Every once in a while, America has to be like Steve McQueen in that scene from the 1973 film Papillon, where he sticks his head through his prison bars and asks, "How do I look?"
Anyone who's awake knows that America "ain't looking too pretty" these days. Take for example the Declaration of Independence's quintessential phrase, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What does that look like to citizens today? For a great number of people, that phrase most certainly means something very, very different from what it meant to the patriots at the time it was originally penned.
So, how does the way we think about this phrase reveal how we see ourselves and, ultimately, whom we will choose to represent us?
Since America is the land of "We the People," it is certainly all about who we are. What do we "look like"? How do we think and reason? Who are we at the very core of our being?
Ultimately, a democratic people living in a republic truly ends up getting the government it deserves -- a government that matches its ideals.
What follows are three truisms which can be helpful in dealing with the national mindset:
1. If you change the common denominator, you change the result.
We all know the adage, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The "fix," then, is to do things differently. A person wishing to overcome problems, or even problem people, in his or her life needs to change himself and his own attitudes. We are the common denominator in our own lives. If we change, then everything "above the line" (the numerator in math terms) must change as a result.
People planning on voting once again for Obama expecting different results for America -- e.g., more jobs, economic growth, racial unity, among other things -- are, sadly, "politically insane." The common denominator must change in order to even begin to see different and hopefully better results.
Anyone who's awake knows that America "ain't looking too pretty" these days. Take for example the Declaration of Independence's quintessential phrase, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What does that look like to citizens today? For a great number of people, that phrase most certainly means something very, very different from what it meant to the patriots at the time it was originally penned.
So, how does the way we think about this phrase reveal how we see ourselves and, ultimately, whom we will choose to represent us?
Since America is the land of "We the People," it is certainly all about who we are. What do we "look like"? How do we think and reason? Who are we at the very core of our being?
Ultimately, a democratic people living in a republic truly ends up getting the government it deserves -- a government that matches its ideals.
What follows are three truisms which can be helpful in dealing with the national mindset:
1. If you change the common denominator, you change the result.
We all know the adage, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The "fix," then, is to do things differently. A person wishing to overcome problems, or even problem people, in his or her life needs to change himself and his own attitudes. We are the common denominator in our own lives. If we change, then everything "above the line" (the numerator in math terms) must change as a result.
People planning on voting once again for Obama expecting different results for America -- e.g., more jobs, economic growth, racial unity, among other things -- are, sadly, "politically insane." The common denominator must change in order to even begin to see different and hopefully better results.
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