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Dr. Practical, Robert Geiger
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Independence and Entrepreneurism
Last Updated on Thursday, 29 July 2010 00:58 Written by Robert Geiger Sunday, 04 July 2010 17:44
In honor of the 4th of July, Independence Day. An acquaintance wrote something yesterday about all that he saw as broken about America. It got me thinking and I felt compelled to respond. Here is my reply:
Someday, we will get to the 24th century and maybe then, "money will no longer be the driving force in our lives" as Captain Picard said. But we are not there yet.
Along the way, we're going to have to make decisions on what's worth fighting for, and what's not.
Read Ayn Rand's essay on "Mans Rights" and see if you don't think a little better of capitalism. Ayn points out how it's the only economic system that upholds a person's individual rights and dignity like no other. Capitalism has also ushered into existence the greatest period of human prosperity on the broadest scale in the history of Man. Even Marx and Engels wrote about it's necessity for actualizing the ultimate technologies of abundance before we can live in that 24th century.
Ours has been a struggle not without fault and error, to be sure. We are not perfect. But we are the standard bearer of freedom and democracy in the world. Our constitution is the context for our individual and civil rights and freedoms and it is unmatched in the world to this day.
We fought WWII against two supremacist totalitarian political ideologies that were threatening our freedom and our way of life. Japanese imperialism and Nazism. Not "radical nazism" just Nazism. It was a battle of what we believed to be the right way to live, and what THEY wanted to impose on us. We chose our way, and, yes, you might say we imposed it on THEM. If you go to Japan now, you will see how badly that worked out for them. If you go to Europe, you will see what the massive movement towards government running everything has gotten for them, as well as the massive influx of another supremacist political ideology taking advantage of all the available government programs. Democratic Europe is about ready to fall, destroyed by both the EU and Sharia law in the long run. Do we allow the same for us?
We are not so broken as you seem to think. It saddens me that there is an entire generation of Americans that has been taught so much about what's wrong with America that they don't see the overwhelming necessity of what's right about us and don't feel that it's worth defending and upholding. I have spoken to people from all around the world and the US is STILL the place where people would want to live if they had the choice, especially if they don't live in a mostly democratic/western style country.
I spoke to a Korean student last year that wanted to know what makes Americans so creative and entrepreneurial? He had been studying other countries and concluded that there is something special about America that makes Americans some of the most resourceful and creative people on the planet. I was honored to be able to discuss this with him. In answering his questions, I had to think long and hard about what makes us special - not because there's so little, but because there's so much, and that which makes us truly special is rooted in our constitution, our way of governance, and our use of entrepreneurial capitalism as our chosen economic system.
We all need to start thinking about what's right about America, because there's an entire world out there that knows it better than we do. And there are serious threats to our way of life from without and from within. The most serious threat is the notion that we, as a country, as a society, are so broken that we don't deserve to continue. This mindset will allow our government to do anything they want and people will allow it because ... they think its so broken that anything is better than what they have. Not always true.
This country has ALWAYS been a work in progress. By definition, it's not perfect, it's evolving. That doesn't mean it's broken or that we should send our president on a world apology tour. Sorry? for what? The sins of our past do not justify the assessment leveled on us by the left. We surely can tit-for-tat ourselves to death. Should we throw out the baby with the bathwater because we don't like the soap? I'm sorry, but, on a very broad scale, we are a great nation. We need to identify not only what's wrong, but what's right, and KEEP IT, and BUILD ON IT for the future. It's so easy to declare what's wrong. It's quite another to take a stand, to take a risk, to build something, to make mistakes, and then to go at it again and do better next time....
Let's see what we can all do to ensure that America remains a place where we value human life more highly than anywhere else on the planet, where we create opportunity for growth and actualization, as well as constructive community involvement. Let's do this while not destroying what made us the land of opportunity, the land of the free, and the home of the brave, willing to fight for our Freedom. Now is not the time to roll over lamenting the past. It's time to create our future by building on what makes us great. We start by understanding what that is.
Along the way, we're going to have to make decisions on what's worth fighting for, and what's not.
Read Ayn Rand's essay on "Mans Rights" and see if you don't think a little better of capitalism. Ayn points out how it's the only economic system that upholds a person's individual rights and dignity like no other. Capitalism has also ushered into existence the greatest period of human prosperity on the broadest scale in the history of Man. Even Marx and Engels wrote about it's necessity for actualizing the ultimate technologies of abundance before we can live in that 24th century.
Ours has been a struggle not without fault and error, to be sure. We are not perfect. But we are the standard bearer of freedom and democracy in the world. Our constitution is the context for our individual and civil rights and freedoms and it is unmatched in the world to this day.
We fought WWII against two supremacist totalitarian political ideologies that were threatening our freedom and our way of life. Japanese imperialism and Nazism. Not "radical nazism" just Nazism. It was a battle of what we believed to be the right way to live, and what THEY wanted to impose on us. We chose our way, and, yes, you might say we imposed it on THEM. If you go to Japan now, you will see how badly that worked out for them. If you go to Europe, you will see what the massive movement towards government running everything has gotten for them, as well as the massive influx of another supremacist political ideology taking advantage of all the available government programs. Democratic Europe is about ready to fall, destroyed by both the EU and Sharia law in the long run. Do we allow the same for us?
We are not so broken as you seem to think. It saddens me that there is an entire generation of Americans that has been taught so much about what's wrong with America that they don't see the overwhelming necessity of what's right about us and don't feel that it's worth defending and upholding. I have spoken to people from all around the world and the US is STILL the place where people would want to live if they had the choice, especially if they don't live in a mostly democratic/western style country.
I spoke to a Korean student last year that wanted to know what makes Americans so creative and entrepreneurial? He had been studying other countries and concluded that there is something special about America that makes Americans some of the most resourceful and creative people on the planet. I was honored to be able to discuss this with him. In answering his questions, I had to think long and hard about what makes us special - not because there's so little, but because there's so much, and that which makes us truly special is rooted in our constitution, our way of governance, and our use of entrepreneurial capitalism as our chosen economic system.
We all need to start thinking about what's right about America, because there's an entire world out there that knows it better than we do. And there are serious threats to our way of life from without and from within. The most serious threat is the notion that we, as a country, as a society, are so broken that we don't deserve to continue. This mindset will allow our government to do anything they want and people will allow it because ... they think its so broken that anything is better than what they have. Not always true.
This country has ALWAYS been a work in progress. By definition, it's not perfect, it's evolving. That doesn't mean it's broken or that we should send our president on a world apology tour. Sorry? for what? The sins of our past do not justify the assessment leveled on us by the left. We surely can tit-for-tat ourselves to death. Should we throw out the baby with the bathwater because we don't like the soap? I'm sorry, but, on a very broad scale, we are a great nation. We need to identify not only what's wrong, but what's right, and KEEP IT, and BUILD ON IT for the future. It's so easy to declare what's wrong. It's quite another to take a stand, to take a risk, to build something, to make mistakes, and then to go at it again and do better next time....
Let's see what we can all do to ensure that America remains a place where we value human life more highly than anywhere else on the planet, where we create opportunity for growth and actualization, as well as constructive community involvement. Let's do this while not destroying what made us the land of opportunity, the land of the free, and the home of the brave, willing to fight for our Freedom. Now is not the time to roll over lamenting the past. It's time to create our future by building on what makes us great. We start by understanding what that is.
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