OPINION: Why doesn't U.S. reward success instead of shaming it?

As the father of five kids who consistently achieve A+ academic results, I have to confess... I feel kind of guilty.

Its just not fair that my kids have done so well.

My oldest is a flight attendant for Delta Airlines, one is a teacher at Whitefish Christian Academy and the other three are going into the medical profession.

How did impoverished children growing up in rural Montana manage to be so successful without affirmative action to overcome all the systemic unfairness imposed upon them as a minority?

Like I said, they grew up “privileged.”

They were “privileged” to do chores like cutting, splitting and stacking firewood as well as laboring in the fields. If one of them slacked off, it was never tolerated for very long. But probably the biggest privilege they had growing up was having parents that were invested in their success. As a result, my hapless children were “unfairly” denied a public school education in order to learn how to read, write and study at home in Japanese.

Yes, it’s true. But what is really horribly unfair about all this unfairness is that my children were not only home-schooled, their mother taught them how to study math, science and English grammar just like they do in Japan.

Success starts at home, not at school. Parents, if you are not invested in your kids’ success, then don’t blame anyone else if they fail. American teens rank a dismal 28th in math and science, while kids from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea are at the top.

In New York City schools, Asians make up only 13 percent of students, yet they outperform all other ethnic groups. Amazingly, one school district in New Jersey produces students with perfect SAT scores, consistently wins top prizes in international science competitions and has more admissions to MIT than any other school district in that state.

Do they have some “unfair advantage” over other school districts? Yes, the school district in question is (gasp!) 65 percent Asian. It should come as no surprise then, that in the socialist utopia of America, blame and scorn are being heaped on Asian students for being “too successful.”

Excuse for a moment while I punch myself in the face and laugh out loud to feel slightly better about myself just long enough to be distracted yet again by more news that America is imploding.

You just cant make this stuff up.

Asians believe that high grades and hard work are keys to a better life, not equal opportunity government imposed mediocrity. But instead of taking a page out of the Asian smart-parenting playbook, non-Asian parents are up in arms because their kids can’t compete. So now they want to give students a more “holistic” approach to learning.

Excuse me again while I wipe away tears.

That all sounds so nice and “fair” until you realize “holistic” is the affirmative action euphemism Harvard uses now to limit the number of Asians accepted in favor of, yup... you guessed it.

Non-Asians.

Why is it that there is no outrage against the socialist minders of our defunct “education system” for producing decades of academic failure? Its bad enough that failure is now the new standard of “success,” but pitting race against race to demonize a real success story is symptomatic of a much greater sickness in America.

School authorities and non-Asian parents in New York City now want to rig the system not only to “help” their kids, but to also hold Asian students back. What kind of a perverse reverse Pavlovian country rewards failure and punishes success just to feel better about itself?

Answer: Obama’s America.

Got failure, America? Look no further than Michelle Obama’s gastronomically challenged school lunch program. In six years of teaching in Tokyo, I never saw one high school student throw away a lunch, because lunches in Japan — and I know this may come as a shock — are actually healthy and taste good. I also grew organic vegetables for five years in Japan and demand for our vegetables outstripped supply for everything we grew. Why? Because like education, the Japanese also put a high value on what they consume.

When Japan was rebuilding its shattered country after World War II, they sent workers from all industries to America in the 1950s and ’60s to learn from us and replicate American success. With all Michelle Obama’s globe trotting on the taxpayers’ dime, how is it that she never visited Japan to find out what a real school lunch even tastes like?

That would never happen today in America because we are a much dumber country now thanks to decades of politically correct brainwashing. Stupid is as stupid does. Our national arrogance doesn’t allow us to try to replicate success from other cultures. Instead, we condemn success as “unfair” and reward stupidity even as we force feed our kids a steady diet of toxic socialist blather dictated by an arrogant class of power hungry elitists.

What is the cost of subsidizing failure as we continue to dumb our children down to the lowest common denominator of mind-numbing fascist propaganda?

Even more stupidity.

If we as a nation and as a culture no longer understand where greatness, success and achievement come from, then we are doomed to blame everyone else for our own stupidity.

Robert Seymour is a resident of Kalispell.