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AMERICAN VALUES AND THE NEXT PRESIDENT
Tell us your thoughts on "A more perfect union."
1.
Your appraisal of American values skirts reality. Thomas Jefferson in 1800 owned more than 287 slaves. American society was far too racist to be based on equality or individual rights, as you state. As late as the 1990s, there were neighborhoods that barred African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos.
America's social problems are problems caused by whites who still deny full civil rights and social equality to other races and non-Christians. We need a president who can help bring us together -- in every way.
2. Economists now realize that sheer numbers of people don't make for prosperity. Most Americans themselves have limited themselves to small families in order to provide the best for their children and with the thought maintain a sustainable quality of life for their progeny. It is time for the Times to abandon its infatuation with immigration policies that may have made sense a century and a half ago, but today are as anachronistic as the editorials praise of 'new blood.'
3. This is terific! Ihope and expect the future ones to be as good. I am saving them ,in a special file, to use in the discussion group on current events at the senior residence where I live. It would make an excellent set of lessons for high school history and government classes.
4. If we are to not exploit the "endless" fontier, a nation with limits, we must curtail illegal immigration as it is swamping this nation with the poor masses of Mexico. Our resources are not limitless, and everyone who wants to come here through illegal ways, needs to be stopped and sent back to their own countires.
5. Bravo! What a wonderful article. Maybe it gives some hysterical Jesus worshipers something to think about [eternal] values, in the face of the challenges of the 21st century - and not just from their 18th century perspective. But then, I would be surprised if they read this at all.
6. Would that your discussion of who we are could become a national discussion. It is time that we looked at ourselves as not a nation with endless frontiers to exploit; we are a nation with limits who must come to terms with the gap between the rhetoric we love (freedom, liberty, equality, etc.) and our actual practice. I have come to believe that we are among the most dysfunctional of societies because our stated values and our practices seldom match. Lastly, we must find a way to overcome consumerism and find our way to becoming citizens if we expect to take up the job of perfecting the union once again.
7. Ask not that presidents be super-powered, but that they have courage -- to lead, to explore, to be willing to fail if need be.
8. I like people who site "the Majority." If "the Majority" mattered Gore would be president.
9. Folks are really getting ignorant with their aversion to religion. I was born and raised in California. I went to public schools .Not once was Christianity or any other religion 'forced' upon me. And just because our leaders may adhere to a specific faith does not mean they can not lead me. Religion has been around since the beginning of conscious human thought. It is not going anywhere. Tolerance moves in more than one direction.
10. Legal/illegal; conservative/liberal; Democrat/Republican; bad/good; to be or/not to be; less filling/tastes great . . . As long as we engage each other with words and not ideas, we spin our wheels to a degree not even Washington can replicate. We (are not) the people who seek to form a more perfect union. We seek our way, or no way. God help us - if we can agree there is a God. I will continue to ask for God's help, and not only for myself, but for the country I love - even as I try to reconcile myself as a son of immigrants, and both a social progressive and fiscal conservative.
Submitted by: Phil Hoffman
2. Economists now realize that sheer numbers of people don't make for prosperity. Most Americans themselves have limited themselves to small families in order to provide the best for their children and with the thought maintain a sustainable quality of life for their progeny. It is time for the Times to abandon its infatuation with immigration policies that may have made sense a century and a half ago, but today are as anachronistic as the editorials praise of 'new blood.'
Submitted by: Mitchell Young
3. This is terific! Ihope and expect the future ones to be as good. I am saving them ,in a special file, to use in the discussion group on current events at the senior residence where I live. It would make an excellent set of lessons for high school history and government classes.
Submitted by: Jack M. Staus
4. If we are to not exploit the "endless" fontier, a nation with limits, we must curtail illegal immigration as it is swamping this nation with the poor masses of Mexico. Our resources are not limitless, and everyone who wants to come here through illegal ways, needs to be stopped and sent back to their own countires.
Submitted by: carol
5. Bravo! What a wonderful article. Maybe it gives some hysterical Jesus worshipers something to think about [eternal] values, in the face of the challenges of the 21st century - and not just from their 18th century perspective. But then, I would be surprised if they read this at all.
Submitted by: Marc
6. Would that your discussion of who we are could become a national discussion. It is time that we looked at ourselves as not a nation with endless frontiers to exploit; we are a nation with limits who must come to terms with the gap between the rhetoric we love (freedom, liberty, equality, etc.) and our actual practice. I have come to believe that we are among the most dysfunctional of societies because our stated values and our practices seldom match. Lastly, we must find a way to overcome consumerism and find our way to becoming citizens if we expect to take up the job of perfecting the union once again.
Submitted by: Mary Ann Caton
7. Ask not that presidents be super-powered, but that they have courage -- to lead, to explore, to be willing to fail if need be.
Submitted by: Mike
8. I like people who site "the Majority." If "the Majority" mattered Gore would be president.
Submitted by: Craig
9. Folks are really getting ignorant with their aversion to religion. I was born and raised in California. I went to public schools .Not once was Christianity or any other religion 'forced' upon me. And just because our leaders may adhere to a specific faith does not mean they can not lead me. Religion has been around since the beginning of conscious human thought. It is not going anywhere. Tolerance moves in more than one direction.
Submitted by: T. Rogers
10. Legal/illegal; conservative/liberal; Democrat/Republican; bad/good; to be or/not to be; less filling/tastes great . . . As long as we engage each other with words and not ideas, we spin our wheels to a degree not even Washington can replicate. We (are not) the people who seek to form a more perfect union. We seek our way, or no way. God help us - if we can agree there is a God. I will continue to ask for God's help, and not only for myself, but for the country I love - even as I try to reconcile myself as a son of immigrants, and both a social progressive and fiscal conservative.
Submitted by: HardRock
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