Because so many are indoctrinated to "judge not lest ye be judged" and that failure is the fault of society, we have lost our willingness -- even our ability -- to separate out the deserving poor, who could benefit from intelligent, voluntary charity, and the undeserving poor, who are perpetual moochers. Most of us have seen the Youtube videos of the downtrodden beggar on the corner who walks a few blocks at the end of the day and gets into a nice car.

Students have no problem understanding that if they burned the midnight oil to ace the test, they should get the A; and that to give everyone an A [for effort?] degrades everything they put into their studies. However, they don't seem willing to extrapolate from that to the bigger world, and understand that there's a reason for income inequality, and much of health inequality. Part of it is luck; but a bigger part is intelligence and hard work -- passing up on the sweets and booze and cigarettes, and showing up for work on time and eager to work.

Meaning I used a spondee ("sky blue," both syllables stressed) instead of the trochee (stress on the first syllable only) you recommend. Got it.

Thanks. From what I understand, there were quite a number of people that supported Hitler in the 30's so it would be no surprise if he did. I simply had not heard it and wanted to see if you could shed light on it.

Right. Bernie Sanders has his nomenklatura, don't kid yourselves. He just keeps his hidden. In contrast, Hillary throws her own nomenklatura in our faces.

"azure" scans better.

Jan

I get that a lot from my D-I-L. She thinks that all family interactions should be "safe zones" where nothing of any consequence is ever discussed [unless you're agreeing with her, of course...] My children were raised with healthy even heated debate as the extra course at virtually every family meal, and now all real discussions must be held when D-I-L is not present. The ultimate censor.

I did some digging and it is possible that the connection is not as strong as I thought. Here is an academic paper on point https://www.academia.edu/207381/Rethi...

I attribute it to several factors (some already mentioned in other comments):
1. The indoctrination from educators that capitalism is bad and that it is "society's" responsibility to take care of those who can't take care of themselves and the moochers without any distinction. As soon as you justify govt redistribution to one group who may actually need it (mentally ill, etc...), it is a slippery slope to include more and more groups who "need help". It never ends. We are already a highly socialist society with out current govt redistribution "entitlements".
2. Most young people don't have much to begin with and so rather than fight and earn success it is easier to add yourself into a group that "needs" the govt help.
3. Capitalism has received a black eye while most young people have been growing up. Govt policies helped create the 2008 financial crisis as they interfered in the marketplace. However, it was spun that it came from out of control, unbridled greedy captalists. While both were at fault, no one was held accountable on either side. The only pain that came was from average people losing their jobs and homes.
4. The younger generation has lived through a period of stagnant wages and slow economic growth. They are having a difficult time seeing paths to increase their wealth with the deck stacked against them. Home value and stock/401k value can be wiped out at a moments notice and are not worthwhile investments. They can be layed off at a moments notice and have no job security or company loyalty. The only way to get a good bump in pay is to change jobs instead of staying in the same company. Most corporations are as corrupt as govt with cronyism and smoozers usually rewarded over ability and talent.
5. Similarly, they don't have the benefit of history. I am in my 40s and I remember the malaise of the 70s economy, the energy and growth of the 80s created by Reagan's reforms. The fall of communism (which was really just hyper socialism). A more socialist Europe suffer decades of slower growth and stagnant standard of living while the US continued to grow. The beginning of the 90's malaise that was saved by the internet/technology boom. And now the "new normal" of the current slow growth. I have seen what works to increase growth (lower taxes, less regulation, restrained govt spending). They unfortunately have not experienced this first hand and only read about it in the abstract of text books.

They will have to see the negative effects of socialism or at least an alternative that works for them before they will reject it. Unfortunately, the state of our current, broken Capitalist model (i.e. too much govt interference in the marketplace, too big to fail, etc...) is not attractive enough to entice them to want to participate.

