Rising to the occasion

You know how I said I was easing myself back into politics? Well I have been watching, reading and thinking a lot about it lately. I am so proud to be a conservative. Here are a few thoughts I have had.
I was watching a speech Rush Limbaugh gave to the Conservative Political Action Committee and he was talking about the fundamental beliefs of conservatives and how they differ from liberals. (I'm not meaning for this to be a contentious post, so bear with me...) One thing he talked about was how instead of tearing down those at the top to make things more equitable, we should bring up those on the bottom. (I have A LOT of thoughts about this, but I'll save them unless anyone wants to know...) One thing I love about conservative beliefs is that I think they are fundamentally true and therefore translate to other aspects of life.
While the boys nap, if they actually nap, I watch Glenn Beck. I really like his ideas and agree with most of his viewpoints. One day on his show he talked about the youth and it relates very well to this idea. First he talked about a survey that was conducted showing that a majority of college freshmen believe they should receive a B in their classes just for showing up. They went on to talk about how awards are given to every one for something now so that the kids don't have to have the feeling of seeing someone else get praised and when they are not themselves. I was thinking about how this distroys a child's motivation to discipline themselves and learn to succeed. Basically, they don't need to because they will be praised either way. I am not saying that we should be hard on our kids. We, of course, should praise them as they try to succeed, whether or not they do and encourage them to keep trying so they will. But taking away the reward for succeeding and making it the same for those who don't will only bring people down instead of lifting others up to succeed.
I think this even applies to spiritual matters. We know that we should try to lift those around us.
I really hope that we as a country, a community and family can try to lift those around us, encourage everyone to do their best and succeed at what they can instead of punishing and discouraging those who do.