Americans are being conditioned to accept substandard and even criminal behavior as the new norm, Robert Bridge writes.

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From teenagers engaged in violence without punishment, to university students receiving undeserved marks, Americans are being conditioned to accept substandard and even criminal behavior as the new norm.

This week, discount carrier Southwest Airlines was heralded by “customers of size” (i.e. obese passengers) after it was reported they could receive additional seats to accommodate their extra-wide bodies.

At first glance, the new conditions seem perfectly reasonable as they provide the ‘special need’ fliers the ability to “purchase the necessary number of seats prior to travel to ensure the additional seat(s) is available.” In other words, if a plus-size traveler feels the need to buy an extra seat – or even an entire aisle – to feel comfortable, then who cares, right? However, Southwest’s new policy goes further than that. It awards the overweight passenger with a gratuitous seat(s) to accommodate their bursting waistlines.

“You may contact us for a refund of the cost of additional seating after travel,” according to Southwest, citing its Customer of Size and Extra Seat Policy. “If it’s determined that a second (or third) seat is needed, you’ll be accommodated with a complimentary additional seat.”

For those who may be tempted to defend the rights of these extra-large fliers, you may wish to read the fine print first. As Fox Business reported, the Southwest flight team could be forced to shift other passengers around for the “unplanned accommodation.”

Imagine that you are comfortably seated in the coveted aisle seat, your luggage is stowed away overhead, when you are suddenly informed by the stewardess that you must relinquish your paid place to a person who has made a lifestyle choice to be overweight (only a tiny fraction of individuals suffer from obesity due to an untreatable medical condition). How will such a demand fly with the majority of paying customers? The question is not an idle one. According to the CDC, 42.4% of U.S. adults are currently obese. That’s a substantial increase from the 30.5% measured in 2000.

Meanwhile, it could be argued that a great many travelers also have ‘special needs’ that require accommodation, like small screaming toddlers and extra luggage. No airline gives away free seats to families with young offspring, nor do they provide allowances for passengers who exceed the weight limit on their bags. Therefore, it seems fair and logical that overweight passengers should also be required to pay a penalty – or at the very least, not be rewarded – for bringing excess weight into the aircraft. That’s because ‘free’ seats for the obese entail hidden costs (higher fuel costs, for example, which is why airlines charge customers for excess weight on their luggage) that will ultimately be paid in the form of higher tickets prices. Whatever the case may be, it will be interesting to see how many more in-flight brawls are instigated by this new in-flight ‘service.’

The gratuitous rewarding of negligent behavior, meanwhile, does not stop at the airline ticket counter. During the 2000 Black Lives Matter protests, which erupted following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a White police officer, thousands of protesters took to the streets of America in an epic orgy of random violence.

Between May 26 – June 7, 2000, Minneapolis-St. Paul experienced the second-most destructive period of civil unrest in U.S. history (second to the 1992 Los Angeles riots). In the melee, some 1,500 businesses – many of them run by local entrepreneurs – were damaged or destroyed at a cost of $500 million dollars. How were the vandals punished for their sickening behavior? The short answer: they weren’t.

Rather than letting the protesters spend at least a few days behind bars, virtue-signaling celebrities and social media ‘influencers’ donated hefty sums of cash to various funds that paid the bail on the lawbreakers. Naturally, this reinforced the notion that ‘crime pays’ – especially with many states employing Soros-appointed attorney generals who actively promote an ‘anti-police’ agenda.

Today, various types of crimes, like looting and the mass expropriation of property, have become acceptable as forms of ‘reparations’ that Black people “earned” as compensation for the slavery years. Never mind that a hard-fought Civil War and a Civil Rights movement took place many years ago to right those historic wrongs.

Meanwhile, across the proverbial railroad tracks in a completely different neighborhood, another equally unhinged message is being forged, this one to the students of one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the United States.

On the tranquil campus of Yale University, almost 80 percent of all grades given to undergraduates last academic year were A’s or A minuses, a trend that is also happening at Harvard. Let’s face it, these kids are smart, but they’re not that smart.

While it’s too early to demonstrate a definite cause and effect, it seems highly probably that the ‘woke virus’ that has steamrolled the American heartland in the last decade (and possibly saved the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, her job this week) has much to do with the “grade inflation.”

Across the country, in various fields and industries, it has become virtually impossible to criticize or not service negative, errant behavior without coming under undue pressure, duress and possibly even legal repercussions. Clearly, this is not the way forward.

Short of fat-shaming, crime-shaming and grade-shaming the entire country back to its senses, America desperately needs a return to good old-fashioned criticism and punishment.