What is Wrong with America?

Bryan P. Björnson

“A Conservative from Middle America”

There are plenty of things wrong with America. None of them will get fixed as long we deal with the symptoms and ignore the problem. Do we really know what America's problems are? Or are we just dealing with their symptoms? Alleviating the symptoms won't fix the problems. We are the problem. The symptoms are our debt, our government, the rich, the poor, Republicans, Democrats, the politicians, and any other current complaint of why things aren’t the way they should be. If things aren’t the way they should be it is up to us, as in a well known phrase says, “We the People” to fix US.

To start fixing US we must learn who we are. America is a country that was created to govern itself, a republic. To govern ourselves our Founding Fathers wrote a binding legal document, our Constitution, to limit the power of our government. Our Constitution also, just as importantly, limits the power of the men and women we have temporarily chosen to be our government. The idea of being an elected official as someone’s career is an unintended consequence of the War Between the States. (But that is the subject for another discussion.) Career politicians are one of the biggest symptoms of our problem. As John Madison said “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” and the men he worked with were far more trustworthy than those currently in (office) power.

America was a country where people built and planned for tomorrow, a country where the idea of saving money for a rainy day was important. America was a country where our elected officials were bound by our Constitution. The idea that it could be interpreted rather than amended was repugnant to our elected officials. They knew that their power was limited by our Constitution. When they ceased to be citizens first and politicians second that is when they ceased to be bound by our Constitution.

We are the problem and we are the solution. To start implementing the solution we must stop voting for incumbents. We must demand that our elected officials start repealing laws. We must stop believing that the solution comes from bureaucrats in Washington. D.C. The mess we are in was not created in one election cycle nor was it created by one presidential administration. It was created over the years as we slowly traded our freedom for government programs that promised to take care if us. America was a country built on self reliance and individual courage. That is the solution, a return to being a country of self reliant individuals. Do we have the courage to do that? I definitely hope that we do!