Dori: Participation trophy culture leads to lower life expectancy

Is it possible that we’re not doing well for our kids and for millennials? Is it possible that the path we’ve been on for the last 40 years of the “Progressive dream” — everyone is a winner, you don’t have to compete, we won’t have grades, and if you don’t earn something yourself, that’s okay because we’ll just take it from someone else and give it to you — isn’t working?

There is a story in The Seattle Times that reports Seattle high school graduates will receive two free years of community college. Of course, as we’ve been telling you on the show for years, nothing is free. It’s just that other people will be paying for it. Taxpayers will have to pay higher property taxes so other people’s kids can go to college. By the way, these kids could easily earn the tuition themselves if they just worked 15 hours a week beginning their junior year in high school. A part-time job after school and on Saturdays could easily cover it.

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But no — we have to make everything as easy as possible. You want to use heroin? No problem. We’ll legalize it and we’ll give you a place to shoot up for free. You want to go to college without working? No problem. Taxpayers will pay for you to go to college.

The reason I bring this up is because there is a rather shocking story out this week about life expectancy. For the first time in decades, life expectancy in America has dropped for two years in a row. In my entire lifetime, life expectancy has been going up because of amazing advances in medicine.

So why is life expectancy going down now? The rate of suicide for young people is the highest in 50 years. Drug overdoses are also the highest they’ve ever been.

As we’ve made life so perfect in the minds of Progressive Americans, we seem to have the most screwed-up, drug-addicted, anxiety-riddled people who are unable to cope with life that you could possibly imagine. Maybe this would suggest that everything we’re doing to make life so wondrous and easy and bubble-wrapped doesn’t seem to be working. It doesn’t seem as though it has made people able to cope with life.

If life expectancy is going down for the first time in 100 years due to suicide and drug use, then the path we’re on isn’t working. Trying to make life some bit of socialist perfection where every game ends in a draw and every team gets a trophy is simply not working. We have more and more people who are simply unable to live life, who cannot handle life’s ups and downs. So maybe it’s time to rethink this mania of non-competition and free handouts and no hard work.

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