Conservatives have vanquished their longtime foe Hillary Clinton and are looking for new enemies to take down. What will it be? Welfare cheats? Immigration reform? Abortion?
To judge by my Facebook feed, conservatives have turned their collective will to defeating a much more pernicious evil: the participation trophy.
Setting aside the obvious point that criticizing children for receiving a participation trophy is akin to the IRS scolding you for filling out too many forms at tax time, let me ask a heretical question: What’s wrong with getting a participation trophy?
Oh, how much better my life would have been if I had been shown a jot of kindness from my elders and been trophie’d for participating.
Being not the fastest child or the smartest or the best-looking or popular, not being kind or well-liked, not possessing athletic skill of any sort or being good with my hands, or being a reliable worker or steady in any way, winning was sorely out of my reach.
Really, the only thing I ever could do passably well was to “participate” in things. And, frankly, without participants like me all the rest of you winners don’t have anyone to beat.
Anyway, it’s not like anyone would be under the impression that I had, God forbid, won something, been good at anything.
If I had been given trophies for all my years of participation, maybe my self-esteem would be better, and I would not have ended up a middle-aged man hiding behind a microphone, giving it away for free once a month on public radio.
I’m Dan Libman, that’s my perspective.
