A trend has developed in recent years to award every participant in junior sports a trophy or ribbon regardless of their actual performance, the logic being that children’s self-esteem is fragile and must be protected from the ignominy of failure. If little Johnny reports for every practice and every game with his uniform clean and pressed yet consistently strikes out, muffs ground balls and falls asleep in the outfield, he nonetheless receives a small trophy at the end of the season (to no small delight of his parents) because it is Johnny’s intentions that matter, not his performance, and because the adults want to shield him from the stigma of losing. This practice, however well-intentioned, nonetheless defies reality and beyond that, creates a sense of entitlement in the little tykes that they will carry forward into later life. They will expect to be rewarded no matter what they do and to receive the benefits of success without the sacrifice required to succeed, and when they are eventually disabused of such an expectation, they will be angry, bitter and resentful. They may even turn violent, not at the deception to which they were victim but at the person, agency or government that refuses to play along because the addict doesn’t resent the drug that is ruining his life but the police who stop him from obtaining it.
This scenario is playing out in Greece, in Wisconsin and in the Occupy movement worldwide with thousands of angry, bitter and resentful people who have been promised lavish government benefits rioting in the streets, raging against the notion that the money has run out. The governments of France and Greece have recently been turned out by these people, punished for daring to control the entitlements they crave and replaced by old-fashioned socialists who love spending money they do not have on programs they cannot afford. This is the sad consequence of the Left’s overarching goal, equality of results for every human being and it is of course completely avoidable.
If little Johnny only gave it some thought (and the adults who inculcate his expectations), failure and success are inescapable realities of life. Johnny’s favorite player, however talented and famous he may be, still commits errors in the field, gets caught stealing, strikes out with men on base and will never hit safely in even half his turns at-bat. Johnny’s favorite team does not win every championship or even every game and Johnny would scoff at the suggestion they should be rewarded for losing. Generals who lose battles receive no medals and defeated armies are not treated to ticker-tape parades. Human beings naturally admire and reward success in whatever enterprise interests them, yet liberalism finds such instinct snobbish and elitist, stewing indignantly at the idea that the benefits of success should be reserved for those who actually earn them, as if winning itself were abhorrent. Plaudits and perks should be distributed equally, liberals demand, because winners aren’t better than losers. Of course, they demonstrably are, but liberals seek to right what they see is an outrageous wrong throughout human society. To them, everyone must have the same amount and quality of education (busing, the subsidization of poorer districts by wealthier ones, grade inflation), the same model of automobile (Chevy Volts for everyone!), cell phone, iPad, washing machine and the same type of home to put it all in, the same quality of health care and retirement fund and the same income level and if the elitist “winners” balk at sharing their wealth to make all this happen, then the liberals just take it from them. This is the approach that Europe has taken and it has led them to the edge of economic disaster, and as Europe strains against bankruptcy on a continental scale, Priest-King watches from across the Atlantic and blithely insists that it cannot happen here, though he undertook the same approach (and achieved the same results).
Life isn’t fair but it is also predictable. If a person undertakes a huge risk and succeeds, then that person reaps huge rewards. If a person abhors risk, then that person reaps much smaller rewards. Priest-King’s constituents squatting in Wall Street and elsewhere want to invert that function and reap huge rewards while accepting no risk, for instance, demanding that banks simply forgive their student loans after their college education is complete, thereby attaining the same station as someone who paid as they went. This is the essence of Priest-King’s philosophy, that others should be forced to pay for his dreams and should be punished for outdistancing him, as if he were cheated, an odd position for someone who enjoyed the benefits of an Ivy League education and preferential treatment, and it is ridiculous. America is great because everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their ability will take them, and trying to replace equal opportunity with equal results is doomed to fail.
