Moderate Dems, moderate Republicans? Dying breed?

[deckeda]

Many disagreements stem from either a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of goals -- yours or your opponents'. When I see most any argument neatly fit into a narrative I disagree with, I focus on the premise. If your premise is wrong, none of the conclusions mean much.

Here's a chestnut posted on a friend's FB page. I have not edited it to fix grammar or capitalization errors. It would not be fair to portray the original text as coming from someone educated:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that liberal's 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 the democrat's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
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.As the tests proceeded, 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.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED 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. (Please pass this on) These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

There's a ton above that's false of course, and bad analogies do not help present a "socialist's" goals. To say nothing of a Democrat's goals, which as far as I'm aware have never been the same as a socialists ... unless you're on the far right.

#1 wrongly assumes the wealthy are tangibly hurt more than the poor would be helped. Indeed, it wrongly assumes the only logical/ultimate end is for everyone to have the same wealth.

#2 neatly sidesteps many core Judeo-Christian values conservatives say they hold dear.

#3 is wildly simplistic in its portrayal of how taxes are collected and held in a diverse society.

#4 is curious, because it means investment of any kind never works.

#5 is interesting because if true, sports teams, the military, and most professions could not exist.