Chess

My dad taught me how to play chess at an early age. He taught me the moves of each piece, their strengths and weakness and value. As I learned, he started teaching me strategy, traps and sacrifice to obtain the objective, to trap the king. I used to get so angry and frustrated when I would lose. I also remember the rule of the house, you play to win; don’t let someone win just to make them feel better and whether you win or lose, don’t be a spoiled sport. So when the day finally arrived that I trapped my dad and I could say “check mate”, I knew I had legitimately won. That gave me encouragement AND my dad came to the realization that he had to pay better attention to his strategy because I was finally getting better. It was a long time before I won again, but those games were much longer.

So look at what happened. I was taught a game which takes a long time to get good at. I was taught win or lose not to have an emotional outbreak. I was taught to play your best and not to let someone win to boost their ego. All of these lessons meant it, meaning chess, would be a game I would enjoy well into my adult life and want to play and teach.

As an adult, do you still play tic tac toe? You can, and probably play it with kids or grand children. It is an easy game to learn and to let someone win if you want to boost their ego but is it a game you would play on a regular basis with people your own age?

What happens to a child that is given a trophy just for participating? What does it teach our kids when they don’t lose or win? These children have a harder time dealing with loss. They have a harder time dealing with realizing the value of hard work. They get angry when told they can’t have cake and ice cream for breakfast. They may not want to eat their broccoli at dinner before they can eat dessert. They need cry rooms in college when a presidential election does not go their way.

“It’s not fair” is uttered many times. Let me remind you that, life is not fair and life is not unfair but life is. Some people are born winning the gene pool lottery. Great genes, affluent family, great education, proper nutrition and a balanced family life. Others are born with medical conditions that will effect them the rest of their lives. Maybe a parent is lost to war or crime, maybe born into poverty. A million different scenerios. But how can we gain equality?

Equality. What does it mean to have equality? Let me first ask you how you envision equality. Equality of what? Equality of outcome or of opportunity? You have to delve deeper when someone says that they want equality. You must ask ‘equality of what’? You can not ever achieve equality of outcome unless that outcome is failure and poverty. But America was founded on the principle of equality of opportunity. Everyone has equality of opportunity and you can see it throught American history. Currently, Elon Musk is a good example. He immigrated to America (legally) and built Space-X, Tesla, bought and is renovating Twitter, was involved with PayPal and he has earned billions.

Chess is a game of equality. Each side gets the same number of pieces with the same powers and positions. It is up to the player to produce the outcome. I can play a strong chess player like Bobby Fisher, but the outcome may not be so fair. I have the same opportunity to win, but it is up to me to provide the outcome. That is equality. But liberals want equality of outcome. That would be like forcing Bobby Fisher to play a game of chess with only a king and two pawns when I have all the pieces. That is NOT equality.

Equality of opportunity or outcome. Ask yourself which you want.