America has not been doing a good job of this lately, whether it is Afghanistan, Israel, our Southern Border, our Children in our Schools, or with the violence that has been especially occurring in our cities.
One of the main reasons that our Country has not been doing a good job at protecting Our Citizens is because some politicians have been taking extreme positions that are not logical or realistic.
For example, we have had some politicians try to defund police departments because these politicians illogically and unrealistically said that crime would not increase if we had no police.
Some politicians have also pushed for no bail laws, have made an effort to give no punishment for a large number of crimes like shoplifting, and have supported district attorneys who do not want to prosecute crimes.
These experimental attempts to change crime prevention methods by some politicians have been proven to be incorrect.
In fact, these experimental attempts are really just a philosophical extension of the 1990’s and 2000’s participation trophy mentality that occurred in most of America.
In the 1990’s and the 2000’s, a large part of America moved away from striving for and rewarding excellence in children, and instead began to promote a participation trophy mentality in children’s Little League sports programs.
The thinking was that giving a MVP trophy to one child on a team, the child who had performed the best during the season, would hurt the feelings of all the other children on the team.
Many adults decided that giving participation trophies to every player on the team, instead of giving an MVP trophy to one player, was nicer for more children and therefore would make more children happy.
Similarly, the thinking was that giving championship trophies to the players on the team that finished in first place in the League would hurt the feelings of all the children on the other teams in the League that did not finish in first place.
As a result, very often championship trophies were not given to the winning team’s players, and participation trophies were given to every player in the League, instead.
People felt that giving participation trophies to every child in the League, instead of giving championship trophies to the players on one team, was nicer for more children and would keep more children happy.
This kind of participation trophy thinking had fully positive intentions, and there is no question that people thinking this way were very sweet and thoughtful and considerate and kind.
There were some people in America who resisted participation trophy thinking by saying that it was only rewarding mediocrity, and that giving only participation trophies did not reward the children who had worked the hardest to strive for excellence.
However, despite some debates against it, participation trophy thinking became the norm in America as most people did not resist participation trophy thinking because they were outnumbered.
For example, there is only one set of parents whose child would have been awarded the MVP trophy. While all the other parents had children on the team who would be happy about receiving the participation trophies, and their children might be disappointed if they did not get awarded the MVP trophy.
Therefore, the one set of parents whose child would have won the MVP trophy stayed quiet and did not complain because they did not want to look selfish, and because they did not want to spoil the happiness of all the other children.
Likewise, the parents of the children whose team won the League championship were outnumbered by the parents of the children on all the teams in the League that did not win the championship.
Therefore, the parents of the children whose team won the championship would usually stay quiet about not getting a championship trophy because they did not want to look selfish, and because they did not want to spoil the happiness of the children on all the other teams who were getting their participation trophies.
As the years have gone on, this same very sweet and thoughtful and considerate and kind participation trophy thinking has spread beyond childhood sports teams into many more areas of Life.
For example, in school academics it used to be that there was one valedictorian of a high school who graduated with an unweighted grade point average of probably between 3.85 to 4.0, and this one valedictorian was an amazingly intelligent and extremely hard-working student.
However, in our current high schools, the grading has become so much softer and nicer now that many of our high schools can no longer choose a valedictorian at graduation because the schools have 40 to 50 students who are all graduating with a perfect 4.0 for their entire four-year high school careers.
The 40 to 50 students with 4.0 GPA’s are often as many as 25% of the students in their entire graduating class. These 25% of students all have a perfect 4.0 GPA for their entire high school careers, which means that all these students received an A grade in every class they ever took at their school for four years.
If a school is only giving A grades when students achieve the level of excellence that an A grade is supposed to represent, then having 40 to 50 youngsters getting A grades in every class they ever took for four years is obviously not logical or realistic.
Had the schools graded harder, like schools used to do until a couple of decades ago, then there would have been one of these 40-50 students who ended up with the highest grade point average because he or she would have been the most outstanding student and would have worked the hardest.
