A common expression in American culture is to go 110 percent. In other words, it means to work so hard at something that you go beyond what you thought were your limits, thus the extra 10 percent. However, as any person with any basic education can agree with, going 110 percent is mathematically impossible.

One facet of American culture that has been a touchstone since its inception, but has become more popular and more diversified in the recent years, has been, in other words, going 110 percent. It's evident in the American Dream, motivational cat posters and, most explicitly, sporting brands. However, with close examination, there are some instances where going 110 percent has been widely accepted when a more appropriate bar would be at about 70.

Going 110 percent is probably most interpreted is working as hard as you can, and then some. Hard work is a supposed cornerstone of our country, and it is widely accepted that, if you work hard, the rewards will come. Thus, the American Dream. Wikipedia defines the American Dream as "freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers." And there's the term right there: hard work. This supposed hard work is a barrier of its own, as you can not get upward social mobility without hard work. That is why the goal and plan and practice to identify the hard work and reward it is so crucial. Unfortunately, we do not live in a society that does so.

This 2012 graph shows that the U.S., a self-described capitalist, meritocratic nation, is trailing behind several Western industrialized nations in social mobility, especially to socialistic Scandinavian nations such as Denmark. This might come as a surprise to you — it certainly did for me — and these are the types of statistics we should see in the media. However, the fact that the media is controlled by the 1 percent, the most stagnant of the 100 percent, would much rather like to put that aside.

So while hard work is a goal that hasn't been established, why not try to make that a focus of a presidential administration? It has already, and one president has made that the focus of his administration. To make it even more clear, I'm going to juxtapose it with another President, and I will call them President A and President B.

President A established a phrase called "Rugged Individualism" which declared that the American individual could and should look out for him and herself without the distraction and intervention of the government.

President B established several programs, one of which deemed unconstitutional, which attempted to stimulate the economy, with no help from the individual other than voting for him in the next election.

So, looking back, President A looks like a straight shooter with an easy plan to fix America for those of America who have been wronged by a broken system. President B has an almost dictator-like persona that reminds us of why we left Britain in the first place (well, at least the central power part of it.) However, the point of these A and B simulations is not to agree with you but to surprise you. President A is Herbert Hoover, and President B is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who actually served their presidencies next to each other, so any George Washington-esque argument of "it was a different time back then; you can't compare them" arguments go out the window.

Wikipedia made a fantastic page that took several rankings of the presidents and aggregated them; think of it as a presidential Rotten Tomatoes. Well, out of 44 President A, Herbert Hoover was ranked the 32nd best overall, and FDR was ranked second overall. Why the disparity? Well, Hoover's "rugged individualism" was non-existent, not affecting the economy at all, and the United States and the world, essentially, were thrown into the Great Depression because of lack of regulating wall street, prompting an economic catastrophe.

FDR, on the other hand, put in several initiatives that made actual jobs for people as well as initiating several regulations on businesses that helped the average american.

Because of this, this makes us question if "hard work" is a good motive at all. Of course, hard work is not something that we disagree with, just like we don't disagree with the statement that all lives matter, in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement. However, maybe there are some things that we can't control and some things we can.

With this and the Hoover/FDR dichotomy in place, why is hard work such a cornerstone of our country, as apposed to something like investing in our young people or bipartisanship? "Hard work", in my opinion, is an imaginary principal created by conservative politicians in order to justify keeping money out of the lower classes. Democrats do this, too, but not on as large of a scale. When projects like welfare, raising the minimum wage, and progressive taxes are brought up, it's beyond easy just to slap on "you have to work hard" to offset the possibility. This way, politicians can sound like they're out for meritocracy and being fair to everyone while actually appeasing the 1 percent, so they can get funding for re-election.

The politician being an example, the less critique the better. It's tough to critique "hard work" in a sound byte. I got through it in barely 1,000 words. And I think this lack of critique has gone to many of the American people because there are several establishments and ideas that they have started to fetishize, and any critique of said establishment or idea is seen as blasphemous.

One example is the criminal justice system. In 1980, more and more states started elections for district attorneys instead of letting the governor just appoint one. Now, the DA hopefuls need to cater to the American people instead of the governors, a huge swing in inside baseball intelligence. Because of this, many candidates started to promise to be "hard on crime." Hard on crime. Sounds good, right? It's safe and only makes sense. What are you gonna be? Soft on crime? If we look back on it, though, maybe we should have been less "hard on crime" and more "smart on crime."

Since 1980, our prison population has nearly quintupled, but I guess that's just a system on being "hard on crime," right? Maybe we caught up to crime. Maybe there just has been more crime since 1980, right? There seems to be a mass shooting every week, and, whenever you put on the 10 o'clock, there always seems to be so much crime.

Ooh. Yeah, about that. As you can see, there has been an inverse effect of crime and prison population. Now, while crime is at a 25 year low, our prison population is the highest in the world, even higher than totalitarian communist China with a total population of over a billion people, and we make up for one fourth of the world's prison population.

The exorbitance of this all is shocking, but it just comes down to going 110 percent. We have to catch all the bad guys, and we are not going to go soft on crime. Because of that, we treat possessing marijuana as a criminal offense, we allow businesses to access criminal records of applicants so they can stay unemployed and go back to jail, and give tougher sentences to African Americans for the same crimes. Hey. You gotta go 110 percent.

Another program we worship is the military. Ordinary people in this country is great at taking care of our soldiers, even if the government doesn't. We are constantly in wars, and that is taken care of by the highest military budget, more money spent than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of which are enemies. We do not to spend this much, but it's the military so "better safe than sorry" or something.

My last example, and the most topical, is the police. With the start of "blue lives matter," it has become apparent that we will defend an establishment, and any critique of which is seen as an offense. Many have taken "Black Lives Matter" as anti-cop sentiment, when, in actuality, it's just the request that, when a police officer commits a crime, he or she should be treated the same way as anyone else who would commit that crime, and that black people who are on the receiving side of that crime should be given as much justice as white people. However, any fathom of critique is seen as a slippery slope.

Taken from the movie "Dogma," I think that America should lay off of beliefs and go toward ideas, ideas for how a country should be run on a micro scale that can easily be moved based on a situation. If you have steadfast beliefs, you are going toward a very narrow-minded path that will lead to abuse in power, no matter which establishment is given these unjust liberties. Maybe 70 percent isn't that bad after all.