“Welcome to Conservatism”
A daughter learns a valuable lesson from Dad.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very Liberal, and was very much in favour of ‘the 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 harboured 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 addition of more government welfare 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, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, ‘How is your friend Audrey doing?’
She replied, ‘Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.’
Her wise father asked his daughter, ‘Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 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 GPA.’
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, ‘That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!’
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, ‘Welcome to conservatism!’
[note: I am reposting this because the original story appears to have disappeared off of Adler's site...and it is well worth reposting at this particular point in political times...]
So people who earn less don’t work hard? I know a lot of rich people who haven’t done anything but wait for their trust fund.
ORLY? You know them?
Hey Sue –
Somebody worked hard to earn the money used to build that trust fund.
Do you seriously think estate taxes should be 100%?
Remuneration is not proportional to exertion.
Never has been. Never will be.
Years later and highly successful, she thought back. She missed her friend; in college she had lived vicariously through her, and loved to hear Audrey’s stories about what had happened over the weekend. Now, she was the CFO in a major consumer electronics corporation, and her coworkers regarded her with so much respect, the opportunity for fun was all but gone – nobody was even willing to be themselves around her for fear of looking bad. When she went home at night, she entered the security code on the panel by her door. Some nights she collapsed into a depressive sleep, bored tearless and lonely. Other nights, she wondered why she had this empty feeling inside. She had met everyone’s expectations, after all.
Audrey was now 1,450 miles away, now the top sales manager in a start-up. She never did achieve her friend’s level of intense success in her first job, but she had been well off enough to take a years vacation and go to Costa Rica, where she met Ben. Audrey and Ben had a child, a boy. A couple of years later things she had acquired an amazing ability to sell useful items to new parents, and her and Ben started their company. They were happy.
It didn’t seem fair, but the girl kept on. It wasn’t until she found out that the CEO of her company – her boss, one of the only people above her – had actually lied about having any sort of degree at all, that she completely lost it. Her boss! The CEO! He had dropped out of a private religious school after less than a year, but claimed to have a degree. All these years, she’d been working for a liar and a dropout who made more money than her.
Finally, the girl understood the true nature of conservatism.
She suddenly wished she could have accepted her Father’s silly idea of sharing grades.