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Elections: Remembering America

As the US Presidential Elections approach, coffee shop conversations turn to what is the right vote to vote…


The Right to Vote

As the US presidential elections loom, I realize that elections are not just about economics, business and foreign policy. Elections are about community. If you are not part of the community you don’t have the right to steer it. Elections are not just about my bank balance, my tax allowance, my right to the lifestyle I want. Elections are about the nation.

So why do we make election decisions based on our individual benefit? Isn’t that poverty to only safeguard ourselves? Democracy means that the people rule. When we vote, we play our part in government. It is kingly to vote according to what is best for the people. Only bad rulers vote according to their own private benefit; and weak rulers don’t vote at all.

When we vote we need to vote for the nation. What is right for low-income families? What is right for single parents? What is right for children, both born and unborn? What is right for their education, health and integrity? What is right for Iraqis? What is right for immigrants? What is right?

Generosity has to be engaged in the good of others. It cannot do handouts or an act of kindness one day, and then vote for policies that oppress the poor the next. Generosity is justice. It creates a system solution, not only a meal ticket.

 
Voting for Who We Are.

The USA is one of the few countries that had the opportunity to create itself. Most nations are products of long and complicated histories. The USA had a starting point. The founding fathers had a choice about what the new nation would look like and what her core values would be. They had the chance to dream of a better world. A dream based on values and opportunity. What other nation in the world today was founded upon values?

And it’s powerful. Those values can still be found in the places where time and people is more important than profit and possessions. It's often perceived by the unperceptive as naive optimism, but as soon as you set foot on American soil only the unwilling fail to recognize the promise of the new world. America is nation of dreams and dreams change the world. This election, the rest of the world needs to lend strength, not criticism, to the nation that affects all others.

What is tragic, is not so much the misunderstanding the US faces by the outside world, but rather, that it tries to maintain the American dream whilst taking apart, stone by stone, the values it was built upon.

There is a line in the all American ‘The Lion King’ where the old king says to the new:

Re-membering, is the process of being put back together. It is the very substance of reforming who you once were. Many issues are important, but some are more important than others. Who we are is the most important. Remembering who we are and what our core values are will affect everything we do as people and as nations. Laws, Supreme Court Judges and Presidents are all reflective of the core values of a nation.  

If a nation remembers who they are, their laws and leaders will reflect their identity. So don’t devalue your values this election. Instead, remember who you are America.

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