A. Michael Barone wastes neither time nor subtlety in explaining the premise of his book Hard America Soft America by saying he "(has) thought it one of the peculiar features of our country that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds." Barone goes on to paint a none-too-flattering picture of an eighteen-year-old (especially unflattering as I myself am eighteen years of age), and then its antithesis, the most competent people America can produce, its thirty-year-olds, "part of the strongest and most vibrant private-sector economy." The reason for such a phenomenon? "(F)rom the ages of six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what (he) call(s) Soft America." Soft America is defined as the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. Conversely, Hard America, in which Americans reside from the ages of eighteen to thirty, where life is subject to competition...