They say they have a vision

Vision,a word that encompasses a wide variety of definitions and meanings to different people. For our purposes though I plan to talk more about political visions or visions for our country.

A statement such as " read my lips, no new taxes" is not a vision. Or "Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall" even though this was a monumental statement that defined the end of an era or end of the cold war was not an actual vision for our country.

Some visions develop themselves such as our "manifest destiny" that occurred during the 19th century. This became a vision of our country and depending on your perspective a quite successful one. This was brought about by quite a few separate events that occurred throughout the century such as the Louisiana Purchase, the gold rush of the West, end of the civil war, and other events all eventually combining into a dream made possible by a variety of entrepreneurs, adventurers, and political will. Visions don't always have the support of everyone, but our manifest destiny became a reality because it had the support of enough power brokers to make it come true.

Sometimes a vision is born and carried forth by a stated goal. The best example is JFK's we are going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. President Kennedy knew we needed to establish ourselves as having superiority over the Soviets, not just in the space race, but as a country, way of life, way of governing. He needed something to prove that we could achieve superiority and the space race provided him with a great goal. The goal became a vision because the country embraced it. This was something Republicans and Democrats could all hang our hat. Outside of a very small minority that was scared of what we might find most Americans were excited about us reaching the moon. President Kennedy had political will, popular will, and the resources to accomplish this goal, his unfortunate death only added to the political and popular will. Unfortunately once we reached this goal, the space race was over and nothing new about it excited the populace so it took a long time for anymore major space events to take place. It became part of our government,not something new and exciting anymore. Once the vision was achieved there was nothing new to inspire us forward.

Some visions are actual thought out defined visions. One example is LBJ's Great Society. And depending on your perspective: a failure, a partial failure, or a partial success. Part of the success was just the idea that you can define a whole program dedicated to improving the standing of many of our country. As a vision, the concept itself, is a great example of what a country like ours can do that many other countries cannot. As a practical reality, it has not succeeded in completely eradicating racism and its programs to rid the country of poverty have become federal behemoths that have created multi-generational poverty. The vision itself is wonderful. Again no other country probably in the history of the world has ever set out to create a better way of life for its masses or oppressed than what the vision of the Great Society professed. You cannot fault the vision. So what should be done, ignore it and cut out all the programs. Actually no, and at this point this is where we can restate how great our country is by still defining the vision or restating it and coming up with programs that might achieve the goal. And this discussion will be for a different post.

And for our country, our original vision is still our best. The founding fathers worked for decades, first to realize they would stand up to tyranny, then to get together to determine what standing up to tyranny meant, fighting the war, and finally getting together and even though it took years writing our constitution. This vision took shape over decades, but was born from the new idea that man should be in charge of his own destiny. And one of the wonderful aspects of our constitution was that many men took charge of their own destiny, espoused their ideas, compromised on some, worked and fought through the process to shape the vision. Which as we all know is something our current government cannot do.

Another vision we have is what is also causing the current quagmire in our government. The idea or concept that all Americans should have healthcare. Now as an idea, this is something to think about and if possible something to work towards. This idea started a couple of decades ago and supposedly came into fruition with the Affordable Care Act. Again this is a vision and people actually put together legislation to try and realize the goal. The debate on the success of this is still out. The vision still exists and though many people aren't on board with the current product, we, as a country, can still work forward with goal to make it work. You can create a vision, but not call it a failure just because the practical application didn't work the first time. That is one very important lesson we should have learned from our founding fathers' efforts to create the constitution. I am not a fan of the affordable care act, but I don't see this as a reason to not think about what we can do to achieve affordable health care. As a conservative I am of the opinion that the federal government can't solve all the problems, nor should even try, but there is nothing wrong with the federal government shaping the debate on how to solve problems or create solutions.

I titled this post" they say they have a vision" as an intentional misnomer. This is where we stand as a country. No one has a vision for our country going forward. And I think it is time we look at ourselves, decide who we want to be as a country, much like our forefathers, and go forward. And I don't think we need to have some group get together and propose something we vote on. I think it is time for the people of this country to expect more from ourselves and define what we can do. We are at an interesting time in the history of our country. Change is happening rapidly. This change is economically, culturally, with technology, geo-politically around the world, amongst ourselves, and the reader probably can mention a few. Do we elect leaders that realize this change is happening and prepare our country for the ongoing evolution of the United States as a people or do we sit on what we have and watch our famous experiment with democracy (okay with the republic) disappear into the world's history books? Yes the United States in name could still exist, there are enough nationalists to keep that going, but what about what our forefathers created. A flexible framework of a government that allows a country to adapt to change and still keep its primary values of freedom, individualism, government by the people, and the ideal that all men are created equal. (the concept of all men are created equal is another topic I want to broach someday) still in place.

This type of vision is different than the legislative visions I mentioned previously, but more of a vision that develops over time. One that many people shape, but becomes part of the political will of the people. One that only a country created as ours can achieve. This is one of the main reasons our country is great. The ability to move forward as a country based on the will of the people, by the governance of the people, and by the dreams of the people. Like the examples above, there are many different types of visions. And all these types plus more are the examples of what can move us forward.

We are at the cross roads of time. Democracy, or our working Republic, is still new to the history of the world. Our country has evolved. It doesn't look like it what it did 200 years ago, 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. And in fifty years it might look even different. What is important is keeping our values so generations going forward can benefit from the same things we benefit from; the ability to stand up and control our own destinies both individually and with our country.

There is much to talk about with this vision, but for now this post is the first of a series where I hope to talk about where we stand politically, why the current groups of political leaders are failing us, and what I eventually hope to define as one possible vision going forward. I know no one person cannot speak for all, but I hope to instill in the reader a thought process about what they see going forward and what can we do to re instill our founding fathers' vision and processes back into our government.

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And a secondary note about the affordable care act.

There is so much noise on this it is hard to determine what it is actually. From the best I can determine and at a very simplistic level:

Everyone is suppose to have coverage.

It seems you can get coverage from different sources, one being the infamous website the government produced. Your job, private or individual policies bought directly, or through groups like AARP, all as long as it meets certain government standards.

The government through its website will determine if you meet certain income standards you can receive help subsidies for your coverage.

There are supposed benefits like no pre existing condition denials and of course everyone gets "affordable" health insurance.

Some complaints are the subsidies that people receive to pay for coverage, the government setting the standards for the type of coverage or what is the minimum allowable coverage, the disparity in costs between old and young people, the disparity in coverage between different groups of people for example apparently urban and suburban dwellers are getting more choices and less expensive coverage than people in rural areas, you actually don't get to keep your policies apparently because of the minimum standards, and I am sure the reader knows their own complaints.

All this from a 1100+ page piece of legislation. Anyway a simplistic primer for those confused about what is all the noise. I am not going to get into the pros and cons of the legislation, but as a conservative I will state way too much reliance on the federal government to actually run the show. There maybe a better answer and I hope there is (and yes I have a few), but it cannot all come from the government. Too many players are way too unhappy for the government to have this much control.




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And finally I said I would work to be positive and constructive. I want to emulate this in all my writings so I must confess I got a bit smarky on a post on a CNN story the other day. Yes I said smarky because I cannot think of a better word. It wasn't sarcastic, it was very trite. Anyway got to be careful and not let the absolute juvenile attitude of the CNN posters get to me. I like reading them for entertainment, but I cannot let my self get caught up in their ways. There are some good comments, but enough of the juvenile ones to cause brain failure if you read too many of them.

Have a great evening and Go Mavs tonight.