College Students Favoring Wealth Distribution Are Asked.....

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College Students in Favor of Wealth Distribution Are Asked to Pass Their Grade Points to Other Students

A California college student is conducting a social experiment where he’s trying to get his peers to sign a petition in favor of distributing grade point averages to show how the federal government distributes wealth.

Oliver Darcy, a recent college graduate, proposes that students with good grades contribute their GPA to their academically sluggish friends. He argues that this is how the federal government takes wealth from the country’s high wage earners and distributes it to the low income earners.

“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with "Fox and Friends." “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”

Darcy, who films his encounters with teachers and fellow students, doesn’t have much luck selling this theory.

He said many students on college campuses support high taxes on the rich, but when put into relative terms, cringed at the thought of spreading around their academic wealth.

In a video posted on Exposingleftists.com, one student said, “If I do give GPA points to students that don’t deserve it, it isn’t fair, I work for what I have.”

Oliver also goes around campus asking whether students want to sign his petition to pay their share of the national debt – which amounts to nearly $47,000 per person.

This, too, brought mixed reaction, with one student saying the debt isn’t hers because she didn't contribute to it.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/17/college-students-in-favor-wealth-distribution-are-asked-to-support-grade/#ixzz1VStZzhuv

I've seen this "grade redistribution" meme before. Are conservatives really unable to understand how bad of an analogy it is, or is this some sort of elaborate joke?

This isn't a meme. This guy actually did an experiment on his campus with grade points being the currency since it strikes closer to home with his test subjects, and they didn't like wealth redistribution when it wasn't so hypothetical and would impact them in a very noticeable way. You can clam all the technicalities you want, but what it comes down to is egalitarianism isn't so desirable when you have to put your money where your mouth is.

at orwell, no it seems they dont see just how ridicoulous trying to equate intellectual prowess with financial worth.

of course people feel hit on their test scores, they can reflect on all their lives and it is logically inconsistent.

money is money it only carries the special meaning that it can be used.

It's a perfect analogy as most people with wealth worked for it.

The number of "old money" wealthy is actually very, very small. Most people hit with the higher tax burdens had to earn it through hard work, not because an ancestor handed it down when they died.

If you tried to tax the "old money" families, it'd never work. The funds are structured to be untouchable and would be moved outside US jurisdiction if anything had a hope of impacting them.

Your source has already been discredited multiple times.

The analogy is so bad it's insulting.

That you've seen it before or that you label it a meme does not debunk it.

Neither does merely saying that you think it's a bad analogy. If it's really that easy to debunk, why don't you just debunk it?

What source did he cite and what was the discrediting?

Fox News. No-one of any intelligence believes any report from Fox News. Fox News simply isn't a credible news source.

It is analogy - you either "get it" or you don't.

I get it.

Redistribution of wealth is different when it's your wealth being redistributed - it's all noble and ethical and all that until you find that it's your hard-earned wage that is being taken away and given to those who feel entitled to it.

I get the analogy, but it is flawed because the reality is that our current wealth system is unfairly rigged to give the greatest advantages to those who least need them. This is not like academic grades where the best students and the worst are all graded on the same scale. That is where this analogy fails.

Apples and oranges, for a reason I've had cause to ponder the last few days. Grades are tickets, not an end by themselves. In high school they are tickets to college. In college, they are tickets to a job. Grades are meant to be a measure of knowledge, of achievement, always with an eye to establishing your future role in society.

But once you get to the work force, your pay is only a ticket to consumption, personal pleasure, and giving your kids an advantage over the neighbors kids. While there is no basic human right to a passing grade, there is, in my opinion, a basic human right to food, shelter, and medicine.

I'll give away money a lot faster than I'll give away my son's grades.

The idea that how much money you make is a measure of personal worth/merit is bunk. That is where the analogy fails.

This meme says more about the people who believe it than it says about reality.

What about the point that money generally comes from a job, which is basically a mortgage on your life? The time you spend working a job could be spent on other activities and would if you were not receiving pay. The pay then is actually a reflection of the amount of time you have used for the activity multiplied by some (fairly arbitrary) value and that can be used to purchase other things that are both needed and desired. Not making a judgment on the worth or lack of worth of the grades vs. money debate itself, but doesn't this mean that money is better thought of as a portion of an individual’s life that is being exchanged for something else? Taxes would then be a portion of someone's total life span being taken from them and used for some other purpose. They may or may not agree with the purpose that the taxes are being taken for, but that doesn't change the fact that the taxes are a portion of their wages which is gained by the exchange of their life for said commodity.

It seems the article is against "wealth distribution". I guess he expects wealth to stay in the same place and not move at all.

If news article meant to talk about "wealth redistribution" then it misses the point entirely to make the false equivalence that wealth is just like grades.