Counterfeits: Competition

   Exploring this area of how we use words, there is a very important counterfeit which equates competition with fighting.  The proponents of this counterfeit, sadly, are in responsible positions in our government and educational institutions.  At some universities, for example, the grading process for assessing academic success has been replaced by a simple pass-fail judgment.  In many of our public schools, athletic activites for children like soccer are no longer scored so that there are no winners or losers.
   But a little closer look at these two words yields a huge disconnect between the two.  Competition is a rational exercise which strives to improve a person's abilities in the desired area.  This could be physical as in swimming, baseball, football, track, volleyball, etc. or it could be mental as in business, math, writing, medicine, and a whole host of intellectual activities.  In any case, contests between individuals or teams that are competitive have no losers.  The team which wins has demonstrated that their preparedness was superior to the other teams.  The team which did not win has learned something very imortant about their own preparedness, and when these teams meet again, the outcome might be different.
   But the salient point here is that none of the people involved in this competition were angry!  They might have been disappointed, but the driving force behind their actions was not anger but a determination to be better.
   Conversely, fighting is encouraged by a futile attempt to short-circuit the process of attainment and violently take the things that the person was not prepared to compete for. 
   Consider the rhetoric of the fighting proponents who rail at the "rich," and talk about taking their money to give to the "poor."  These politicians do "community organizing" to fan this anger and focus it upon forging political power.  Our children, who have been taught by our public shools that they cannot compete for financial success, are fair game for this anger as they grow into adulthood with no marketable skills and find themselves poor and dependent.
   If one wants to find the well-spring of the epidemic of violence that has swept our country, look no further than the three generations of children who have been taught that they cannot compete for jobs and that people who have jobs are somehow to blame for their poverty.  It is therfore justified to rob them. 
   Enter the politician who offers to rob the "rich" on behalf of these "poor" people and you have discovered recipe used by the political left to attain power.
   How about it, seekers?  Can we teach our kids to hone their skills for future success or do we continue to trust the poverty brokers with our kids' - and, ultimately our nations' - future?