Modern America

23 Feb, ’07

The United States is currently the world’s only superpower, with a couple of other nations and the European Union not far behind. Economically we’re a powerhouse, and will remain so as long as we don’t sell what’s left of our industrial base to foreign countries. (I understand that Daimler-Chrysler is now considering selling off the Chrysler part of the operation. Anyone gotta lot of pocket change?) We’d be in even better shape if we could stop buying foreign oil, and start producing our own. Our agricultural industry leads the world in productivity and seemingly feeds half the people on the planet, at prices that keep the independent American farmer nearly broke. We produce, and utilize, more energy per capita than anyone else on the planet. The American educational system produces some of the greatest scientific minds in history (and some babbling idiots as well). Our standard of living beats most other places all hollow. Whenever NASA can get up enough nerve to fly the space shuttle (or anything else) we lead the world in off-planet exploits. The US Armed Forces are second to none, and have a habit of romping and stomping all over anybody we’re at war with. We are, in theory, the freest and richest nation in the world.

All in all, we’re doing pretty good, right? Well…

On the “flip side” we do have a few problems. We produce more air and water pollution than anybody else due to an ageing industrial infrastructure and a lot of gas guzzling SUV’s. Our transportation system is falling apart and we’re running out of ways to cobble it back together. We’re rapidly running out of natural resources, and the environmentalists scream bloody murder whenever we try to utilize whatever renewable resources we have. Half our population can’t afford any more than rudimentary medical care. The cost of living is skyrocketing while productivity and wages can’t seem to play catch-up. We do appear to have an awful lot of homeless people living on the streets, and far to many people are forced to survive on various types of welfare. Our great cities are slowly dying, becoming little more than crime ridden ghettoes of the poverty stricken, who have either lost hope, or never had any hope to begin with. We worship diversity to the point we’ve become a nation of rabid minorities rather than a nation of Americans. The country appears to be flooded with illegal drugs, and law enforcement seemingly can’t get a handle on the problem. A good number of our politicians and business executives probably belong in jail rather than in office, but with our rampant crime rate our prisons are so overcrowded we don’t have the room to incarcerate them all! Our taxes go up and up, with the national debt increasing even faster. (About the only thing that increases faster than the national debt is the size of the federal government.) Government sticks its long nose into everything we do, and tries to regulate all facets of our lives. At the same time, disregarding our wants and wishes, our government keeps getting involved in other countries internal affairs, which certainly doesn’t make us many friends, and tends to alienate the few friends we do have. The proclaimed goals of our political parties have developed to the stage where our leaders are so busy fighting each other that they seem unable, or unwilling, to find a solution for any of the problems facing the country.

So, how do we get our country back on track, and start attacking some of these “not so good” points about America, in a time when our national leaders squabbles only widen that chasm?
One thing I have learned about our Founding Fathers experiment on Representative Democracy is that it’s not a spectator sport, and change does not happen on its own. After the last sixteen years of "reality impaired" government that we have endured, I believe we need change, and not a change from political left to right and back again. Rather we need a shift away from established political parties with their constant infighting for power. President George Washington warned us of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party" during his Farewell Address to his newly founded Republic. It was his fear of what political parties would do to the nation that led him to draft his Farewell Address. He stated these political machines would eventually become, “Potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reigns of government, destroying the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” We have borne witness to this truth by watching the leadership of the Republican Party deteriorate from “fiscally conservative, small government politics,” into small factions of self serving, Big Government Republicans. We have seen the leadership of the Democratic Party shift from the crusading, reform “party of the working man”, into rampant socialism determined to drag everyone down to a “cradle to the grave” government directed welfare program, proclaimed to be “for our own good”.

America, wake up. Give in to the likes of these self serving people and Abraham Lincoln's prediction of destruction from within may well come true. There is not a country in the world that can be considered an honest threat to the United States today, unless we continue our politically induced downward spiral. Now this country faces a new threat -- one that will not go away. It is a threat even more serious than WWII, because money, industry and technology will not defeat it. It is a threat of defeat from within. It is a threat of a faltering economy because of a lack of resources, or even the simple threat of such a loss brought on by terrorism. It is a threat created by the American people trusting the inept. It is a threat created by people wanting change, and perilously believing that the “other party” can successfully deliver that change.

The two party system has served us for a long time, sometimes well, and sometimes bordering on disaster. Now, with our very freedom endangered by our own politicians, it’s high time that we make a serious change in the manner we select our national leaders.