Merit

A controversy arose over Jill Biden's suggestion that the top two teams from women's basketball be invited to the White House. This is how embedded the idea of equity is in her mind but people who are all in on equity are not so when it comes to sports. The history of our country is based on meritocracy which means we have winners and losers. It's the belief that if you work hard and smart you can achieve the American dream. It's called the work ethic. There are many who start with certain disadvantages and others who have a heads up but everyone can succeed. Examples abound of people who started with little or nothing and succeeded. One of the best starts is having parents who love you and instill in you the value of work but even here there are many examples of kids who come from dysfunctional homes and become winners and there are examples of kids who come from the best conditions and still go astray. Even kids raised in the same family can grow up and be winners and losers. We try to make the playing field more level and that helps, things like scholarships. We tried affirmative action and that helped some but it hurt others. There are many examples of more qualified candidates being passed over because they couldn't check the right boxes. These things swing back and forth. We spent years moving away from segregation and achieved a good standard of integration and now we are moving back toward segregation. One thing that can help is education but the country is not doing a very good job. Its not because the country is not trying but they just can't seem to find the answer.