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Independence Day Weekend

Americans celebrate our independence with annual traditions.

Based on the current state of our country, which item best represents what you will be doing this holiday weekend?

Modernize my home to be energy efficient according to O’s standards
Lowering the asking price on the sale of my home. AGAIN
Writing another letter to my Congressional Rep – that I know they won’t read. AGAIN
Tuning out ANY coverage of Michael Jackson
Scheduling any potential surgeries I think I may need
Updating my family’s passports
Using Hamburger Helper for my July 4th BBQ
Going to warehouse store to buy normal incandescent light bulbs – in bulk
Tuning out ANY coverage of “the one”

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Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

Yes
No
Not Sure

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September 23, 2008

Exclusive: The Crossroads of Europeanization – Questions We Must Ask Ourselves

Nicholas Guariglia

Americans have not had a serious philosophical debate about the future of their country since the "Contract with America" in 1994. It is time to have one again.

Our founders believed that federalism would answer most of our cultural and social questions. History has proven this belief correct; on issues of "tradition," like marriage, Texas and Vermont can do whatever they darn well please. The colossal decision looming, however, has far less to do with issues of localized culture and tradition, and has everything to do with the proper role of government in society.

Congress ought to send out pamphlets to every person in the country, to gauge the public's knowledge and opinion about the challenges we will face within the next two decades. Every self-described patriot should be thinking freely, asking particular questions to him or herself, and coming to their own conclusions.

What is our role in the world? The United States today stands as the sole and unparalleled economic and military superpower. Is this a mere byproduct of the collapse of the Soviet Union? Is this a temporary status? An accident of history? Something many states and people go through, enjoy, and then let go by passing the torch on to the next emerging power? Is this something the United States should maintain? Today, the United States spends a relatively small percentage of its GDP on defense expenditures, yet still spends more on its military than most of the world's countries combined. Is this a trend we should continue or reverse?

Do tax cuts or tax hikes bring in higher government revenue? What exacerbated the federal deficit, tax cuts or out of control spending in Congress?

Should we raise the capital gains tax? When President Clinton cut it to 20%, the government brought in more revenue. When President Bush cut it to 15%, the government brought in even more revenue. Should the United States raise this tax to 28%, or higher, as Sen. Obama is promising? Stock-investors, people with pensions, and anyone with a 401k should have an opinion on this matter.

We have two presidential candidates to choose from, both interesting men. One of them, however, is promising to up the mutual fund and life insurance annuity tax by 39.6%, or an increase of over 160% - truly remarkable - while bringing back the death tax, raising the inheritance tax, the Social Security tax, investment taxes, federal gasoline taxes, electricity and heating taxes, introducing new retirement account taxes, new taxes on "oversized" homes, and surpassing the Japanese for having the highest business tax rate on the planet. Is this the route we should choose?

What are we to do with the energy crisis? Most agree on the need for alternative sources of energy. In the interim, though, before we're all like Doc from Back to the Future using Coke cans and gum wrappers to fuel our cars, should we consider drilling for energy domestically? Should we drill offshore? How about in Alaska? The caribou seem like nice animals - but do they deserve their own state?

Is free trade fundamentally good or bad? Are we going to revert to our own impulses of protectionism - "keeping the jobs here at home," as they say - or will we embrace globalization? Are NAFTA and CAFTA opportunities or threats?

Social Security will go broke before we know it. Whereas in the past, several working Americans would finance one person's retirement, soon it will reverse; one working American will be paying for multiple people's retirements. What is to be done? Is Social Security a right or a privilege? Should the government allow private accounts, and create some modes of privatization, like Chile's successful experiment - allowing Americans to invest in their own successes throughout the course of their lives - or will we continue to wholly entrust in Washington? Was that FDR's intent when he created Social Security?

Healthcare needs to be reformed, but in what direction? Should there be reform from within the American Medical Association or from Congress? In Latin, "doctor" means "teacher." Are the bulk of medical doctors adhering to the Hippocratic Oath? Are HMOs fundamentally fair or unfair? Should greater emphasis be placed on individual knowledge and the doctor-patient relationship, or the politician-patient relationship? Is government-regulated healthcare a benign intervention and a birth-given right, or the most egregious form of unwanted government intrusion and quasi-totalitarian domineering control over your body and wellbeing?

