A Simple Game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey

(Pun to the Democrats Intended)

Most of you are probably like me and don’t remember too well the games of our childhood. We remember playing with friends, having fun riding bikes or swimming. But the details have faded with our age. However, looking back we eventually would attend a birthday party of one of our friends. You got your invitation and looked forward to the cake and ice cream. This time you were going to really swing hard at that pinata. And of course, the ever popular Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Now I know you are wondering, what does Pin the Tail on the Donkey have to do with the Democrats, and in particular, Barack Obama’s redistribution of wealth plan for the future of America. Hang in there and you will see.

I haven’t thought much about these times or the childhood games, being a middle aged man with older children and only really attending birthday parties that were at our house. So my interaction level with younger kids is quite diminished. However, this is not true for my wife who is a children’s social worker and interacts with kids on a daily basis. I had a conversation with her that hit me so forcefully I had to take a breath and consider the effect of what had just been said. The conversation itself was innocuous and covered the details of how Pin the Tail on the Donkey is no fun for kids any more. They won’t line up to play and pout when it is suggested. When I asked why, my wife said that the game is not played the way it use to be when we were kids. But before I get into that, lets go back to the past.

When we were kids, you went the birthday party, ate your cake and played games. When it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey, everyone cheered. You got yourself psyched up. You were going to win this time. But, as always, it was your turn, you were blindfolded, spun around in circles then led off in a drunken walk towards the Donkey board. In the end, you had two types of players; the winner and the losers. Most people cheered for the winner and s(he) was given the “prize”. No one else got the prize, just the winner. Invariably, there were two other types of people at this party; the child who lost so badly that their tail was pinned to the neighbors door and the compassionate, caring child that liked to see everyone happy. The first child, the loser, usually cried and had to be consoled. But, they still lost and they had to live with that feeling and knew what it meant to not win or succeed. The other child, usually one in every crowd, saw the pain on the other loser’s face and would reach into their Pinata winnings and give the loser a few pieces of their candy to make them fell better. Now I know that sounds straight forward, but in that game is the whole basis for the collapse of our society and as such, we have only ourselves to blame.

How? Very simply, but first we need to look at Pin the tail on the Donkey today. As I said earlier, no child wants to play it anymore. Why? Well the game now involves no spinning and children are allowed to “peak” from under the blindfold. Those that peak, get it spot on, those that don’t are only off by a little. But who cares! EVERYONE WINS! Goody bags for all! There’s no more crying over a bad tail placement. The lessons of this game are deep and routed in our culture, possibly never to be removed. And we thought it was just a children’s harmless birthday game.

Well lets go back to the early days. Children learned that not everyone wins and those that try harder usually do win. They learn someone has to lose and that they need to work harder next time to get that tail closer. Most importantly, children understood the benefits of success. PRIZES. If you work or try hard, you succeed and success means value in the form of money or other product of value. But the other “good” lesson from the past was the compassionate child that gave up some of their pinata winnings. The compassionate child learned that helping others was noble, honorable and made them feel good inside. More importantly, the loser learned that people still care about you even if you don’t win and that the next time they see a loser, maybe they will stretch out their hand to help. In effect this game embodies the founding principle of America; work hard, try hard, be your best, work results in success and help your neighbor. But over the years, things went wrong.

More losers began to cry. More parents started placating the losers with small trinkets, not necessarily equivalent to the “prize”. Child learned that it wasn’t their place to help the loser, but an Authority figure would try to make it “right”. This moved on to changing the rules of the game, allowing more kids to win, having more than one winner, until eventually, all kids who player were winners. And the Prizes, the were evenly distributed to the players, not just the winner. The children learned that the game is not about winning and losing, but about cheating (peaking) so that everyone got the tail on the donkey correctly (equality). They learned that an Authority figure would balance out the outcome of the game and if you didn’t like it, all you had to do was cry louder and the authority would redistribute the wealth to make the problem go away. More importantly, children learned it was not their place to help their fellow man. That was the role of the Authority. In the end, the game has become boring. Children do not want to participate in an activity that brings them no satisfaction for what they have done. If I am not mistaken, the communist learned this first hand. Productivity plummeted and people spent more time drinking Vodka than actually working. There was no INCENTIVE.

So in the end, we have spent the last 20 to 30 years promoting Outcome-based Education, removing competition from team sports, eliminating the Valedictorian from schools like a number of counties in American have done and promoting a society based on government being the arbiter of what we receive for our work. We have allowed our self interest in making kids happy to overshadow our responsibly to teach children the foundations of our culture, of our economy and our responsibility to each other. We have allowed the liberals of America to institute a nationwide Pin the Tail on the Donkey game with everyone allowed to cheat. We have learned to be complacent and we have learned to allow government to dictate proper equality in the system. I wonder everyday, looking at the election of Obama and McCain, how young adults can not see through Obama’s tax plan, especially when he openly admits to redistribution in a conversation with Joe the Plumber. But, NOW I understand. I SEE clearly. Its our fault. We gave up on our children and promoted equality where there is none and we altered the mindset of the future of America. How is it that young adults today can justifiably accept the tenets of Socialism and redistribution of wealth? Because everyone gets theirs in the End (Donkey tail that is).

Guest Post by Mark Wells

In Response To: Oh No, Sarah Palin Is A Socialist Too!