Comments (1)

By Kiran, July 23, 2009 3:26 pm

Read this today…..

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade.”

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Comments (1)

By Kiran, April 20, 2009 8:52 pm

Over the last three years, both the mainstream and online news media have become increasingly biased, siding more strongly than ever on specific issues and marching to the drumbeat of their respective parties. These differences have grown so deep and caustic that the news from each network almost sounds like its from a different planet. There used to be a time when we used to just get the news and we had the freedom to form our own opinions and impressions; now, the real news is reduced to a small fleck among the endless opinion-spewing talking heads’ rants. There used to be a time when reporters would use plain and objective words to describe the day’s events; now every event is preceded and superseded with a long line of opinionated adjectives. Are we really so dumbed down that we need some network honchos to make up our minds? As I pondered this question, I came up with two reasons for this widening chasm:

1. We hear what we want to hear – The anchors on MSNBC are smart, witty and lucid; I feel entertained by them. The anchors on Fox are loud, adamant and pointed; I feel a little turned off by them. But that’s just me, there are millions of people out there that prefer the exact opposite. So yes, I am indeed biased towards tuning into Maddow and Olbermann every night, but I do take the time to listen to BillO and Hannity once every blue moon however irrational they might sound. Most of my friends would never watch those Fox “clowns” for the simple reason that they want to believe Obama is doing a great job; and most of Texas would not watch Maddow if she were the last reporter on earth. Ok, I am stereotypeing, but the point is that we like the networks which rehash what we believe.

2. News outlets need to make a profit too – Does Rupert Murdoch care more about the well being of Americans over his own balance sheet? News networks are not in the charity business; they are in the ratings business. MSNBC’s bush-bashing agenda has almost carried them to the top. And Fox has been investing serious resources into Obama-bashing to rally its own viewer-base. Of course, it could have been a lot worse if the government owned all the news channels, but what worries me is that the falling profits and recession could trigger even more bias in order to keep the revenue coming.

Most frightening of all is the increased radicalism at both Fox and MSNBC; while it is good to present both sides of the story, they have of late chosen to completely ignore that sacred line in the sand. The last one year has been nothing but a bloodied fist fight – the nightly name calling, sponsoring citizen protests, party-bashing, offhand jokes, blatant self-promotion. The tea-party ruckus from last week highlights this divide more than ever; yes, there needs to be dissent in a democracy, but that dissent must arise from the people themselves, not a news outlet. Media should not sponsor such uprisings, instead they should cover them for what they are so that the message is spread to other like-minded people. Get over it, there is never going to be a perfect government, and there is never going to be a perfect president, there is only going to be a majority of sorts. If everyone agrees with everything the administration does, there would be no checks and balances, and the government would gravitate towards authoritarianism.

Media has immense power in shaping people’s thoughts and opinions, and with such power comes moral and ethical responsibility. I truly believe that BillO can still be the bully and Olbermann can still be the smartass even if they chose to bash both sides. If the networks are trying to entertain us, somehow I don’t feel that entertained, I only feel disdain for such hatred and lie-mongering. The worst part is that the internet media is only two paces ahead of the broadcast media on the bias scale. I have yet to see Daily Kos and Drudge Report point one mistake in their respective parties; for the last few months, I have to desperately seek one, just one, unbiased political commentry – I’m still searching. I plea to you, big news, do not corrupt us, tell us things as they are without the added bullshit, if you have specific opinions please warn us about your affiliations beforehand so that you don’t mislead and miseducate us. And please dont make fair and balanced just another joke.

Comments (1)

By Kiran, April 7, 2009 11:28 pm

There are two political parties in the United States – ok, there are two political parties that matter in the United States, but in reality, much like dialects within a language, there are numerous divisions within two main parties. Terms like social liberals, progressives, neoconservatives, etc are usually thrown around by the media as if they are all representative of the two parties. The notion of the past that the country is mostly center-right or pseudo-conservative has been somewhat tarnished by the meteoric rise of the Democrats in the aftermath of Republican failures. So I have seldom asked myself, can there ever be a true centrist that can postulate decisions based on the best that each side can offer. Consequently, if there are more centrists like me, why isn’t there a party that preaches such seemingly rational thought?

The answer to me is simple – political standing is often more of a matter of interpretation than actual execution. The true left and right exist only in San Francisco and Salt Lake City, the rest of the country is simply affiliated to the party that is closest to their ideals. We all know the broad-strokes differences in the Democratic and Republican thought processes, but we seldom postulate the same in terms of a larger set of principals that define our understanding of government. The two philosophies that predominantly dictate the measure of associativity an individual has with his political party are Individualism and Communitarianism. The Individualism school of thought holds high the right of individuals to exercise their desires without undue interference from societal rules. On the other hand, Communitarianism emphasizes the need for policies to be defined based on what is good for the society as a whole regardless of individual members’ needs and desires.

Despite the generalized underlying philosophies, the presence of numerous issues without a clear answer is what allows people to associate themselves with one party or another. For the benefit of a friend and myself, I am listing the main differences in the two parties on the issues as I understand them:

At the end of the day, the problem with a coin is that there are only two sides to it; you just can’t flip it and ask for a little bit of both sides. You pick a side based on the issue which is closest to your heart; like most philosophical questions, there is no one right answer. For many of us, taking the middle ground is for the most part the same as chickening out of taking a stance. There is a certain degree of disservice to the citizens when the two sides are so polarized and establishing a rational middle path is often at odds with ideals of half the citizens. Nonetheless, the two-party system is still a little easier to participate in than the two hundred party system in my home country. Wake  up politicians, there is a reason why majority of Americans consider themselves center-right or center-left, they simply don’t believe in one right answer. So I say, we don’t need more parties, we need more rationality; we don’t need policy based on abstract beliefs, we need policy based on empirical proofs; we don’t need arrogance and justification of mistakes, we need responsibility and repentance of mistakes.

I don’t want the welfare, I don’t want the bloodshed, I don’t want to pay taxes, I don’t want wastage, I don’t want to be supressed, I don’t want traditions re-written, I dont want smooth talkers, I don’t want enablers, I don’t want shadow warriors,  I don’t want loudspeakers. I am a centrist, I am a rationalist.