Source: NCPA
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and Debate Central are proud to congratulate the winners of the Young Patriots Essay Contest: Kevin Wei, Emily Nguyen, and Isabella Penola. The Young Patriots Essay Contest is a joint effort designed to challenge middle and high school students to creatively solve problems in the realm of economics and public policy through the art of writing.
“The Young Patriots Essay Contest provides an opportunity to get students thinking about the nation’s most pressing policy problems, while also showcasing the brilliant work being done by our next generation of leaders,” says NCPA Director of Youth Programs Rachel Stevens. “All of us here at the NCPA and Debate Central are thrilled to provide scholarships to help these excellent young individuals achieve their future goals.”
Of the hundreds of applicants, Wei, Nguyen and Penola were recognized for their finely crafted arguments and superb writing skills.
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First place winner Kevin Wei, of Plano, Texas, writes that “without liberty, entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates would never have succeeded in the world; it is only when individuals possess the liberty to act freely in their private and economic lives, through the virtues of free trade and an open economy, that businesspeople are able to generate progress and affluence,” in his essay “Individual Freedom and Prosperity: Lessons from History and Theory.”
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Second place winner Emily Nguyen, of Houston, Texas, writes that “When we examine how technology has reinvented how and who can participate in the market, we see that social and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive anymore,” in her essay, “A Revised American Dream: Social and Economic Prosperity.”
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Third place winner Isabella Penola, of Zionsville, Indiana, writes that to disregard human nature by “putting the so-called ‘rights’ of the collective over the natural rights of the individual would be to decimate the prosperity of both the individual and the collective,” in her essay “Life, Liberty and Property: Private Ownership and Economic Prosperity.”
The winning essays will be published at Debate Central and the NCPA’s websites.
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. We bring together the best and brightest minds to tackle the country’s most difficult public policy problems — in health care, taxes, retirement, education, energy and the environment. Visit our website today for more information.