Guest columnist: Bring back great American expectations

FPI / February 5, 2023

Commentary by Ann Schockett

A recent Gallup Poll indicates that more than 50 percent of Americans have little or no trust in government. Understandably so with the economy on the brink of a recession, people illegally storming the southern border, serious crime on the rise, and prices at the gas pumps to the grocery stores subjecting us to sticker shock.

One could say that the plan of the Biden administration is that they have no plan or, if there is one, that it is nefarious.

Political posturing and gamesmanship rule the day, and we Americans are victims of a government run amok. America’s debt has grown astronomically over the past two years and now we are facing a possible government shutdown.

President Ronald Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” It has become more apparent that Reagan was absolutely correct.

Why should we, the American people, accept this? After all the government is working for us. We all need to roll up our sleeves.<b></b>

In today’s society, instead of raising the bar and accountability, we have become a nation of mediocrity.

Egregious acts are brushed aside, and worse, the criminal justice system has become a revolving door for offenders at all levels. It starts and ends with the direction and messaging espoused by current Washington bureaucrats and the Biden administration.

The mantra of the mediocre is ‘equity.’ We’re being force fed the idea that lowering the bar in education, hiring, college admission and so on will create a more ‘equitable’ and ‘fair’ society. This is a flat-out falsehood. We’ve become sloppy and lazy as a nation.

The sad reality is that being American no longer requires one’s best effort and that we not often enough extol those who rise above and support those who want to. Just examine our educational system.

Students are pushed from grade school through high school graduation by eliminating standard testing, lowering passing grades, and worse, eliminating programs for students that excel academically. This all began well before the Covid lockdowns, although Covid accelerated the decline of the academic system.

The hardest hit were inner city youth and the economically disadvantaged. We will reap the damage in the years to come.

Our national credo has been based on “American Exceptionalism”. Unfortunately, that term arouses the ire of the Left and progressives who wrongly believe that it implies some sort of superiority cloaking it in a negative aura, and they would have you believe to strive for excellence is a crime.

America is at a crossroads. One path leads to a further deterioration of our society and off a cliff never to rebound. The other leads to a renewed vigor and effort to return to the cherished values of individualism, equality, liberty, self-reliance, and an abiding hope for the future.

Edward James Olmos, in the movie “Stand and Deliver”, said, “Students will rise to the level of expectation.” It’s time for America to raise its expectations.

Ann Schockett is immediate past president, National Federation of Republican Women

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