“An anonymous sage said that ‘expectations tend to be self-fulfilling’: expect nothing and you’ll get nothing. In the United States, if kids so much as dial 911 in an emergency, they are decorated for bravery. Mitchell Hults, the boy who gave police the description of the perpetrator’s white truck, has been hailed as a hero by the sheriff and showered with awards and gifts. This, for merely reporting what he saw! If the consensus in society is that doing the bare minimum is an act of supreme courage; then failing to perform basic obligations must be considered the norm.

In The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich A. Hayek insisted that ‘The assigning of responsibility is based, not on what we know to be true in a particular case, but on what we believe will be the probable effects of encouraging people to behave rationally and considerately.’ In other words, don’t fall for the tyranny of low expectations; let your teenagers know you expect them to behave rationally and considerately.”

The excerpt is from, “Hornbeck & the Tyranny of Low Expectations.”

Update: Considering the comments received, I should have called the column “Hornbeck & The Tyranny of No Expectations.”

“‘Bill O’Reilly is not looking out for the kids,’ wailed a blogger. He ought to lose his job for his ‘base-line idiocy’ and perverse inhumanity, sermonized Keith Olbermann, suddenly sounding a lot like the man he calls ‘Billo.’ ‘I’ve really had it, you know, with people judging,’ came Sean Hannity’s signature inanities. ‘This was an 11 year-old boy, ripped away from his family, and people are suggesting maybe he just enjoyed being away from school.'”

“The contretemps were over O’Reilly’s response to the case of Missouri kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck. The boy disappeared in 2002, and — turned up four years later — alive, the alleged captive of a pizza-parlor manager,’ to quote Newsweek. O’Reilly has been clobbered ever since he dared to suggest that, horrors, the kid probably enjoyed his new-found freedom: ‘He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.'”

“The excerpt is from my new WND column, “In Defense Of Bill O’Reilly.” Fox News is full of statists on steroids. So it doesn’t often happen that the person who penned “He Contorts, I Decide” defends Bill O’Reilly. But on the rare occasion that O’Reilly opposes the therapeutic establishment and upholds individual responsibility —also the cornerstone of liberty —he deserves support. So he got it.

“‘Bill O’Reilly is not looking out for the kids,’ wailed a blogger. He ought to lose his job for his ‘base-line idiocy’ and perverse inhumanity, sermonized Keith Olbermann, suddenly sounding a lot like the man he calls ‘Billo.’ ‘I’ve really had it, you know, with people judging,’ came Sean Hannity’s signature inanities. ‘This was an 11 year-old boy, ripped away from his family, and people are suggesting maybe he just enjoyed being away from school.'”

“The contretemps were over O’Reilly’s response to the case of Missouri kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck. The boy disappeared in 2002, and — turned up four years later — alive, the alleged captive of a pizza-parlor manager,’ to quote Newsweek. O’Reilly has been clobbered ever since he dared to suggest that, horrors, the kid probably enjoyed his new-found freedom: ‘He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.'”

“The excerpt is from my new WND column, “In Defense Of Bill O’Reilly.” Fox News is full of statists on steroids. So it doesn’t often happen that the person who penned “He Contorts, I Decide” defends Bill O’Reilly. But on the rare occasion that O’Reilly opposes the therapeutic establishment and upholds individual responsibility —also the cornerstone of liberty —he deserves support. So he got it.