One morning in New York City a crowd of pedestrians waited for the streetlight to change so that they could cross the intersection. The sidewalk corner was crowded with people, as it often is, and one pedestrian stepped slightly into the street in anticipation of crossing it. But at that moment a messenger on a bicycle was moving quickly through the intersection, and was thrown off balance by hitting the pedestrian's foot. The bicycle crashed, destroying it beyond repair.
The crowd gasped in horror, but the bicyclist was unharmed. He did, however, lose the value of the bicycle. One bystander, observing that the fault was due to the pedestrian, wanted to donate so that the bicyclist could buy a replacement. But the bystander could not afford to give him much money. So instead the bystander took out a $20 bill and handed it to the bicyclist in front the crowd.
Others then followed that example and made donations of their own to the bicyclist. Before long he had enough to buy a replacement for his bicycle, and was back at work by the afternoon
Give freely to those who are suffering through no fault of their own, so they might better their circumstances.
A smoker was in a drug store to purchase a pack of cigarettes. Short on cash, he emptied all his pockets in order to scrounge up with every last penny he had. The cashier counted all the change and but found it was ten cents short of the total required for the cheapest pack of cigarettes.
The smoker desperately turned to the man standing behind him and asked him for a dime. The bystander clearly had a spare dime.
Should the bystander give the smoker a dime so he can purchase the pack of cigarettes?
The bystander, who is generous by nature, did something more difficult for him: he denied the request and instead urged the smoker to "kick the habit."
The smoker then gathered all his change and left the store.
Being poor is a bad habit, and if you give money to poor people they will just sit back and suck it up, because poverty rocks.
A pregnant woman was doing missionary work in the Philippines. Due to contaminated drinking water in an impoverished area, the woman contracted amoebic dysentery while pregnant. This required that she take strong medications in order to recover.
The woman's doctor told her that the medication inevitably caused irreversible damage to the developing unborn child in her womb. The doctor advised the woman to have an abortion. The doctor told the woman that she would be burdened with a disabled child and it would be better to get rid of the unborn child now through abortion.
The woman refused to have the abortion and subsequently gave birth to a baby boy, whom she named Timothy.
Twenty years later, Tim Tebow was recognized as the best college football player in the United States by winning the Heisman Trophy, the first to win that prestigious award as only a sophomore.[2]
It's ok to risk your life and potentially having to care for someone with severe disabilities the rest of your life because maybe they'll be a college football star. The message would be slightly better if they'd not said it was only worth it because he was successful, but this is the worst of American conservatism so you can hardly expect them to value minorities.
A skinny young man having limited athletic ability had a determination to do his very best and win. He picked the high jump event, but could only clear about 5' 3", nowhere near what was needed to win any competitions. But he worked tirelessly, trying all known techniques for jumping over a bar. Still, he could not improve to the point where he could win.
Yet he did not give up, and harnessed his competitive spirit to invent a revolutionary style of jumping back-first over the bar. Though lacking the athletic gifts of his competitors, the young man improved his jumping ability by a foot and more. He began to win.
His peculiar style attracted mockery and name-calling, as people derided his technique as the "flop". But that did not faze him, and he continued to jump in the direction opposite to all his competitors. Despite winning the national college high jump event, experts still considered his success to be a fluke and his approach to be a joke.
When it came time for the Olympics, no one considered the young man to have a chance, and his more athletic competitors were favorites to win the high jump event. The whole world was riveted to the television screen as the young man flawlessly cleared every height as the bar was raised again and again. When the bar was finally raised to an Olympic record height of 7' 4 1/4", only the young man and his "flop" were able to jump over it. He had won the gold medal.
Virtually immediately everyone else, including those who had mercilessly mocked him, began praising and imitating his style. To this day it is known as the "Fosbury Flop."[3]
If you're struggling to succeed, invent a revolutionary new technique. Problem solved, world.
Physics 401 was the most difficult course in the entire college, having problem sets that would take many hours to complete each week. The students often worked on the homework together, as allowed and even encouraged by the professor. Students were also able to consult books and online resources in solving problems.
As the course progressed, the problems became increasingly difficult and complex. Some students were better than others at solving the problems. Reputations developed about which students had answers, and which ones did not.
Near the end of the course, the teacher assigned a particularly difficult problem to the class. The night before it was due, the students gathered as they had been throughout the course, and worked as hard as they could to find the answer. One student who had a reputation for not being as smart claimed he had the answer, and started to explain it to the others. But the smarter students quickly rejected his approach to the problem and told him to be quiet. Despite trying several times to describe his answer, he was ignored.
The next day the students handed in their homeworks, and the following week the professor returned their graded papers. He said that only one student had answered the difficult problem correctly. That student was the one who had tried to explain it to the others, but they would not listen.
The one student had found the correct answer in a book not used by the other students.
And this is just like the bible because
A conservative and a liberal are walking along the beach when they see a man drowning a hundred feet off shore. The conservative throws him a 50 foot rope and shouts to the victim "You provide the other fifty feet." The liberal throws the man a 200 foot rope...and lets go of both ends.
Conservative does something utterly useless while pretending to help, would result in man's death.
An atheist and a believer were having a discussion. "I don't believe in anything I can't understand!" cried the atheist. "Ah," said the believer gently. "Then your beliefs must be very small."
Believer is not very smart, doesn't get that you can understand lots of things.
And an actually good one:
Socialism
A Parable about Socialism
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words, redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, as she worked with other people in a group. Most of them were competent and they all worked more or less to the best of their abilities. However, due to the fact that she had formed the group, she got to distribute the grades and often saved the best for herself, based solely on the fact that she formed the group, rather than on individual performance and despite the fact that all the others worked just as hard and contributed just as much.
Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. She hasn't sucked up to anyone, nor has she been particularly ruthless. As a result, I've only given her a 2.0, despite her working just as hard as me.' Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of your GPA.'
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I formed the group! I had an idea that others, like Audrey, improved upon and then combined with their own ideas, then I took the credit and praise. I should be the one who gets the grades, even if the others are putting forth just as much if not more effort.'
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the conservative's philosophy.'
And a screenshot, for posterity.
Oh shit.
Best of the PublicThe "best of the public" is an approach to education, scholarship, and biblical translation that was coined during an interview with Conservapedia and first published on December 3, 2009:[1]
“The best of the public is better than a group of experts. ”
Gonna round up some people who reckon they know what's what and build a rocket to the moon.
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