I was having a conversation with my father recently, and we were talking about how America has become the way she is now. I had the idea that America has become a place where the government is eliminating failure.
I know, people may be saying, “What’s wrong with that?”
A lot is wrong with that. Failure is the best motivational tool that we have as humans. With all of the government programs that allow people to fail without repercussion, we are allowing our government to destroy the fundamental values of America. When you eliminate the ability to fail, you crush the drive to succeed.
Success has always been the driving factor in a capitalist society such as America. Success of the individual has driven so many great inventions, ideas, businesses, and leaders to emerge from America. I don’t know when it exactly started but America has allowed the drive for success to fade away. Look at little league baseball; everyone gets a trophy. We have become so sensitive to political correctness that every single kid gets an award at the end of the little league season, even if the team had not scored a single run the entire year. What does that tell a child?
I believe it tells them that it’s OK to not be the best, because you still get an award for just being there. Now translate the baseball idea to government programs such as welfare and government provided housing. These two examples, like so many government programs, were wonderful ideas in theory. The theory was to allow unemployed people with families to temporarily defray living expenses while in search of a new or better job. These programs have gone from temporary to third and fourth generation recipients. These people have no drive to succeed because the government has told them it’s okay to fail; we will give you “an award for just being here.”
Let’s further translate the baseball idea to government bailout programs. The government has not allowed these companies to fail, resulting in millions and billions of tax dollars to revive poorly run businesses. This tells any prominent business that there will be no repercussions for poor business practice because the government will give them “an award for just being here.”
From tee-ball to big business, America has allowed her people to stop striving for success and settle for a participation award. This movement is destroying America and her capitalist values that once made America the shining beacon to the world. The ability to fail makes achieved success even more rewarding. The risk of losing all of your money makes a person starting a small business work that much harder to achieve success. That’s capitalism. That’s America. Without risk, there is no reward.
We need to stop giving participation trophies to our children if they don’t win. We need to stop having graduation ceremonies for children when they complete each and every grade in school. We need to stop programs like Welfare from becoming a permanent source of income. We need to stop allowing Congress to bail out companies that have been run into the ground by poor business practices.
Folks, we can make these changes by using our votes to actually hold Congress accountable for continuing these practices. Tell Congress that we appreciate the notion that our elected officials are eliminating our chances to fail, but we must revive the fear of failure before a Capitalist America is nothing more than a page in our grandchildrens’ history books.
Jason Higdon is president of Citizens for Constitutionality Now and a New Albany resident.
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HIGDON: Please let me fail
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