The U.S. federal debt stands at approximately $9.7 trillion, about $31,700 per U.S. resident. Public debt is roughly $5.3 trillion. If the government keeps its promise of subsidies for Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare - at the taxpayer's expense, of course - this figure will become $59.1 trillion. Is this something we want? How can this be averted?

Will we embrace scientific advances, master them, and then sell them to the rest of the world for both profit and the betterment of humanity? Or will we treat these amazing discoveries as exotic infringements on our religious sensitivities?

Is the environment an end in and of itself, or a means to an end? Is unregulated pollution bad because it hurts the environment, or because a bad environment hurts human beings? In short, what is the relationship between productivity and environmentalism? If a factory that enables chemotherapy for millions of people is proven to be toxic for ducks in a nearby pond, is that enough justification to close the factory?

Europe is flirting with regulating individual "responsibility" for climate change, i.e. heavyset people pay more for their airline tickets because their "carbon footprint" is invariably higher. Is this something we want to consider? Allowing the government to determine how much "energy" we use - light bulbs, lawnmowers, jet skis - and regulate our usage by enforcing laws from Washington?

Do we want to forfeit our territorial sovereignty with porous borders? Government programs are going bankrupt or will go bankrupt. Are we to include non-citizens into the bargain, further decimating the ability of these programs to survive? Will we require and enforce assimilation standards, or allow the decay of our standard definition of "citizenship," allowing ethnic enclaves to prop up across the country? Will our future immigrants come to learn what it means to be American or will Americans come to learn what it means to be an unassimilated immigrant?

How much do we care about sovereignty as a whole? Will we submit to global institutions like the International Criminal Court, allowing foreign judges to sentence our own countrymen to jail for their perceived improprieties?

Will concerns over the climate become its own dogmatic theology, forcing a blind adherence to future climate change "protocols" like Kyoto without requisite scientific inquiry?

We already give $21 billion to the U.N. for "end poverty" programs, the world's most generous donation. The Millennium Project wants $845 billion by 2015. Do we agree with Sen. Obama and support the Global Poverty Act, which would hand over a large chunk of our GDP not directly to emerging economies like the Marshall Plan, but to UN bureaucrats who will in turn pass it off to the African dictators to "diversify" the "humanitarian aid" - ergo, more arms and ammunition for the despots themselves? Is this the best way to handle foreign aid?

What are we to do when a similar Wall Street crisis emerges? Blame the bogeyman "corporate greed," or the political strong-arming and forcing of private institutions to bend to the demands of up-for-election politicians? In the future, will our politicians and leftist lobbyists continue to promise housing to those who could not afford it? Or will they have the backbone to tell these customers their house mortgage loan-taking threatens the entire country, and to rent an apartment until they could afford otherwise?

These and more are some of the questions Americans must ask themselves, not only before the election in November, but after. These are the long-term problems that this country will face within the next 10 to 20 years. How did we get here? Was the problem government or a lack thereof? Will the solution be more government, more regulation, more taxes, and more business adherence to politicians - or less?

While these questions transcend the upcoming election, the result in November will be a clue as to which way this country will drift. Sen. Obama is not just vowing to bring "change." He is promising a radical departure from our socio-economic way of life - a pledge which has brought him dangerously close to the presidency. We have never had a candidate of a major party openly espouse wanton disdain for free market ideas during campaign stops and stump speeches. Philosophically, this is something Americans have never experienced. We have never voted on, let alone for, the platform Mr. Obama articulates so well.

If my own personal take on human nature, and on American psyche, is as accurate as I would like to believe, then we will step back from the precipice of socialism. But I may be wrong. We just might become, in the words of Richard Miniter, a country "too ashamed of itself to fight its enemies, too unsure of itself too praise its own history... and too resentful of the rich to allow the economy to make more of them."

Don't underestimate the importance of the next few weeks. This is a crossroads. For the next decade or two, the promises of Big Brother and state utopianism will stare us right in the face, posing as a seemingly easy way out of our nationwide problems. Whether or not we follow the European pied piper and take the bribe, or reject it, will determine whether or not our country is deduced to a second or third rate power - as well as the extent of our individual freedom.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Nicholas Guariglia is a polemic and essayist who writes on Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitics. He can be reached at nickguar@gmail.com

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