Now, the last few weeks, we’ve been kind of drifting into a new direction on trying to find people who see the world in a different way and then can equip you to deal with what’s coming.  Yesterday, we had Mike Rowe back on the program.  He is leading Americans in the right direction, encouraging people to forge their own path, embracing the idea that yes, hard work, hard work makes a difference, and if you work hard first, you will reap rewards later, the once-valued concept of merit and earning something that has been lost.

America is now the exact opposite.  People come out of college.  They think they deserve a high-paying job, a corner office, a big home, fancy car.  I mean, you know, when my kids were trying to find a house, they couldn’t understand well, wait a minute, but I want to have a nice house.  Well, yeah, so did your mom and I when we were starting out.  We didn’t have one.  We had to work a long time, and my parents’ generation, they worked their whole lives to be able to have a house.

That is kind of lost now.  The mindset of I want it now is why we have a stagnant economy filled with entitlement, not entrepreneurs.  Instead of the Greatest Generation, we now have the self-described I am the greatest generation.  Our grandparents and our great-grandparents didn’t come up with that title themselves.  In fact, I think they would have shunned it.  They were busy earning that title.

Today, many people in America don’t try because they’re constantly told you can’t make it, you’ll never make it, don’t, that’s a stupid idea, why, you’ll never succeed.  Michael Moore tells people this in his movies.  Even the president says that, even though both of them have managed to become wildly successful.  Yet, for some reason they say to everybody else you can’t.

People are also told that they are awesome, and they deserve the very best.  You’re not going to be able to make it on your own, but you deserve the very best, so vote for me, and I’ll be the person who gives it to you.  The problems that we have in this country are so overwhelming that many people just say, “I’m just going to give up.”

I was having dinner last week with a friend of mine, really a just wonderful couple that has raised remarkable children.  And he said to me, “Glenn, you know what, I’m just to the point where I’m just like, I’m just going to take care of my family.”  Yes, bingo!  That’s how you right the ship.  It all starts at home.

Farming out parenting to teachers, farming out morals or whatever to TV just doesn’t work.  We’ve tried all of that, and look where it got us.  Do you remember the good old days when billboard ads were for bread or soda or something?  In Detroit, this is now a billboard, “Thou shall not kill.”  Hey, everybody, let’s not kill everybody, okay?  That’s amazing.

There’s a new game out now that’s popular among teens.  It’s called “knockout,” and believe it or not, it’s worse than it sounds.  A group of teens walk around and pick out a person walking alone, and they just try to knock them out with one punch.  Who can do it next?  There’s also been a rash of anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn, including another one last night.  It’s believed to be a version of knockout called “knockout the Jew,” where teens go around, and they look for Jewish people.  And when they find them, they knock them out.

So what’s happened to us?  How did we get here?  Well, it is the product of all of us who think that we could have it all, and so we were apathetic or absent parents.  Or we are parents that are so overwhelmed, and we believe the lie that gee, the experts know better, so I’m going to listen to them.  Or we’ve allowed the virtual world to invade our home and churn out thugs with no sense of humanity.  And it’s only going to get worse.

And then of course there’s the schools.  Common Core is now helping further destroy education, which is not going to make things better.  I don’t know if you read on TheBlaze today, they are now dropping cursive writing because, you know, cursive writing, there’s nothing important at all to read that has been written in cursive.  I mean, why would you put anything in cursive writing if it’s really important?

Oh, how are our kids going to be able to read your words?  How are your kids going to be able to read the founders’ words?  Well, we live in a digital age.  We shared this story on our Facebook page.  We’d like you to tell us what you think about it.  We think it’s extraordinarily dangerous.

I don’t know about you, but my kids don’t need any help figuring out the iPad and the computer.  If anybody needs to do that, it would be me, not them.  They’re addicted to it like crack, and they figure out how to use it themselves.  They don’t need help with the digital age.  They live it.

But more importantly, there’s a new study out that shows that kids who use computers frequently or have access to computers in their room, increased anxiety and stress is a big part of their life.  Why?  Because they’re being raised in a virtual world and missing out on the real one all around them.  They’re empty inside, and they know it.

Now, at least one Florida mom gets it.  Another story today, she was quite upset when her son made the honor roll.  You’d say well, that doesn’t make sense.  Well, the honor roll is apparently three A’s, a C, and a D.  She was “furious and appalled” that he was rewarded for the C and the D.  She had punished him in order to teach him, but the school gave him a little gift and said you’re exceptional.  You go girl or boy, whichever you choose to be today, but you know, who are we to judge?  And they rewarded him.  For what, mediocrity?  Three A’s, a C, and a D, that’s the honor roll?

We shelter them from the real world, allow them to live in a virtual world with no consequences, but when they get into the real world, I don’t know about you, but if I have people who are working here, and they get three A’s, a C, and a D, if they get that the next quarter, they’re not going to be working here.  If I get that, you’re not going to be watching.

We have to teach our children the truth.  We have to teach our children right and wrong, and to continue to prop up D students and stamp them as honor roll material, you can expect the I am generation failure to continue.