Friday, July 3, 2009
What's Right With America
To celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, I am re-posting an essay from 2006 (edited slightly to reflect current events).
I received the following email today:"YOU'RE what's wrong with America today. You, and people like you, who sew doubt about our government, who blame America first. . . ."
Actually, it is people who accept whatever the government tells them that are what's wrong with America.
It is people that will blindly follow whatever their "great leader" tells them, people that spout the party line without understanding or questioning, people who act like children and assume that the Founding Fathers made a system which will feed us and take care of us and make it all work without our input who are the problem with America.
It is people who will unquestioningly support torture, or spying on Americans, or "indefinite detention" because the government says they are necessary who are what's wrong with America.
This is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty". We need to be vigilant in policing our government, not in clamping down on those who question it.
The founding fathers taught us that if we really love our country, we will participate in debate and criticism. In Jefferson's words, "dissent is the highest form of patriotism".
The gentleman who wrote the email, and those like him, are actually anti-American. They do what good communists, or "Islamo-fascists" do: blindly follow the party line.
I love my country enough to work to save her from those who would destroy the Constitution, turn the U.S. into a fascist empire, and trample on the memory of all of those who fought and died so that we could be free. I -- and the millions of others who actively work to hold our government accountable to the Constitution and the rule of law - are what's right with America.
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I admire your sentiment, but what's "right" diminishes daily, and there is a crisis of epic scale on the horizon: the impoverishment of the middle class. Thee is no real democracy here but rather an oligarchy of oil, insurance, et/ al. executives who call the shots. Washington is theater, irrelevant. How do the oil execs keep a straight face when summoned to Congress to answer questions about their obscene profits?
ReplyDeleteOther "stuff"....
- Health Care. It's a question of national character which generally means every man for himself. I would think few opponents of health care reform are without health insurance. There is no sense of community and there are mindsets with the equation, health care reform = socialism. The outlook here is not good, and it is more likely than not that the ranks of the uninsured will continue to grow.
- Education. I'm an adjunct professor at a two-year college. Adjuncts are paid like janitors with no benefits (this is two-thirds of the nation's faculty). Institutions of higher learning are adopting the Walmart business model: pay $10/hour for a 39-hour week and provide no benefits.
As for the students, when did learning become not cool? I get students fresh from high school who cannot write a coherent sentence, do not know basic grammar, not even the parts of speech, and are essentially culturally illiterate. There are no admission standards. The administrations of these schools foster and encourage a culture of student entitlement, enabling rather than challenging. Professors are viewed like sales clerks in the mall. I paid my tuition, so not only do I get to pass, I deserve a good grade. Would you like a plus with that B?
McUniversities!
- Economics: The Coming Maximum Wage. The United States of Walmart. Except for some highly-specialized and technical jobs, everyone will be paid $10/hour. And for the specialty jobs, we have plenty of offshore engineers, scientists, technicians as long as we can print work visas.
The future is almost now. Not here yet but we can see it from here. This is why I find Memorial Day and Independence Day very sad and mournful. I'm pushing 60 and am glad I was not born any later. It is our children for whom we should worry.
JD