John,
You correctly say we must fix our values first .... related to many things I might add. This is the thrust of my earlier writings about merging the "I" (Individual or Me Interests) with the "We" (Community or Common Interests) in our society .... that for so long have been guiding Europe with the binding human value, "We are all in this life together." This outlook does not translate into a loss of liberty and freedom or "patent 'socialism" for Europeans as so many Americans are automatically inclined or programmed to think .... particularly whenever judging the role government plays or may play in fundamental change affecting the betterment of the whole society. Our discourse -- rather than being trapped by pure rote dogma -- requires a willingness to pause long and look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what are we doing and saying to each other .... a self-examination and shared critical spirit that Europeans are quite comfortable engaging .... a cultural inheritance of "I am because we are," an integral unifying value Europeans have evolved to universally respect.
Our US overlapping Federal vs. 50-State government systems form a dynamic complexity of varied and constantly changing political colors, different economic well-being, different laws and social services, different taxes and constitutional restrictions on raising taxes and limiting budget deficits .... all creating challenging, conflicting pressures on overall system harmony, continuity, and even-handedness in these rapidly changing times.
In confronting this reality, we Americans seem unable to have an objective, open, reasoned discussion of the obvious breakdowns afflicting our social-economic model and ultimately our common good. We can't seem to exploit nor merge the best of our conservative and liberal traditions. Discussion of almost anything descends to a culture of winning the argument or issue at all sacrifice of truth and logic, exacerbated by blanket ideological name calling (often expressed in ugly tones and demeaning barbs), e.g., "socialism, big government, disregard for the poor and common folk, tax and spend, loss of liberty and freedom, wild defense spending hawks, trickle down benefits, death panels for Grandma under a public health care option," etc., etc.. We are stuck in this deep cliche liberal-conservative purity test dialectic whereby any new idea coming forward is immediately politically degraded and labeled as not passing passing one's conjured up ideological litmus test.
This cultural pattern has been making a mockery of our creativity, constructive compromise, civil cooperation and common sense values in approaching serious internal and external problems .... where in these modern, complex times a healthy sensible balance between the "I and WE" aspects of our co-existence is a sine qua non. Until this culturally unproductive dialectic and ineffective policy making changes, we will remain prisoners of our purist ideological values, fears and greed .... and of the propagandistic pundits promoting them.
Regards,
Frank Thomas
