In yet another bad decision, an education administrator asked me to give a high school commencement speech.
He must know I write a column; he obviously hasn't read it.
When I questioned his wisdom, the principal said, "Just give the kids some sound graduation advice."
I asked, "Should I tell them I hear the Monsanto plant is hiring?"
"No," said the edu-crat. “Encourage them. Tell them they can do anything.”
"So I should lie? Have you seen most of these kids? They can’t do anything.” Most think Sharia law is a no-nonsense, daytime TV judge show.
That’s the problem. Kids are getting pie-in-the-sky advice and, judging by obesity rates, they are also eating the pie.
Should I turn into Maya Angelou and tell entitled kids who graduated because of grade inflation, who think Mao Tse-Tung is the Asian equivalent of French kissing, who don’t read newspapers and who can’t find Syria on a map, that they can do anything? Or would a healthy dose of reality be preferable?
Guess which one I am going with.
Students should prepare for a job. Maybe instead of taking the fifth field trip to the Trail of Tears site, do one to learn about real jobs in the area they might want. Let them attend more Take Your Children to Work days — unless their parents work in the adult film business. That’d just be awkward.
John Maloney is right about the misinformation we get as kids. Growing up, I really thought from watching TV cartoons that quicksand was going to be a bigger problem than it turned out to be. I was not prepared for real-life problems, like relatives who want to borrow money.
The top 5 percent of students in that class do not need me telling them they can do anything. They get it. The damage comes in pandering to the bottom half of the class who are led to believe, “Just be yourselves and the world is your oyster.” They then say, “Why trade school? I’m told I’m the best white rapper in Calhoun County.”
That sort of coddling false confidence is why half of American workers are unhappy and disappointed when they have to work hard at something. They inevitably view themselves as "victims" (a.k.a. Democrats). Intuition tempts us to call this “compassion,” which is really feel-good lies fed to kids that take the onus off them and put the blame on others. It becomes a perpetual excuse.
Boys go to work out of school and are blindsided by reality. They never know what hit them; it’s like marrying a Kardashian.
Unrealistic expectations may be the reason suicide rates are up among middle-aged Americans, now outnumbering automobile accident deaths. Suicides among whites rose 40 percent from 1999 to 2010. This is the generation of ninth-place "participation" ribbon recipients who post a picture of the sandwich they had for lunch on Facebook. They confuse any effort with success, and their parents often don’t have the guts to let their kids face consequences.
Students are victims of a giant fraud: the government-run education system that has molded them for 12 gullible years. Public schools are government-run; teachers are government-hired; and government determines standards, pay, curricula and graduation requirements. Government seeks to produce compliant citizens it can someday rule without much pushback. Smart, independent thinkers are not wanted. Blowing smoke up your graduation gown serves government well.
The result is kids who are not prepared for life or for the workforce. Twenty million young "adults" between ages 18 and 34 still live at home with their parents.
Members of the Greatest Generation were saving Europe from the Nazis at age 19 and asking nothing in return. Now, kids stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 27. Kids are voting for socialist Bernie Sanders in droves, scared to death they may have to pay for something some day.
They have been conditioned to believe that hard work is for chumps. "Why work? The government or my parents will take care of me." Kids watch reality TV shows like “The Deadliest Catch” and marvel at men who work hard each day.
Few schools teach lessons on the value of hard work, ingenuity, gumption and entrepreneurship.
Teachers today spend more time helping students decide which bathroom they “most identify with” using, rather than which job they should prepare for to support a family.
We need to start teaching the tenets of economics so kids will stop being tenants in their parents’ basements.
Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or tweet@RonaldHart.
!—HUB NOTE: IGNORE BELOW—-
By Ron Hart
An Emory University degree just went down in value — again.
I’ve never been a fan of any Emory undergrad I’ve met. Emory is an expensive, whiny Northern rich kid’s college. Around Atlanta, its graduates are called "Em-roids" because of their entitled attitude — and they just proved why.
Emory students and their president are all in a prissy tizzy because there might be one or more Trump supporters on campus. When someone wrote in chalk “Trump 2016” around the campus, the school was all but locked down. Students cried and said they felt “unsafe.” They chanted protests to the president: “You are not listening! Come speak to us; we are in pain.” The president immediately had the admissions office look into how a Republican was admitted to Emory.
Responding to their Em-roid-rage, he then sent out a letter saying that he felt their pain. These princesses were offered grief counseling for the worst trauma of their lives: seeing Trump’s name.
The students then went into the Emory quad and played hacky sack (with helmets for safety) because it just felt right.
I never trust a college that doesn’t have a football team.
The First Amendment has died a slow death on college campuses, strangled over time by their left-wing bureaucracies. If our Founding Fathers came back to life today, they would (after visiting New York's Times Square theater district to catch the musical "Hamilton") be appalled at this Emory thing.
Campuses were supposed to be places where ideas are debated. Today, they are where opposing speech is labeled “hate” and shut down. Many college campuses cannot stand the idea of free speech unless it is speech they agree with; if they do not like what is said, they seek to silence the speaker.
The whole idea of free speech is that people are allowed to say things you do not agree with.
This weak millennial generation got participation trophies and expects us to applaud and positively reinforce the little they do. Jugglers, street mimes and community theater actors need applause; real leaders don’t. I cannot imagine Generals Patton or Eisenhower putting up with this. I just hope this generation does not have to go to war.
We know the left on college campuses love Bernie Sanders and hate Donald Trump. At a recent college campus rally, a woman took her top off, saying "Vote for Bernie Sanders." She also made a nasty anti-Trump gesture. Men in attendance who watched her said she made two compelling points.
Sanders has the love of the narcissistic millennials who are not good at economics. (which means all millennials?). To them, Sanders is a rock star. What is amazing is that he is the first person revered by this generation without a single nude selfie posted on social media.
And why do millennials always want to take selfies or film everything — even sex — that they do? I’m just the opposite. When I am done with sex I think to myself, "Well, at least no one had to see that."
The Emory kerfuffle came during the same week as the bad optics of President Obama doing the tango in Argentina while ISIS bombed Belgium and Iraq.
We may look weak and feckless as a world power these days, but we are still the world’s undisputed superpower when it comes to televised dance contests.
Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or tweet@RonaldHart.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HART: A reality check for millennials
