Sunday, June 13, 2010

Once again, Nobel-Prize winning economist Thomas L. Freidman has hit the nail on the head...

This Time Is Different
Published: June 11, 2010
This is a window of opportunity to insulate ourselves against the bad things we cannot control and get serious about fixing the problems that we can.

We urge everyone--it doesn't matter which party you belong to, this is ideology-free--to follow the link below and read the full Times article. (If I get some response from folks about this, I can go back and pull the complete article.)

The point is that in the last ten years Americans have dodged a lot of bullets--more like artillery shells--from 9/11 and $4-per-gallon-gas to the Great Recession and the Gulf Oil Spill. Now Providence has given us a moment to breathe, a golden opportunity to look past ideological differences and deploy real, lobbyist-free solutions. Some solutions only the government can implement, but frankly, we must do
much more ourselves.

There seem to be a lot of people who hold the position that "government isn't the solution." But way too many of these same folks aren't offering or doing anything themselves to solve these problems either. You can't have it both ways.
To be an American means more than just having the right to be left alone. Our world today has too many problems that need to be solved. When we all sit back and wait for someone else to come up with the ideas, do the work and pay the bills, nothing gets done, nothing is solved or improved, and chronic problems fester into national crises. The founding fathers knew well that only a responsible, active and informed citizenry can sustain a viable democracy.

This Time Is Different: Full Article
<--click here