The surprise of the 2016 primary election cycle isn’t that a serial liar may be replaced in the White House by a serial liar who sits down to pee, but that America is on the verge of reaping what we have sown with our political correctness.
When kids play a Little League sport, everyone gets an award or trophy for merely participating. The practice of giving individual awards for athletic achievement and team awards for winning is a thing of the past for the most part. We certainly wouldn’t want little Johnny to feel that he needed to practice more in order to be a better player!
Some schools have suspended valedictorian and salutatorian awards because they don’t want to injure the sentimentalities of those who achieve less academically. At Arlington, Virginia Washington-Lee High School this year, there were 117 valedictorians out of a class of 457. At Long Beach Polytechnic in California, there were 30. And at some schools – including North Hills High outside of Pittsburgh and high schools in Miami – there were none. Why distinguish between the smart and no so smart?!
The federal tax laws allow individuals, typically single mothers, to receive a “tax credit” even though they had no earned income during that tax year. In other words, an individual can receive Section 8 housing, SNAP food stamps, welfare payments, and never work a day and still receive money from the government for having, typically, illegitimate children.
We have reached a point in our society where mediocracy, in many cases, is more recognized and rewarded than excellence. Young people today in many cases have no sense of personal responsibility. One family I know refused to allow their teenage children to work to have their own spending money or help with future college costs. But their children were encouraged to play some type of sport every month of the year. And what was the result? The oldest child, who is highly intelligent and did well in high school flunked out of college because he would rather play than study. And there was no real penalty for his childish behavior—he still lives at home with mommy and daddy, who are feeding him and washing his undies. This story can be repeated in literally thousands of homes across America. Thousands of grown offspring are still living at home – some because they can’t find employment which provides a living wage – and some because they just weren’t taught to accept responsibility.
Enter Bernie Sanders who is staying viable in the Democratic primaries with promises of keeping sniveling children sniveling children by giving them everything for free from his promised federal government candy store. For those who think Clinton would be any less a benefactor for spoiled children and freeloaders, listen to her promises. Socialism is the “soup du jour” for young people of today – they can’t see past the “free stuff” and realize it would turn the United States into Venezuela. But, most college students today probably couldn’t find Venezuela on a world map and have no clue regarding the folly of socialism – they just see the free college tuition, free medical care, and other goodies. Liberals don’t seem to know nothing is free!
I don’t blame the spoiled children for being willing to take free stuff – that is just human nature. Parents set the stage for this mess by spending money that they don’t have, to purchase goodies for their kids, which they don’t need or really appreciate. When was the last time that you saw a teenybopper who didn’t have a metallic telephonic growth on their ear? Poor family – rich family – it makes no difference – kids have to have their toys so they don’t feel deprived. And then Obama fills any possible gap by “giving” people an Obamaphone.
The United States is mired so deep in debt that it is difficult to envision us ever crawling out of this fiscal mess. And Bernie and Billary want to borrow more money from China and Japan to give people more free stuff? Has the United States just become a large nut bowl filled with mental zombies who are whistling past our own graveyard?
Have a good week. Bill Shuey is a freelance writer from North Carolina.
Mediocrity. We had a meritocracy, but is dead, gone and buried.