IQ may well not correlate with wisdom. One of the observed issues is called the Dunning–Kruger effect; a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes. This tends to lead to unskilled suffering from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others"
thus, your lack of correlation between IQ (What D-K call competence) and wisdom is predicted. I think life experience is probably more highly correlated with wisdom than measured IQ -- especially if those with high IQ get isolated from reality/real life experiences. Congratulations on you Mensa membership!

Really? I have not heard that. Where can I learn more?

Who supported Hitler.

Rand's answer was the ethics of Altruism - which some here in the gulch push

I think whoever runs against the Dimocrass candidate should echo RAH's acronym from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress":

TANSTAAFL!!!!!!

when your own kids can sue you using the government's powers, its pretty bad. My estimate is that its better to do home schooling and keep them away from the government indoctrination center schools. They will learn more anyway...

Henry Ford: "Thinking is hard. Which is why so few people do it."

I'm not sure that I.Q. is much of a determinant of whether a person is wise in his decisions or not. I've been a member of Mensa since 1977 and have met a lot of very intelligent people. However, most of them were not wise, i.e. they were liberal collectivists. I just haven't found any positive correlation between I.Q. and wisdom in my social interaction.

There was a time when I thought socialism was a good thing.
That was back during the late 60s with peace signs, rock bands, protest marches, marijuana and free love (sex)--all that counter-culture reaction to an unpopular war.
allosaur lived through that. So did Sanders, Clinton, a bogus "power to the people" reawakening of socialism and a whole mess of hippies who never grew up but became college professors.

The entire ethos of the school system and the requirements to succeed - from elementary school through the college level - mandate a thorough and complete unquestioning acceptance of the Socialist creed.

Example - I have a book for one of the classes I'm enrolled in - Intro to American Government - the book being "The Challenge of Democracy". THe first 4 pages is an entire diatribe on the glory and greatness of the social welfare system, how the wealthy are greedy and care less about the world, as long as they grab the money by raping the resources... and how the left is wonderful for all the social equality and welfare programs they provide to the poor.

It took a LOT of shaking my head, Pepto-Bismol, and (frankly) coarse language to get through that part. And yet - the people in the class (most of whom are 18-22) accept this as doctrine, and say this made them feel better about the class.

Why? Because they have been, for the first 14 years of their educational lives, well indoctrinated that Socialism and poverty and sacrifice for those with their hands out is good, capitalism and success and a positive sense of self worth are bad.

God help me - I need this class for my physics degree, but it makes my stomach lurch every time I open the book and read more of what their "target audience" calls "absolutely neutral, unbiased writing".

While you are correct about, "there ain't no such thing as free lunch." I am just not sure that your, "soon enough" will honestly come Soon Enough.

It is the ultimate community service program. You work and someone else benefits from your labors!

What none of them know is how the original USSR was run - you had the elites in the Politburo, the enforcers in the KGB and GRU, the black market profiteers, and millions of starving peasants. No such thing as a middle class.

Yup. It's pretty amazing that people put those two words right next to each other. "mandatory service" is a paradox more appropriately called serfdom.

I can totally understand that position. I've got two and they are amazing little ones. But, raising children in America now is really, really challenging and (honestly) frightening. Remember from the chapter White Blackmail that people (governments) will threaten what is most valuable to you in order to get you to do what they want? That really applies to families and their children these days. I know several really good parents who've been threatened by family court judges, school districts, etc. It's surreal...

True! They have been taught that they can live on other peoples' money and get a lot of free stuff by soaking the supposedly rich. I think that it was Margaret Thatcher who said that socialism finally fails when you run out of other people's money.

I think you are so correct. Heart before head, feeling before thinking is the way of education today.

Way back in the 40s and 50s the teaching of economic systems was either nil or distorted. I can only imagine the piling-on since then. If we are talking about how the USA works as a country, and people are relying on what they learned in school, it's no wonder that they don't understand anything more than what the candidates say, and then, only what they promise without a clue as to what it would take to make it happen.