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Needed Today in America: Real American Leaders

Do you get tired of the "politics as usual" in Washington?  I do.  And many other American citizens must also be weary of the charades, as well.  It isn't uncommon for new politicians to add the "No Politics as Usual" plank to their initial campaign platforms.  Senators around the country have done it, and so did our current President.  Things often change once they're in office.

Our problems are not about Democrats or Republicans.  The problems and challenges we face as Americans trying to live in a world of constant change did not come from Clinton, Bush, or Obama.  JFK did not order his own assassination.  There are people in this world who are irrationally violent.  Greed is another common problem in any country.  So is the craving for power.  All people face the challenges of poverty, war, natural disasters, and terrorism in various forms.

Americans believe that real solutions come from collective effort.  War is put to rest when people value peace and human dignity above winning an argument.  Amazingly, when all parties are treated with respect and honor, war has a more difficult time getting started in the first place.  But when some are wealthy, fat and comfortable while their neighbors are starving, naked and threatened with disease, then we may expect trouble, revolution or war.  Human beings always react to personal suffering.

What is our greatest need in America?  Do we need wiser and better leaders?  Do we need a better voting system?  Do we need politicians that really hear the people they represent?  Maybe.

On the other hand, what would happen if the people themselves (that's you and me, by the way) used a little more common sense in the decisions we make about our own education, in our purchase of a home, in the kind of transportation we really want, in the amount of money we should be willing to owe others?  What if Americans stopped buying food that is not real food?  What if we understood that our health is often the result of personal choices we make each day?  What if we insisted on educating and preparing our children for life instead of making them the dependents of a broken education system?

In the United States of America, leadership and a brighter future does not begin in Washington or with the election of better politicians.  In this country, good leadership must be rooted in the individual.  When we as American citizens cannot control our own impulses, how can we even know what a good politician is?  America is made great by great people.  A great person might be of any color or race.  Ethnicity is never the issue, as our own history demonstrates.  What makes a great American is the ability to know and choose the best course of action, even when it means personal responsibility or sacrifice.  Today, America is still governed by the collective choices of its people.  It's up to us to keep it that way.

Jim Sutton

In America Today: How real is the divide between Liberals and Conservatives?

Practically speaking, the United States is a two-party system.  And party leaders on both sides of this fence work hard to keep the line visible and easy to follow.  The benefits to politicians are many, especially if they are in the business to make a name, to profit economically, or to gain more power.  But does America benefit?

The United States of America is founded on certain principles and ideas of freedom, and as Lincoln himself observed, we have yet to see how long such a nation may endure.  How long can any people govern themselves in liberty?  How long before we hand over all the controls to someone else, to a king, a dictator, a "benevolent" leader, a father or mother figure? 

Sound ridiculous?  Does it seem to you that Americans are too smart, too brave, to freedom-loving to do such a thing?  That would be nice to believe.  But Americans are people, and people soon forget the mighty struggles of the past, and replace yearnings for liberty with desires for comfort and peace at any cost.  How else could any society in the past have long existed with lords and peasants?  How else could huge regions of the world be given over, to this very day, to dictators and powerless masses?

Both sides of our our present liberal-conservative divide are populated with a great many people who dream dreams of a more perfect society, and their visions consist largely of ideas spoon fed to them by cunning leaders.  Always a little truth for flavoring mixed with large amounts of propaganda.  Do we really love justice?  Do we really want to be strong and wise as a people?  Or do we simply want what the whole world wants: someone else with a plan and a mission to take over and make everything right for us?

We may not be able to fully answer such questions for the whole society, or even for own own political party, coalition or community.  But we can each one answer them for our own selves.  And maybe we should be giving these core issues some thought. 

In the mean time, ask yourself how big the divide really is between Liberals and Conservatives?  One way to see for yourself is to note just how many real changes occur when administrations change?  Start with the key "dividing" issues.  Are we still fighting in the Middle East?   Is abortion ever really outlawed?  What really changes in day-to-day American life that would be any different with the other party in office?  Such things as war, economic ups and downs are not really governed by political parties or ideals so much as by the circumstances, conditions and changing attitudes of the world at large.  (For example, which parties got us into and out of Viet Nam?)  Sitting presidents must do whatever must be done, no matter what their political affiliation.      JS