Perhaps the most radical of America's Founders, Thomas Jefferson, believed every generation was required to re-invent itself politically. This wasn't some bizarre notion concerned with shaking things up for the sake of shake up. It was an extraordinary perception of one of life's absolute certainties: times change. And societies and nations either adapt to change or they get left behind.
Some eras, featuring political, industrial or technological revolutions, are more dramatic than others. We are in the middle, or perhaps even at the beginning, of one of those eras. Our government, our political systems and structures, must adapt to these revolutions or inevitably they will get trampled or left behind and our country with them.
There is nothing wrong with being conservative, repairing institutions and systems, once a storm has passed. But today, there is radical conservative resistance to the massive disruption of traditional structures -- families, communities and economies -- by using the very government that must adapt our country to globalization and information revolutions instead to stand in the path of change.
This will not work. Instead, this effort to hold onto the past, to resist political transformation, will lead to the very result the conservative mind most fears -- chaos. As historians, most notably Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have documented, there are periods of progress, usually in the midst of turmoil, and there are periods of consolidation. What the government of the United States cannot permit itself to do is to seek to create a period of retrenchment in the midst of a revolutionary era.
The younger generation's reaction to conservative-led stalemate is to consider our government irrelevant. That's a big mistake. To paraphrase: you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. Transformation does not mean, as some now argue, wholesale "reinvention of government" in the sense of restructuring our Constitutional structures. It does mean the ability to adopt new laws and policies that stimulate U.S. response to this revolutionary era. No need for a lengthy shopping list. We all know what this means: a world class education system for a larger number; public infrastructure systems that work; a healthy, trained work force; new research and inventions; a healthy environment.
If anyone can prove that markets and the private sector will produce these public goods necessary for this revolutionary era, he or she has yet to appear. Many people are fearful of the era in which we live (not me; I believe it holds great opportunity), in part because there are so few leaders capable of explaining what it all means and how we transform ourselves to take advantage of it. Instead, the political wind tunnel in Washington, stimulated by cable media seeking stale confrontation, avoids addressing revolutionary ideas to promote America's transformation.
American politics is not adapting to a dramatically changing world. Instead, it is seeking to retreat into a past that never existed. This is folly on a grand scale and our children will pay for it. The world will not wait for us. We do not possess a Divine Mandate regardless of our folly. Jefferson knew that our Republic would survive and flourish only if it managed to transform itself to respond to economic, political and cultural change.
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America just needs more lions of leadership and citizens to enter the arena and end these dark ages!!!
- there is a disaster and people expect government to magically fix everything
- there is a global threat and the military has to go fight for our freedom
- your house is burning down and the fire department has to put out the fire
- there is crime and the police is called to protect us
- young people want to go to school and NEED TO BORROW low interest loans from the government
Its amazing that Americans have lost (perhaps never had) critical thinking skills to think through how important government is in all our lives. We could not survive without it.
America's place on the world stage as a leader & a competitor depends on a highly educated citizenry. To be successful in a global economy where competition is fierce one needs to be skilled in math, science, technology, economics, medicine or communications or ... not to mention advantageous to speak 2 or more languages. But none of which is even being discussed. No what we are doing is fighting over contraception, demanding English-only, eliminating public education, teaching creationism as an alternative to Darwinism, writing slavery & civil rights out of our history books, so on and so forth.
To the youth of this country, don't let the world pass you by. Unless you get involved in the political process now, I do not see much of a future for you or our country.
As the economy continues to rob ordinary Americans of a decent life - and condemns millions to a kind of life-long low wage slavery without much of a future for their children - I think eventually we will see some very fundamental shifts in this country - probably away from the now corrupted 2-party system - to something different - likely a radical shift away from a corporately run democracy.
It's the "Republican Democracy" here in America that has been working to eliminate worker unions, roll back child labor laws and public education, reduce the minimum wage, abolish women's rights (reproductive and otherwise), create a hierarchy in which (rich) men are on the top (followed by the non-rich and women), eradicate the EPA and regulations designed to protect the environment, deny climate change, and continue to subsidize earth-destroying businesses such as Big Oil. And all in the name of profit, and their skewed vision of "progress." You might want to have a closer look at your party.
Deomcrats don't want to 'control' people, that's only your paranoia.
Thank you.
Also if you wanted to be fair, you would have to note that Obama has brought the war in Iraq to an end, so that's 1 of 2 wars. Give him another term and I bet he can end the second.
As far as I'm concerned Bush and Obama are neo-cons.