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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (155309)	6/23/2001 11:31:49 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Johannes, I believe we've entered a period of turmoil, which will end in America renewing its belief in citizenship once again. Citizenship is our agreement to receive rights and privileges from the community, to pay for them by being willing to live within certain boundaries, and act in the interest of the whole. At the core of citizenship is the desire to care for the well-being of our country, our neighborhoods, and our institutions. This requires accountability. And is the purchase price of freedom. Bush has touched a cord with his vision for more responsibility. The reason it touched a nerve with the American people is because far too many of us have become fed up with the blame everyone else crowd. Although they may not fully understand the deeper ramifications to all of this, the call to citizenship echo's through their subconscious mind like a rip-tide, fighting against the strong social forces of decay. We have a society which has vested far too much accountability for the whole with those in power. And you're right in the sense that too many of us have lost faith that people are capable of using freedom in a responsible way. These pessimistic expectations often seem grounded in fact, but in reality, just the opposite is true. The paradox is that we've created a nation so dependent on centrality of leadership, that our citizens have developed a learned dependency. Far too many people seek the safety and comfort from someone at the top keeping them alive, and promising a safe and prosperous future. Avoiding responsibility on the part of citizens reached a crescendo during Clinton's last term in office. His lack of accountability and responsibility appalled the people to act, even during a time of unprecedented prosperity, and fire the ones who through gas on its flame. The main reason that we've lost faith in the principle of self-worth is that we now live in a culture of entitlements. Entitlements are creating rights without payment, the wish to be granted what is requested and to do our own thing at the expense of the whole. On the other hand, citizenship engagement happens when we come together collectively, learn to rethink and redesign the places which need it. What will clearly turn the corner is when our people come together and collectively redesign the structure of systems which are failing. We now know without dispute that our public education system as a whole is failing us. In the next 20 years, structural reform will be profound. Yes, we will have ups and downs toward reforming the system of education, but the march will continue nonetheless. In regard to social security, free market forces will come into play and structurally reform a failed model, creating more wealth then we can imagine in the next century. This move toward redefining citizenship will not happen overnight. But I believe it will happen. It's no coincidence that the first thing totalitarian states do is deny the right of citizens to gather together, and freely criticize the government. Hence the failed move by socialists at our nations colleges to politically correct free speech into oblivion. The effort has now been exposed, and PC speech is seen once again as anti-intellectual propaganda. Remember, it was only ten years ago that gatherings started taking place on AM radio stations nationwide. Only six years ago gatherings started happening on the internet. And only three years ago on Fox T.V. These changes are all part of our desire to reengage the forces of citizenship and move our broken governmental systems back toward accountability and responsibility. The walls to communications barriers have been shattered. And with it each and every day someone in America comes face-to-face with the myth of liberalism, socialism and autocratic control. The evidence is piling up, as long as we keep the faith and wait for enough of our people to rewaken their bond and call toward citizenship it will happen. After all, what choice do we have, our conscience has already been awakened toward this ideal?