What Matters Most for America - Part 1 of 5: What’s Good and What’s Not.

I am deeply dismayed by the lack of attention to the long-range items that will determine the future of our nation.  In the last several decades, we have become a more polarized nation focused on divisive social issues.  We have taken identities as Republicans, Democrats, or Tea Partiers and lost sight of being Americans.  Because of this myopia, issues clearly on the horizon that have huge significance are getting minimal attention.  The cost of this oversight may be our global preeminence.

Let’s start with the fiction that “America is the greatest country on earth.”  It was, and in some areas it still is.  But, this is no longer an across-the-board truth.  We can no longer pat ourselves on our collective backs for our past achievements.  Where are we great today and where are we losing our claim to greatness?

Our freedoms, rights as citizens, and personal protections enforced through our government are as good as or better than any nation’s.  In that we can take pride.  In large measure, our sense of doing right for other peoples in other nations has little parallel.  When there is a global disaster, the world looks to America to lead the way.  Our military strength is still far above that of any nation.  We have been blessed by abundant natural resources, water, arable land, and a temperate climate (all of which we have taken for granted).  Despite the great recession, we have one of the world's strongest economies.  I’ve traveled the world and I am always happy to come home to the USA.  It has its flaws, but on balance it is still a great place to live.

Unfortunately, that great place is eroding.   Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Spain, England, China, the Incas and the Aztecs, all peaked and declined.  We could follow them into history unless we end the magical thinking that our looming problems will get solved by ignoring them.  Here are some nation-sized issues that must be addressed if we are not going to slide into history as a once-great nation. 

    National fatness.
    Mediocre educational performance.
    Sustainable future energy sources.
    Water resources and utilization.
    Climate change and sea level rise.
    Deteriorating infrastructure.
    Governmental fiscal discipline.
    Needs of an aging population.