Great game...Who won?

Charles Darwin, in "Origin Of The Species" suggestion that an element of evolution is the idea that the strongest will survive, and that the weakest will fall. According to Darwin, our very DNA suggests that there is an innate inequality that reinforces our individualism.

I sometimes wonder about individualism. I wonder if we truly have any individuals left. Nobody ever just dances anymore. People line up to do the "Electric Slide", a mindless, repetitive group dance that shows no creativity at all. The stupid thing has been around since 1990, and it's still happening. I'm glad I don't DJ anymore. The tattoo and piercing craze? Not individualistic if everyone's doing it. I digress.

Conservatives are starting to rally against Obama's ideas of leveling the playing field. The notion that we are our brother's keeper doesn't sit too well with hard-working Americans who all of a sudden are told that all they have worked for needs to be shared with the deadbeat next door, just because you have it and he doesn't. The idea isn't new. Underachievers (and their parents) have worked hard to level that field for eons.

Do you remember a ways back when some schools all of a sudden decided that they were going to discontinue the position of validictorian and salutatorian because it flaunted success in front of students who were less successful? Then later the news came out that some schools were going to be changing their grading policies because to give a student an "A" in front of another who received a "D" was cruel and unfair. Cruel and unfair? I still fail to understand why the student who studied and took school seriously should have to apologize for doing better than the one who got stoned in the graveyard the night before the quiz and crashed on the couch with his hand in a bag of Doritos rather than cracking his text book open and at least giving it a look.

Youth sports are following the trend in places around the nation, asking the kids not to keep score. So, you have the team that is organized and practiced and well coached battling the next team that may not be as so. Yet, the second team agreed to play the better team and live with the consequences of that decision. Every year Michigan decides they want to go ahead an play the Buckeyes despite the fact they know they're going to come away looking like the absolute abortion they are. The Wolverines play like the rest of Michigan drives - sloppy! I digress.

I watched a talk show tonight on which Keisha Knight-Pulliam (Rudy on the Cosby Show) was interviewed, and she was asked the secret of Tyler Perry's success. She said that she didn't know when the guy ever slept. She said that he was a hard-worker. She said that because of his dedication that he deserved the success he is receiving.

So, because he's dedicated and hard-working, he deserves that success. Is she also saying that people who aren't dedicated and hard-working don't deserve the same success?

We are all wired differently. Some of us have that special something that drives them to succeed. Other's don't. There's an old saying, "we reap what we sow". It's from the Bible. If I'm doing all the reaping and the sowing, the dude who isn't helping with the harvest sure as hell doesn't deserve any of the yield. Will I give him some? I might - but it should be my choice, not a mandate.

A losing team knows how to level the playing field. They practice, they change their leadership, they start to mimic the plays of the team that beat them... they work to improve. They work to deserve the win. It's not just handed to them. To be told that my hard work will be rewarding those who have not earned the rewards themselves is welfare, and it's anti-evolution for the people involved. No one evolves into something greater because there's no incentive to do so.

So - I'm going to continue to beat the pants off the rest of my family on the Wii because I know it will make them want to practice and eventually beat me. When they do, I'll practice and clobber them again. The little award ceremony will happen and I'll be on the top block doing flips and smiling big. Similarly, I'm still going to do my best to succeed in my business, and when I do I 'll hire people to enjoy a portion of that success - because, by golly, they're going to earn it.

And that's the way I see it.