Self-Esteem Movement Has Wrecked This Country

As I sat through another interminable middle school award ceremony that lasted longer than the contest itself, I pondered how the self-esteem movement has wrecked this country. I had plenty of time since well-meaning adults were handing out participation medals to every eager participant.

This current financial calamity is the logical result of the self-esteem movement. Don't get me wrong, I think self-esteem is wonderful when sprung from a healthy self-image and buoyed by real accomplishments. But like diversity, it is worthless when pursued for its own sake.

Presidents Clinton and Bush were full of self-esteem as terrorists plotted the 9/11 attacks under the noses of our clueless but confident alphabet soup bureaucracies. The attacks themselves dented no one's esteem. Richard Clarke was the only government official to feel any blame and apologize as far as I can remember. President Bush awarded CIA Director George Tenant a medal for crying out loud!

Politicians of all all stripes are arrogant and proud as interest on the national debt and entitlement spending slowly, blob-like, consume the federal budget. And now the private sector and state governments follow suit with stumblebum mismanagement that has wrecked the nation's economy. Finally, individual citizens soil themselves after gorging on credit, new cars and McMansions. And mommy government will pick them up and clean them off. Don't want them to feel bad...

Like spoiled children in a no-fault world, this endless chain of fools lines up to receive participation prizes. Congress responds by creating the Federal Failure Reward Package on the advice of the same geniuses who caused the debacle.

This is how unbridled, unwarranted self-esteem destroys a culture that once believed in personal responsibility, thrift and self-reliance.

Outside of our military, self-esteem is turning this country into a colossal failure. Our car manufacturers are going broke while Japanese companies move in and make a profit, on our soil, with American workers. This shows that the average American still knows how to work and achieve, but our leaders and managers are egotistical losers too stupid to leverage it. What has any government agency or public enterprise done right in the last 8, 16, 20 years?

I could give a damn whether our next president is the messiah or the anti-Christ; all I want is competence from my government and our public institutions. If that's too much to ask, could they at least stop rewarding failure?

It's high time that people who screw up got the good old-fashioned ego-destroying, a$$-kicking they deserve.

Did you lose a billion dollars today? Then your self-esteem should be crappy, and by the way, you're fired!

Bought more house and more car than you can afford? Looks like you may need to find a cardboard box underneath the interstate off-ramp. Your fellow citizens won't be paying for your stupidity.

You're a failure. Want a self-esteem builder? You can start by cleaning up your own mess. Our nation is out of balance: We have a surplus of self-esteem and a deficit of personal responsibility. Third-world countries are made of this.

Narcissism is a contagious mental disease and the self-esteem movement attempts to actively spread it. Vanity always occurs with envy. They are related. It’s the envy the socialists need to gain more power.

Can i get a trophy just for reading this thread, even though I lost a lot of money in my 401(k)?

I need something to feel good about myself, just for playing along.

Self-Esteem Movement Has Wrecked This Country

No kidding.

We've gone from the Judeo-Christian of "not thinking too much
of ones-self"...to a secular-humanist ideal of self-centered
egotistical self-appraisal.
In just a generation or so.

I suspect the "ego-strength" of the poor children going through
today's average public school...
is probably higher than that of other self-exalting groups of
the past century, e.g.,
1. The Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)
2. Young Pioneers (of the USSR)
3. Pol Pot's young Cambodian enforcers.

What a plan for future misery.

His energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary, was visiting an energy plant and inquired why the workers' badges were of different colors. On being told that the colors represented different levels of security clearance, the good secretary insisted that practice stop and all badges be the same color so that no-one felt "inferior".

I had to look that one up. Astounding!

Other O'Leary changes included redesigning identification badges at DOE facilities to "minimize" the apparent differences between security-clearance levels and between federal employees and private contractors. Apparently the secretary objected to the badge designations because they "labeled" people.

From here.

I may feel angry, sad, happy or whatever. The important thing is to recognize the reason why I am feeling such and such (especially the negative feelings) and more imprtantly, what am I doing (or not doing) in response to those feelings.

These days, people also seem to feel an obligation to "diagnose" others, pointing out their weak points (for their own good). People around them seem to enjoy witnessing the analysis and the examiner seems to win some sort of "Badge of Honor" for being so helpful (er, blunt). Example.: American idol, Survivor, The Big Break (Golf Channel), etc. TV Shows in which people verbally abuse each other are all the rage.I remember when we used to try to be nice and overlook peoples' shortcomings. Now, "being nice", is itself considered a shortcoming.

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