By PETER S. FERRARA<br>Record Columnist
Imagine you're a passenger in a jet going 600 miles per hour at 30,000 feet. The "Fasten Seat Belt" sign has just been turned off and you are starting to relax. Then the pilot comes on the intercom.
"This is Captain Davis. I'm going to do something a little different on this flight and I wanted to share it with you. I am putting on a blindfold right now and I don't plan on taking it off until after we land. I also will not be using the automatic pilot or even checking a compass as we go. I am also turning off our radio so we have no contact with the control towers on the ground. Don't be alarmed. I've been flying so long I told my wife this morning I could do this blindfolded and she didn't think I could. After this flight, assuming we survive, my wife will have to believe me. That is all."
Not exactly the message any of us would like to hear, right? But that's how I feel America is travelling at this time in her history. We are going very fast. We have climbed to a dizzying height. But we are not using the tools we need to arrive safely at our destination.
What is America's destination? If history is any indicator, we are at a place where we need to map a new route for our country. But I don't hear anybody talking about where we want to take our country in this new century of a new millennium.
Does that matter? You bet it does. We Americans need to start a conversation about who we want to be as a country or we will never get there. The United States began when Freemasons like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and John Adams—to name but a few—decided to try and create a country unlike any that had ever existed before. I wish that our history books reflected the true philosophical origin of America, but they don't. The result is that most Americans really have no idea where America came from and how it was born. That's too bad. It's important to understand our past as an indicator of our future.
What matters today is that we have some discussion about our future. I don't mean about tomorrow or next week or next year. What I think we should do is talk with each other about our long-term goals for this unique and wonderful country. Who do we want the "average American" to be in 50 or 100 years from now? Because if we don't begin to pay some attention to that goal or destination, we have no way of knowing where we'll end up or even if there will still be an America.
I don't know about you, but for me watching the events of the past few weeks unfold has been discouraging. I hear our leaders on both sides hassling each other over everything without seeing anybody talk about what I consider a much bigger picture. Here follows some of the questions I wish were being raised amid all the noise and flash distracting us right now.
Do we still believe in the "melting pot" anymore? Do we welcome foreigners to our shores? Given that we're running out of money and borrowing like crazy, who will we be releasing from our expensive and hugely overcrowded prisons? California is so broke they are preparing to discharge thousands of inmates because they can't afford to keep them locked up. So which ones get out? That's important because the rest of the states are in the same financially strapped boat as California is.
Does it matter that all governments—federal, state, and local—are seen as corrupt and ineffective by the largest percentage of Americans since they started keeping track of such things? If it does matter, what are we prepared to do about it? How much debt are we going to pass along to the next generations? Where are we going to find jobs to replace the ones we have lost?
What can America do to preserve her special place of importance as the last remaining superpower? Is the 21st century going to belong to China and India? How will we actually defeat those whom we now give the label of "terrorist" when they have no common country or singular leadership? Can Christianity coexist with Islam or are we doomed to fight another round of "Crusades?"
Who should our economy be geared to work for? Can we acknowledge that class warfare already exists and that our wealth has already been redistributed to benefit the richest Americans? Has the Wall Street and Big Bank bailout taught us nothing about who currently holds the reins of power? Can we do a better job of electing our leaders or will the current apathy on the part of the voters simply go on and on until almost nobody votes?
What is the responsibility of the American citizen when it comes to knowing how our system works and who represents what kind of change? Is man contributing to Climate Change or is it all hype? If it's real, then what is in our—and the world's—Long Term Interest? How can American workers compete with poor foreigners willing to do any job for much less than our workers need to survive in this country? Should we continue to let American corporations move their operations off shore and avoid paying their fair share of taxes while the country's going broke? Do we need new and tougher regulations along with agents to enforce them in order to keep Wall Street from repeating the reckless and greedy maneuvers that got us into this mess?
Will anybody have the courage to actually address our health care system before it bankrupts what's left of American treasure in seven years? Does money in politics really equal free speech? If it does, how will the common person's voice be heard above the avalanche of attack ads allowed by the recent Supreme Court reversal of 100 years of control? How could the five "conservative" court judges come up with such an activist ruling which allows big business, big labor, and even foreign countries to pour as much money as they want to influence the American voter?
Do we still favor the separation of Church and State in America? If so, what does that mean? Is English our national language or must everything be translated into every language under the sun? Is there a way to reduce the steady diet of sex and violence that beats in the heart of our entertainment, or is rape, murder, sadism, and psychotic behavior what amuses us to watch in our free time?
Are we forever going to be the "cops of the world?" Should we bring back the draft before we drive every soldier nuts with endless rotations? Will we take adequate care of the veterans who have put themselves in harm's way and come back to us with broken bodies and mental illnesses? How do we fix our education system so we graduate students who actually know what they need to function in the world ahead?
Unfortunately, the generation of Founding Fathers is long since gone from the land. America coasts along on the momentum those great leaders gave us. But we're running out of steam. Unless we begin having honest and thorough discussions about the questions above and a host of others, we will be in the situation described at the beginning of this column: racing blindly through time at breakneck speed with nothing to guide us as we try to fly into the future by the seat of our pants. We need to begin talking about these things now, while the "plane" is still in the air.