However, just as with the children’s sports teams, the one set of parents whose child was the most outstanding student in school is outnumbered because there are 40 to 50 other sets of parents who liked the easier grading since their 40-50 children all get to graduate as a co-Valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
Therefore, the one set of parents whose child had worked the hardest in school did not want to look selfish by complaining about how easy the grading at the school had been that cost their child the valedictorian recognition.
In addition, the grading scale in high schools and colleges has even changed.
It used to be that the grading scale for schools was 93-100 for an A, 85-92 for a B, 78-84 for a C, 70-77 for a D, and below 70 was failing.
Now the grading scale in most high schools and colleges is 90-100 for an A, 80-89 for a B, 70-79 for a C, 60-69 for a D, and below 60 is failing.
Therefore, it used to be that a 90 was a B, and a 70 was the very lowest D minus that you could get. Now a 90 is an A instead of a B, actually probably anything 88 or above is an A because of the desire for a teacher to be a nice and thoughtful by rounding up grades. And a 70 is now a C instead of a D minus.
If anyone wants to guess whether this softer school system grading has been beneficial for children, the facts are that America used to have the very best education system in the world.
However, now America is ranked 37th in the world, and we have some major cities that do not have a single student who meets the acceptable standard for Math or English on the national standardized tests.
Therefore, having 40-50 students with perfect 4.0 grade point averages is not supported by the lower level of academic excellence that is being taught in our schools, and so the only logical answer is that schools have drifted into a participation trophy thinking where the schools have reduced their grading standards to keep students and parents happy by rewarding students for less than the excellence that an A grade is supposed to represent.
This same softening and inflation of grades is occurring at colleges and universities.
For example, even Yale and Harvard have been giving A grades to 80% of their students in recent years, which displays this participation trophy thinking at what are considered our highest academic institutions.
In addition, these grades have been climbing for the past decade as Harvard gave A grades to 60% of their students in 2011, but A grades to 80% of their students ten years later in 2021.
In recent years, this participation trophy thinking has expanded into our criminal justice system, and again it is very sweet and thoughtful and considerate and kind thinking because people who think in a participation trophy way want to be kind to everyone.
It is very kind that they want to be thoughtful and give every person a second chance, or a third chance, or a tenth chance.
I greatly admire this kind and considerate thinking, and we need more people in our World who think about each other in such a thoughtful way.
However, just because it is kind and thoughtful thinking does not mean that it is correct thinking that results in the best outcomes.
One reason it does not result in the best outcomes is because we also should be sweet and thoughtful and considerate and kind to all the victims who have been hurt by crime.
We cannot show so much favoritism toward people who commit crime that we are not thoughtful and kind to the victims of crime.
However, the victims of crime have been somewhat silenced by a society that has moved almost entirely into participation trophy thinking.
Just like how the parents of a child who would have won the MVP award could not complain about the participation trophies without looking selfish, just like how parents of a child on a championship team could not complain when participation trophies were given out to every child in the League instead of championship trophies being given to only the winning team’s players, and just like how the parents of the most outstanding and hardest-working high school student could not complain about not getting the valedictorian award without looking selfish, for the past few years the normal citizen has been afraid to complain about the criminal justice system because then they would be called names and be accused of being selfish.
As we have often discussed throughout our Policies, the truth and the solution are always in the middle between the two viewpoints.
The solution in the middle in our crime situation is that we cannot focus all our attention on being kind to the people who cause crime, while ignoring the victims of crime, and we also have to be fully committed to creating and redesigning our criminal justice system and prison system so that we help people who have committed crime to get their Lives back on the right path.
In conclusion, as we look back through the past 20 years, participation trophy thinking has not been productive or successful in motivating children to work their hardest in their sports, it has not been productive or successful in getting high school and college students to learn the most and achieve their highest potential academically, and it is currently not in any way being productive in motivating people who have made criminal mistakes to correct their behavior and begin to follow the rules and the laws.
