“Progressive” America teaches false lessons, does not understand the real meaning of “progress.” Happiness requires risk-taking. We might as well teach young people to learn hard work by reading about it, or how to read by complaining and blaming others.
Truth is sometimes hard to swallow, but here it is: Anything of value or affirming of a person requires risk-taking, a vision, and working toward it. The opposite is all fiction.
The thought swept me today, not because “Progressives” promise everything for nothing, then blame others when their promises are empty, and not because Progressives dismiss individual responsibility and risk-taking for dependence.
No, I just think we do a terrible job of selling the idea in – and value of – risk-taking. So, what is risk? How do we encourage young people to embrace positive, life-changing risks? How do we stop them from being duped by Progressives into lazy dependence?
First, we need to explain that risk involves possible success and possible failure, which means you need to work for success and be prepared for failure. Just that, mentally preparing for both possibilities, actually builds strength.
Then, we need to explain how positive risk works and give young people a chance to prove the value to themselves. We need to show how getting back up after a failure makes them stronger, because now you know you can do it, learn, recover, and succeed.
Next, we want to teach how to take positive risks with commitment, have a vision, and work. People need to test things, succeed, or confirm their ability to recover if they fail.
This concept – working hard, failing, recovering, then advancing – is resilience. In business, academics, and everything that is meaningful in life, including surviving as a POW, this is what counts: being able to fall and get back up, resilience.
Next, we need to reteach that courage is required to start, a willingness to take risks, followed by full-on commitment, no break, resilience when we fail, and learning to succeed.
When you think about it, that is what self-reliance versus government-dependence is all about –openness to risk-taking. Progressives want dependence for votes; others do not.
Everyone else just wants a chance to take a risk and succeed, less government, more opportunity to try, make a living, put money away, succeed – or fail and be resilient.
That is America. That is also life. That is how anyone who succeeds does it: by facing adversity, sometimes benefitting from what adversity offers, overcoming it, and winning.
Knowing this, we have to re-teach what amounts to common sense, what has made America what it is, what brings real happiness, the courage to take risks, the ability to recover when we fail, and the sense of achievement that flows from learning resilience.
The British prime minister who inspired victory in WWII, Winston Churchill, was asked to define success. “Success is the process of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Elsewhere, he wrote: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” There it is, in two quotes, risk-taking until success.
In that spirit, Aristotle once wrote: “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” He, too, knew about resilience and risk-taking.
So, what about now? What about restarting the risk-taking engine? Getting younger people to understand that the best things take time, work, and involve risk-taking – but produce the strongest character, the highest level of prosperity, only route to happiness.
In many ways, the real mission is about getting people off the couch, into training and then jobs, teaching skills, opening doors, and getting people familiar again with risk-taking.
In another sense, this is about history – the history of the nation and humanity – which has only ever advanced or shown “progress” by risk-taking. Nothing comes for free.
Bottom line: Risk-taking is the only way to advance. Sometimes – as Reagan reminded us after the Challenger accident, gains require loss. Risks are taken, losses sustained, we learn, and go forward. But that is the only real definition of “progress.”
As Reagan said that fateful day, 40 years ago: “The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted; it belongs to the brave.” Once again, we must teach it.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
Remember where the political term “progressive” originated in the early 1920s. When the stark reality of what was occurring in then communist controlled Russia started to leak out to the West, the so-called fellow travelers here and in western Europe needed to rebrand themselves with a label that would be more palatable to the masses both here in the United States and in western Europe that were becoming increasingly wary of the socialist / communist message being pitched to them as the cure all for all of society’s ills. Thus the term “Progressive Democrat” quickly became the new label used by the far left members of the Democrat Party to continue pushing the same old socialist / communist dogma to the masses.
Fast forward a 100+ years to the present to witness the current culmination of what unchecked decades of largely unchecked progressive democrat policies have done to the fabric of this country. Death by a million small cuts by decades of enacted progressive democrat policies.
Is it really that surprising to you that we now have almost three whole generations of young people screaming in the streets for socialism / communism? It’s what they’ve been taught to want and demand by our “progressive democrat” controlled public education system since the elevation of the Department of Education to a Cabinet level operation in 1979 and staffed almost exclusively with so-called “progressive democrats” since then.
Those generations of young people haven’t been taught how to think critically or even the simple basics in many cases. They have however been very well indoctrinated to respond positively to every socialist / communist ideal they hear on TV, social media or some leftist politician. In short, they are the useful idiots that decades of systemic indoctrination have successfully produced for the far left in this country. This is what happens when you don’t nip a disease in the bud, but instead allow it to grow, spread and fester largely unchecked for decades.
RBC, your article is great. The major problem is that current parents rarely teach their children any life values and rely on the education system to take care of their children. Anyone with commonsense has seen that the public school system is teething children to be lazy and rely on the government to take of all needs. Until this problem is addressed nationwide, children will continue to be misled by the educational system. Parents, also, need to provide real life values to their children.
The building of strength by being prepared for both success or failure would seem to be the root of the whole matter that involves risk. ( As stated in the fifth paragraph) . All of life is a series of adjustments and requires memory in many ways in order to accomplish anything.Between the time we are born until the time we die , depending on circumstances, we are confronted with situations that involve making decisions – in other words taking risks . Some people have more experience in dealing with making choices that present various levels of risk. That connects with circumstances that can be far different for people regardless of age. The idea of courage being part of the picture ,that sure enough is a fundamental aspect of anything involving risk.. So called Progressives who distort risk involved matters are certainly going against the truth True progress involves risk taking. Faith involved some degree of mystery in the spiritual sense . We all should adhere to the things that we know are in favor of truth ,common sense and what helps us to understand life better. Adventure ,exploration, are always present from crossing an ocean on a ship or airplane to , standing at bat in a baseball game, to going to the grocery store, the unknown is part of the adjustments related to risks. Keeping Faith, maintaining a healthy sense of humor, developing a high level of intelligence all combine to deal with risks in the right way.