America’s Priorities…Part 2

In reading my last posting, have you pondered what are the issues we must deal with first in this election year?

The first priority for America is money. Yes, the good old greenback. The buck. Not so much the actual material money, but how we use our dollars for the greatest good.

There are a couple of more questions one must ask first before tackling this money issue:

▪ Do we want to strengthen and maintain our prosperity and our culture?

▪ Are we willing to take the blinders off and see exactly where our country stands?

▪ Are we happy with the amount of money we have sent abroad in the hopes of bettering people’s lives? Do we want to continue our foreign aid, our charity work?

America, among all nations, and with all its faults, has been the greatest blessing the world has ever seen. Our foreign aid donations, our generous charity from the hearts of everyday, ordinary Americans, our citizens’ response to emergencies and crises around the world, surpasses what every other single nation gives multiple times over. Does this make us good? No. Our assistance to others is evidence of our good, not the good itself. Accept criticism from no one on this issue. The citizens of this country are good.

What is the bad? Yes, our corporations are greedy, yes; some of our leaders seek world glory and dominance over others. Yes, sometimes we vote our pocketbooks instead of our wisdom. Yes, we have behaved badly at times with foreign governments that we were unhappy with. However, I submit to you that the failings of our country as a whole are not the result of an attitude of our citizens, but instead are a result of how much faith we put in our elected leaders. In the end, many let us down. In the end it displays our naiveté, said naiveté amazing other countries. However, better naïve than calloused and cynical.

America is the favorite target of the so-called progressives in the world, not just American ones. Instead of being thankful for the help we give, we are criticized because we don’t do more. In spite of what progressives say, most of the aid we give has very few strings attached if any. To appease the progressives in our society we would have to give nearly all of our wealth to the poor. Which begs the question:

What has made us capable of helping the world in so many areas? If we give all our wealth to the poor, what do we have left to nurture and grow our own culture much less those who are strangers to us?

The answer to the first questions in this post is: our money. This is not to take away from the inherent goodness of our citizens or our culture, but the incomparable prosperity we have achieved has made it possible for us to assist others in need. Our incomparable prosperity has also made us the richest nation on earth. We have had the most means to do the most good. And although not perfectly, we have done a lot of good.

Our economy has been a blessing to the world. We have fed the world through our enormous agricultural resources; we have given technology to help modernize the world; we have sent thousands of volunteers into various countries, sometimes in dangerous conditions, to help build infrastructure in lagging countries; we have sent our military into chaotic, war zones to uphold the safety and freedom of others. Our volunteers have built houses, barns, community centers, drilled vital water wells, and installed sewage systems, all in an effort to better benefit the humanity of this world. Again, this is not what makes us good, it’s merely the fruit of our good.

Do we wish to maintain the good we do for our citizens and the world at large? Do we wish to maintain a culture that all envy and want to be a part of? Do we want to maintain the economic power that has given us the means to better humanity?

If so, it is time to concentrate on going back to some basics in this blessed country. It is time that we stop allowing corporate greed to dictate our foreign policy and our domestic structures.

This post is contained in a series of posts. Please stay with me!

 

Part 2 of 7