These are all examples of the fact that accepting and rewarding mediocre or below mediocre behavior does not inspire youngsters, it does not inspire adults, and it does not inspire our Fellow Americans who have gotten into trouble to Achieve the Greatness that each of them has Inside of Themselves.
To Achieve Greatness, and to Win Championships, You Have To Be Willing To Outwork Everyone Else.
Likewise, to get your Life back on track you have to be willing to work harder than you were before to change your behavior and get yourself back onto the correct path in your Life.
Participation trophy thinking on its own does not work because it does not inspire people to Greatness, and it does not inspire people to change their incorrect behavior.
However, utilizing this same sweet and thoughtful and considerate and kind thinking that is a part of participation trophy thinking, combined with Loving Positive Reinforcement to strengthen You to BELIEVE in yourself, combined with Motivation to energize You to work hard, combined with Inspiration to embolden You to Achieve your Very Highest Potential, and combined with the Enthusiasm and Encouragement to inspire You to BELIEVE In Yourself as The Amazing Person You Are Who Can Achieve Your Lifetime Dreams, is exactly what we need in our childhood sports, exactly what we need in our high schools and in our colleges, and exactly what we need in our criminal justice and prison systems.
Our two Focus areas must be for us to reduce crime, and for us to also help people who have committed crimes to get their Lives back on track.
For us to achieve success in both of these focus areas requires us to move forward with two initiatives.
First, we need to have a firm criminal justice system that protects society by putting people into jail when they commit a serious crime. This is the only way that we can protect our American people from crime, and it is the only way that we can deter people from committing crimes.
Just like participation trophies do not inspire people to achieve Greatness, allowing people to repeatedly commit crimes without being required to change their behavior does not inspire Greatness, either.
Our second initiative, that we create at the same time for the benefit of our people who have been put in prison, is that we need to completely reform our criminal justice and prison systems because if a person gets put into jail and does nothing but waste time in there, then they are going to be in a worse situation when they get out of jail than they were when they went in.
If they waste their time in prison, then when they come out, they are not going to have developed any personal skills that will benefit them for their future.
And without their development of any new skills, then they are going to have even less job opportunities when they come out of prison, especially because they will now be burdened with a criminal record.
Therefore, just as the crime data shows, a very large number of people coming out of prison have ended up committing another crime, resulting in them being put back into prison again.
The reason people go to prison is because they have made a mistake, and the reason they have made a mistake is because they got onto the wrong path, either because the situation they grew up in had put them in a difficult position, or because they got themselves onto the wrong path on their own.
Therefore, our prison system should be designed as both a personal self-development school and as a career trade school, where inmates can develop new Personal skills and Career skills they can utilize to improve their Lives.
Personal skills and Career skills they can utilize to obtain an excellent job when they leave the prison.
The new prison system we will create includes:
- Teaching the inmates improved reading and math skills.
- Getting inmates their GED high school diplomas if they do not have a high school degree.
- Teaching the inmates money management and financial planning skills, and awarding them with a Diploma for our Financial Literacy Program that we are going to implement nationwide and offer for free for every American, because these financial skills will be very beneficial for them in their personal Lives and in their careers.
- Teaching them computer skills, resume building, and job application skills.
- Helping them to develop their public speaking and presentation skills because this is very important in Life and for career success.
- Encouraging them to learn about different religions and become more involved with whichever religion they are most interested in.
- Teaching them and awarding them with a Diploma for our Business Education Program that we are going to implement nationwide and offer for free for all Americans, which will provide every inmate with the knowledge to start and be successful owning their own Business.
- Before they leave prison, teaching them driving skills, and getting them their driver’s license if they do not have a license so they will be able to drive to their new job, if necessary.
- Before they leave prison, providing them with a nice suit, or a sport coat and dress pants for them to wear to their job interviews and for special occasions.
- Before they leave prison, helping them to go through the job application process so they learn the best ways to apply for a job in the future.
