In a recent column, George Will offered a profile on the president of Purdue University and former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. Mr. Daniels gave a commencement speech at Purdue. His address shines a light on the current political season.
He stated that diplomas pronounce the recipient is a bachelor of this or a master of that. But what is more important is that employers know that diplomas tell little about the recipient's readiness for work or for life. This is important because diplomas can bestow credentials that are not credible and many studies show that happiness comes from, as Daniels said, "earned success." This, many times, requires effort to surmount setbacks. And yet, one of the most persistent beliefs today is that life is more or less a lottery.
Six days prior to Daniels' speech Obama told graduates at Howard University: "Yes you worked hard, but you have also been lucky. That's a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don't realize they have been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn't nothing you did."
Nothing? Hence the progressive agenda: Government must regulate, redistribute and manage society to create fairness to offset life's pervasive randomness a.k.a luck. Obama's words are, of course, in line with his 2012 statement that "if you have a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Daniels also said, "I hope you will tune out anyone who, from this day on, tries to tell you that your achievements are not your own. I am not saying that luck never plays a part; of course it can." But, unless it is bad luck, "it almost never decides life's outcome."
Although luck plays a role in the lives of most people, you can move the odds in your favor by common sense behavior, making good choices and working hard.
However, what I liked most about Daniels' speech are the quotes he shared:
from Thomas Edison, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
from Samuel Goldwyn the movie pioneer, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
from Frederick Douglass, "We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is work."
And one of my favorites, source unknown, "luck is where opportunity and hard work meet."
Progressives understand that their government-centered society is convincing the more people believe that work - individual effort- does not lead to success. Thus, government grows as despair grows, and that continues as progressivism instills in people the demoralizing belief that they are victims of circumstance.
"Even more absurd" Daniels said, than the idea that life is just a lottery is the idea that "most of us are victims of some kind, and therefore in desperate need of others to protect us against a world of predators and against our own gullibility."
Daniels words to that graduating class explain why the current presidential campaign offers little. Hillary is a progressive committed to large government to remove luck from our lives and to distribute equity to all the "victims", meaning to everyone. Trump comes across as a whiner warning us that we are being victimized by the Chinese, unworthy allies, etc.
Purdue has the president our nation sorely needs.
