actually moderate compared to the socialist who is cynical of society, and compared to the anarchist who is cynical about government and naive about society.

I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.

And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.

So, “You didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly. It is not the government but society - a very different thing - which makes the pencil.

Government planning is merely interference in society’s subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.