- Having them be accepted for a job they applied for, a job that they will begin as soon as they leave prison.
By following Our Plan, we will turn our prisons into personal development schools that will develop our inmates in very beneficial ways that most of them will have never had the opportunity to develop.
Our Philosophy for America will be that our prisons are now one of our schools that will help our People who have gotten off their Life Path to get back onto their Life Path.
Our People are going to be inside the prison, and so instead of them wasting this time, we are going to have them take advantage of this time so that together we can Improve and Rebuild Their Lives.
Everyone is deserving of a Second Chance, but for anyone to turn a Second Chance into a Success then they have to be willing to work for it.
If an inmate works very hard, and if they make excellent progress in their personal development, then they will be granted early release from prison.
Therefore, our inmates are going to be very motivated to work hard to Rebuild Their Lives.
The personal self-development and skills they Achieve in prison will fill them with Pride, possibly for the first time in their Lives, and they will leave prison as positively changed men and women.
They will be on their Life’s Path again, and on their way to Achieve their Life’s Purpose.
It will be Beautiful because their Personal Development will be a Winning solution for Everyone.
Our inmates will benefit from their Personal Development, our American people will benefit by being safer, and America will benefit because we will have new and changed People who are Very Valuable and Contribute Greatly to Our Country.
This situation reminds me of when I was a college professor.
As a head coach for more than 15 years in three sports, my favorite part of being a head coach was when I was in front of the team and I could talk to my players about Life, about Belief in Themselves, about Motivation, about Facing and Overcoming Challenges, about Work Ethic, about Commitment, and about all the Life Lessons that I Loved So Much to talk with them about.
As a head coach, these opportunities for me to talk to the team as a group occurred in the dressing room before a game, at halftime, after a game, before practice, and after practice.
I Absolutely Loved these Moments, but as a head coach I only had five or ten minutes each time to talk with my players about Life, and about Life’s Lessons, because we either had a game to play or a practice field waiting for us.
But when I became a college professor, then I had my students in my classroom for an hour at a time, and even for an hour and a half in classes that were on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
My students needed to be in class, and so I had them right where I wanted them.
With an hour or an hour and a half in each class, and three class periods in each course every week, then I always found time to fit in All the Valuable Life Lessons I Wanted To Talk With Them About.
I really cherished those class periods with my students, and I prayed every morning that I would somehow be able to make a positive difference in the Lives of my Students that Day.
Our new prisons would have this same advantage that my classrooms did because our inmates in prison would have to be in class, even more than my students in college had to be.
Therefore, we are being given a Fantastic Opportunity to Change These Prisoners’ Lives, and we have been Blessed With This Opportunity To Help Each Of Them To Get Back Onto Their Life’s Path.
I am Extremely Excited about us Transforming our Prison System in this way because I Love Teaching and Education, Especially When Great Education Positively Changes Lives.
To Think About The Millions of Lives We Are Going To Bless and Change Is Spiritual and Beyond Emotional.
All of our inmates are someone’s son or daughter who Loves them very much.
Our inmates have gotten themselves off track, but we are giving them a Second Chance.
And not just a pretend second chance like our participation trophy system is doing now, where they are currently being let back out of prison in a worse situation than they were in when they went to prison.
Instead, we are actually Changing Their Lives For The Better, and so we are giving them a Real Second Chance that will Greatly Benefit Them, that will Greatly Benefit Their Children, and that will Greatly Benefit Their Partners.
Their Parents will also Greatly Benefit and Be Very Happy that Their Children are being given a Second Opportunity to Achieve Success and Happiness in Their Lives.
We Will Have Built A World That Protects Our Children From Crime.
And at the same time, We Will Have Built A World That Truly Gives Our Children A Real Second Chance to Learn From Their Mistakes, to Develop Themselves To Reach the Greatness that is Within Them, and to Achieve An incredibly Successful And Tremendous Life.
