ok, we have a vision…
and we decide that our vision is MAGA, “make America great again”
so, how do we create policies, decide upon actions that will make
America great again… However, my own vision or goal is to make
America the greatest country on earth…that is a subtle difference
between making America great again and making America the greatest
country on earth…
so how do we go about making America the greatest country on earth…
by what means or actions would we take to make America the greatest country
on earth?
First of all, we have to understand what it means to be the greatest country
on earth… by what standards will we use to reach our goal of being the
greatest country? by standards, I mean, are we to use such standards
as economically or socially or militarily or some other standard to decide
upon that will make us great…… so, we might say for example, we are the
greatest country on earth because we have the greatest military on earth…
thus using military strength as the criteria for being the greatest country
on earth or perhaps we might us the economic standard, we are economically
the greatest country on earth… but are those really standards we should use
to judge if we are the greatest country on earth?
let us look into history… we see that the Athenians were the greatest
navel power on earth and by that, they achieve their greatness but
you must note that Athens only achieve their greatness for a very short
period of time, about 100 years… not much greatness…
so we try the economic standard for Athens to be the greatest country
on earth………and once again, we can say Athens was the greatest country
for only a very short time…so by using those two standards,
we see that using the economic or military standards for greatness
leads us to see that greatness on those terms has a very short existence…
let us examine Rome… Rome was the leading economic and military power
in Europe… the greatest country on earth but the fact is that Rome
was the greatest power for a relatively short time, maybe 500 years
and then it completely collapsed…… trying to tie greatness of a country
into an economic or military power has it limits because a country
can achieve greatness for only a short time before it falls back to earth…
let us look at how we might achieve greatness in America…we must look
at other countries, compare and contrast, and see what seems to make
great countries… and we look at Europe and we see that the most successful
and stable countries in Europe are countries that don’t have very big
income inequality… everyone is roughly in the same middle area in wealth…
you don’t have great wealth and you don’t have great poverty………
and by looking at other countries in history, you see this too is a factor…
income inequality is a sign of a country that might be great for a short time
but income inequality brings about instability and chaos… for example
Athens during its greatness didn’t have tremendous income inequality…
it certainly did have income inequality but it wasn’t to the extent that America
is today… Rome had real problems within its society because of its
income inequality and one can make the argument that what finally destroyed
Rome was its income inequality… the wealthy and churches didn’t pay taxes
and the tax burden grew too great on everyone else to allow Rome to survive…
a lesson for modern times……
and when we look at other “great” countries we see similar stories,
of temporary greatness either militarily or economically but
not long lasting at all… and we see this too with America…
now this leads us to another question, is greatness really a function
of military or economic strength? I don’t think so… I see greatness
coming from having our individual members of society being as strong
as possible… and thus we must be achieving goals as eliminating poverty
and income inequality… citizens must be roughly equal… justice which is
equality must be the driving force of any society striving for greatness…
not military or economic strength.
let us look at individuals that have been “great” and we try to see what made
them great…… we begin with Jesus… Jesus didn’t have either economic or military
greatness… he was a poor man who message, in part, was that for people to reach
heaven must not be rich, they must give away their wealth to achieve heaven…
and he had 12 apostles and at most he had maybe 150 people within his circle
who paid any attention to him… the greatness he achieved had nothing to
do with wealth or military…… Martin Luther… he had neither wealth or
military strength… and yet, he was great and changed the world in a dramatic
and profound way without the usual trappings of wealth or military…
Gandhi, he too was a poor man who preached peace and nonviolence…
and he too changed the world… Martin Luther King, poor and peaceful…
we see individual greatness doesn’t need wealth or a military behind them to
achieve greatness… greatness isn’t about wealth or about the strength of any
military behind them……… so why should we make greatness about wealth or
the military when we see individuals being great without any wealth or military
to back them up………
we need to redefine what greatness is to include what is actually greatness,
not wealth and not military… but purpose in life, a vision……
and understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to
become who we are… that is greatness…that is a goal devoutly to
be reached…did Shakespeare have wealth or military to achieve greatness?
Now some did reach greatness by the military, Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander the great
reach greatness by military means… and look at how they ended… none of them
had a particular dignified ending… you can include Hitler or Stalin and see what
havoc did they achieve… millions dead and fated to be hated till the end of time…
we must reevaluate greatness to be something besides wealth or military because
neither path is the path to greatness… real greatness is written not by wealth or
the military but by a goal, a plan, a vision of what we are and what is our possibilities…
Lincoln was great not because of wealth or the military, but by a vision…
Einstein was great not because of wealth or the military but by a vision…
Newton was great not by wealth or the military, but by a vision……
Hawkins was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision…
Socrates was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision…
philosophers and thinkers and scientist are great not by wealth or
the military but by a vision………
we must follow greatness by following a vision, a goal and not by
embracing wealth or the military…… we want to be great or if
we want a country to be great, we must embrace a vision or a goal,
not wealth or the military………
reach for greatness…
reach for a vision……
Kropotkin