Press On — Can America get back on track?
I was searching for something on the Internet last week. I don”t even recall what I was trying to find, but I opened up a Web site that had a quote from famous American poet and writer Carl Sandburg. It went like this, “When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.” Sandburg”s words were food for thought all week.
OK, just what was it that made America great in the first place or to paraphrase Sandburg, what brought America along? When you get right down to it I believe it was initially four things; wide-ranging freedom, a small federal government that didn”t interfere much in our affairs, a citizenry that didn”t expect to be cared for by its government and plenty of opportunities.
Now, I certainly don”t believe that the United States is on the brink of perishing as a nation, and I don”t know exactly what Sandburg meant by “When a nation goes down ?,” but it is not a stretch to come up with a list of quite a few factors that would suggest that America is going down, rather than climbing higher.
When you think about the America that we have today, I see a country in which its citizens have less freedom, a huge government that is too controlling and far too few opportunities for its people.
After Sept. 11 we had the totally inappropriately named Patriot Act foisted upon us, in the guise of protecting us. But, it created an America in which “Government agents are permitted to arrest and detain individuals ?suspected” of terrorist activities and to hold them indefinitely, without charge, and without an attorney.” That is not the American way. We began to torture prisoners, and that was never the American way.
Ever since the New Deal, the growth of the number of Americans employed in the government sector has been one of the most constant issues involving the U.S. economy. Since that time government employment has only dipped twice; at the end of World War II and when President Reagan tried to decrease the size of government in the 1980s. Today, more Americans are employed in the government sector than in the private sector.
Early Americans had few expectations of their government. They didn”t expect it to take care of them in their old age, to provide them with health care or to provide them with food and housing for extended periods of time. America has now become a country in which far too many people depend upon the government for far too much of their sustenance.
Finally, America was once viewed by the rest of the world as the “land of opportunity.” While there are always opportunities for some, it has become extremely difficult for many of our citizens, even those who spent four years or more to get a college degree, to find a job; and not what was once considered a decent job; just any job. The economic recession is to blame for some of this, but corporate greed and government ineptitude is responsible for much of the loss of job opportunities in America. Far too many jobs have been shipped to cheap labor countries. Also, Ross Perot was right about NAFTA creating a “giant sucking sound” of jobs heading south.
I used to think that Bill Clinton was accurate when he said, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” I have been struggling recently to feel as optimistic as in the past that what is right with America is going to prevail over what is wrong, but I will not give up hope.
Gary Dickson is the editor and publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
