Punishing Success

By Tom Rhodes, 1/19/2015

The socialist/Marxist values have taken over the USA. Rather than reward excellence we punish it. We reward just showing up. The whole idea that every kid who plays a sport win or lose gets a trophy is a problem. It teaches that regardless of how good you are, or how much effort you put in, you deserve admiration for just breathing. It has resulted in a group of people raised to believe that just because they show up they deserve an award.

A coach in the San Bernardino Unified School District has been given a 2 day suspension because his girls basketball team won a game. Coach Michael Anderson, who coaches both the junior varsity and varsity squads of Arroyo Valley High School’s girls basketball, after trouncing Bloomington High School, 161-2, was handed a 2 day suspension.

San Bernardino Unified School District official Maria Garcia said, “We are really emphasizing that we want them to pursue victory with honor, and that means playing the game with dignity, regardless of the outcome of the game.” The school district says that the walk-on coach’s suspension is a lesson in compassion and respect for opponents.

Respect is earned, Bloomington High Girls Basketball team did not earn any respect, they were clearly outmatched. If they had respected the superior ability of the Arroyo Valley team, when they were down by 50 or so they should have thrown in the towel, and forfeit the game. The accounts note that Arroyo Valley Girls tried (within reason) to give Bloomington a chance, running the shot clock down etc. But as the score indicates Bloomington was hapless against a far superior team. By not forfeiting when it was obvious they were perversely out classed, Bloomington did not show respect for a far superior opponent, wasting their time and effort.

That the San Bernardino Unified School District want to each is that you shouldn’t do your best if others can’t do as well as you. Imagine you doctor doing sloppy surgery because if he did his best it would make other surgeons look bad. Imagine a bridge engineer not putting in his best effort, because it would make other engineers feel bad about not being as good. Excellence should be rewarded not punished.

If you suck at something, too bad. Others shouldn’t be required to put in substandard effort because you aren’t as good as they are. Consider the U.S. men's basketball team beat Nigeria 156-73 in the 2012 Olympics, should the US men’s Olympic Basketball team have been punished?

Last night the Indianapolis Colts got their asses kicked by the New England Patriots, 45-7. This should be old hat to the colts who in 2011 lost to the New Orleans Saints 62 – 7. Should New England be penalized because they kicked Indy’s butt. Should the Saints have been penalized because they kicked the Colt’s butt. Or should we expect people to perform their very best and reward those who excel.

A coaches job is to teach his team how to work together, excel at what they do, and train them so their best effort wins. Coach Anderson took over the Arroyo Valley Girls Basketball team when it was a losing program and turned it around. For excelling at the very task he was assigned to do, the San Bernardino Unified School District punished him. The school system in America believes that it is more important that kids feel good about themselves than succeed. What the San Bernardino Unified School District is teaching the students is ill preparing them for college much less the real world. In the real world excellence is rewarded, just trying and failing, results in unemployment and minimum wage jobs.

Worse yet the government school is teaching kids that it’s wrong to do better than others, and demonstrating that doing your best will result in punishment. Image if the government applied that logic to other area’s they control. Imagine an entrepreneur who’s opened several successful businesses hiring lots of people being told by the government, “You’ve earned enough money”.

Can you image a top government official actually having the audacity to tell successful people that they’ve earned enough money? You might see people saying why bother, if I succeed I’ll be punished. Rather than spending their earnings, successful business might just sit on the cash, why risk it when success will result in punishment. Hell the whole economy would stagnate if that happened. The only new jobs would be minimum wage jobs, or part time. God forbid we should allow successful people have more than those who can’t or won’t perform to the levels of the successful.

You wonder what’s happened to America, we decided to give out trophies for just showing up, and started to punish those who do their best.