Lowering the bar puts American society at risk

PARIS — Stupidity and obesity are now matters of U.S. national security. And it’s only the tip of a more significant iceberg that threatens America from within.

An organization called Mission: Readiness comprised of more than 500 retired generals and military leaders routinely publishes reports — including one just last month — detailing how a significant number of American kids these days are either too fat to be effective fighters or too low-scoring in math, literacy and problem-solving to pass the basic military enlistment exam.

Granted, the way modern warfare is heading, future recruits might spend their days sitting at a desk and operating a joystick, directing missile fire from drones. Lockheed Martin and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging have developed a rifle system for the U.S. Department of Defense called “EXACTO” that allows amateurs to hit targets at extreme ranges, effectively democratizing sniper credentials. It’s not merely a tool that makes expert snipers better; EXACTO could make it possible for a soldier to focus on brushing the desert sand off his Hostess Ding Dongs while racking up some “American Sniper”-style kill shots. Sounds like the U.S. military has a good jump on the potentially depressing future of warfare, using innovative technology to compensate for a generation of recruits too fat to fight.

Meanwhile, many commentators missed the point when Russian President Vladimir Putin recently called for the reinstitution of mandatory minimum fitness standards for Russian schoolkids by 2016. Britain’s Telegraph newspaper called it “the revival of the Soviet-era physical evaluation programme.” Apparently physical fitness standards promote communism. Maybe we can just declare all standards “communist” and do away with them completely.

I recall the similar “ParticipACTION” program while growing up in Canada. Intended to promote physical fitness and healthy living, the program taught me the importance of goal-setting, the value of uncompromising standards, and the relationship between effort and reward. Last I checked, those tenets represented the very foundation of excellence in a free society.

More