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Your vision for America
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- Posted November 2, 2012 by
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A vision for America
The weird thing about this election is that both sides have acted like there's some mystery, or some gulf that separates Americans in what vision we have for the nation. CNN asked readers to state their own visions: It's easy, we want fairness, freedom, and an opportunity to grow. People will say, those things mean vastly different things to everyone, but they're wrong. What's fairness-- it means an equivalent exchange; if I do good things, I should get good things and if I do bad things, I should be punished. We don't tell businessmen that their accomplishments are built on some one else's back-- that's unfair in the sense that it violates the notion of an equivalent exchange: you do the work and the government will ascribe it to some one else. Freedom is easy too-- we want to be left alone in essence. Life is short and we don't want governments trying to answer the big questions for us. The collective will of the people as expressed through the government has never done a good job of defining for individuals who their families are, what they should be allowed to say, where they should go to the doctor, or when life begins. Government, whether you think you're a conservative or a liberal, has always been at its best when it protected people's rights to decide these big issues for themselves as individuals. And an opportunity to grow is just as obvious and clear too. We want a better tomorrow for ourselves and our children. That better tomorrow is not defined by the government except to the extent that the government has assured us fairness and freedom.
Dictating deeply personal decisions, taxing people (either because of their wealth or to regulate their decisions to engage in undesirable behavior like smoking or drinking-- "sin taxes"), even when done with the best of intentions, have always exacerbated inequalities and limited personal choice.
There's no mystery about what Americans want. We all want the be healthy and have access to affordable healthcare. We all want to feel safe at home. We want the freedom to decide who we will spend our lives with and who we will love. We want a chance at something better for ourselves and our kids and a chance to achieve that through working.
But how do you achieve those things? Our federal government has gotten too big and too expensive. And despite that, fairness and freedom aren't any nearer today. Instead most of us are left very confused about what the issues are in this election, and even more of us have just tuned the whole thing out in the hopes of pursuing our own fairness and our own freedom without the government's intervention. We turn off the TV, don't answer the phone, and (in my case at least) even get to the point of avoiding the news because the idea of government and the elections has fallen so far away from ensuring that there is an equivalent exchange of values and that individuals should be free to lead their lives for themselves.
I hope whoever is elected president leads our country with the philosophy that their role is to protect hope and equality of opportunity. Not to punish those who have done well for themselves. Not to make decisions for the rest of us in the interest of the common welfare. Restore our belief in ourselves as a frontier nation-- pushing back adversity and hardship for a better tomorrow. Return us to our pride in our own stength as a place where hardwork and dedication are encouraged and rewarded. Capitalize on the values of what makes Americans special in this world: our profound sense of fairness and freedom. Bring back the words "Liberty and Justice for all."
Dictating deeply personal decisions, taxing people (either because of their wealth or to regulate their decisions to engage in undesirable behavior like smoking or drinking-- "sin taxes"), even when done with the best of intentions, have always exacerbated inequalities and limited personal choice.
There's no mystery about what Americans want. We all want the be healthy and have access to affordable healthcare. We all want to feel safe at home. We want the freedom to decide who we will spend our lives with and who we will love. We want a chance at something better for ourselves and our kids and a chance to achieve that through working.
But how do you achieve those things? Our federal government has gotten too big and too expensive. And despite that, fairness and freedom aren't any nearer today. Instead most of us are left very confused about what the issues are in this election, and even more of us have just tuned the whole thing out in the hopes of pursuing our own fairness and our own freedom without the government's intervention. We turn off the TV, don't answer the phone, and (in my case at least) even get to the point of avoiding the news because the idea of government and the elections has fallen so far away from ensuring that there is an equivalent exchange of values and that individuals should be free to lead their lives for themselves.
I hope whoever is elected president leads our country with the philosophy that their role is to protect hope and equality of opportunity. Not to punish those who have done well for themselves. Not to make decisions for the rest of us in the interest of the common welfare. Restore our belief in ourselves as a frontier nation-- pushing back adversity and hardship for a better tomorrow. Return us to our pride in our own stength as a place where hardwork and dedication are encouraged and rewarded. Capitalize on the values of what makes Americans special in this world: our profound sense of fairness and freedom. Bring back the words "Liberty and Justice for all."
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