http://www.spinninglobe.net/amishmudsill.html
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6. The Shrimp Lady
In the northeast corner of an island a long way from here an older woman sells plates of cooked shrimp and rice from out of an old white truck in a remote corner of the island. Nobody is around the truck. A lot of people pass, however, because the road she’s on goes to a famous surfing beach which attracts crowds year round.
She sells only shrimp and rice plus hot dogs for the kids and cold soda. The license to do this costs $500 a year, $43.25 a month, less than a dollar-and-a-half a day.
Anyone could do what this lady is doing who would get together about $15 thousand in seed capital. She’s 59, has a high-school diploma, a nice smile and cooks good shrimp. A hand-lettered sign advertises the wares beside the road.
The day I stood in line five customers were in front of me. They bought 14 plates between them and 14 sodas. I bought two and two. By the time I got to the window 5 new customers had arrived behind me. I was intrigued enough to sit across the road for two hours and count the sales: 41 plates, l5 hot-dogs, 50 sodas. The plates were $9.95, the dogs $1.25, the sodas $1.00. She had taken in close to $500 in two hours and her sign informed me she was open eight hours, seven days a week. Was it possible this truck was grossing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars a year?
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Back in Orestes Brownson’s day the central promise of American life was democratization of intelligence and winning an independent competency upon which to exercise that intelligence. In America every one got the chance to develop intelligence, not just the elites. Beyond the narrow uses of intelligence for work it found many private uses inside home and family circles. Public argument was the great incentive to master knowledge. But after Darwin a horde of voices said argument was a waste of time for the stupid masses. Mudsill theory became scientized with Charles Darwin, with the rise of the German research university in America, and with the religion of numbers and bell-curve statistics.
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Wow, that’s a stunning example! Forced Gooferment Skrules really hurt.
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 
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