america's progress

For 237 years we have had our own government. The one question that I keep asking myself though is “Are we running things any better now?” This one question if I were to ask it to someone would most likely be thought of as being political in nature and that is partially true. The other part is not so much about government but society in general. My ultimate goal is to determine if for better or worse “Are we where we should be not just in politics but economy and society?”



The hard part of answering this question is how do we determine where we should be, and trust me there is no way of being absolutely sure but the best way is to compare the rate of progress and the reason for it. There is no doubt in my mind that we have come a long way in science, military, economy, and many other fields but we have also made several mistakes along the way one of the largest being the Civil War a war in which we lost an estimated 2% of the population which is equal in modern terms 6,333,371 people but my focus is on things like why that war was so costly and even happened in the first place.



The simple answer to all of our problems and successes is “change”. This one thing has both the abilities to ability to greatly improve our way of life and if too much changes at once destroy it. The majority of changes that we control are beneficial and are rapidly integrated

                                                                                                                  





into our life the most common being technology. But there is a limit to how focused we should be on certain changes. Some we should find an alternative for as soon as possible in order to keep going but for one reason we get stuck. An example of this being energy and fuel, both are things that we use daily and try to conserve for many reasons. The problem is that we have such a market in our current sources that we don’t try hard enough to provide “clean” energy. There is however an increase in energy efficiency proving that we are still changing in that area.



Now comes a touchy topic, government’s improvement and failure. We have no doubt improved greatly in the last century alone even overcoming the great depression. We also have become a global superpower in many ways the most recognizable being military power. Another large although not necessarily a government change is our school system, not long ago there were very few high quality schools. Laws about how we run schools are able to ensure that they are properly maintained and staffed.



One thing that hinders our advancement into a peaceful era is the fact that government is incapable of making decisions that have no personal gain involved. Government officials  are so concentrated on personal economic gain that they cannot see the true problem of America, them and their decisions to refuse to listen to the public in general. Most people are not concerned with our global competitors in terms of weapon production, military might or medical advancement. They just want to be able to live a peaceful life that isn’t regulated by                                                                                                                   





so many laws that there are laws to determine laws. This leads to outsourcing and unemployment.



We are in a time when we can advance far beyond what we think is possible if we try but laws, and major companies can hinder us. This is because of our inability to change on a subconscious level. We then give up and don’t try again. however how can we then succeed if we don’t try, or as Michael Jordan once said ”I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying.” We should continue to try what once was thought to be a dream, a peaceful life free of worry. I think that is the true desire of most people and as Dwight David Eisenhower put it “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.” Its possible, but we may not succeed for a hundred years or more and therefore there is no personal gain, and most politicians would be unnecessary at that point so they will not try and may even try to hamper it. Andrew Jackson had spoken true when he said “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.” It is because of this that we fell into a great depression in the early to mid 1900’s and nearly fell into a second in the past 10 years.



I think that the government does not do as much as it should and can do quite a lot to improve our lives. They do not try to do more not because they are unable to but due to fear of failure and criticism. It is because of that that I believe that we do need government but the way it is now is more harmful than helpful.