The Faltering of America

America is in trouble this evening as I write these words.  I realize that we are more challenged now than we ever have been before, and maybe more challenged than we ever will be in the future.  We are a faltering nation; one on the very coattails of what causes nations to collapse and the time to take action is now.  We can believe that in November we will make the change, or we can believe that we will make the change in 2012; nonetheless that change will not come without work, dedication, and courage that may not have been seen on this continent since the dedication of this nation to the war effort of World War Two.  I strongly fear that the generation that fought that war for world freedom may truly pass away into history as the last, greatest generation of America. 

We are crippled today by economic strife that causes dependence on foreign loans, social unrest, and educational gaps that threaten to take us to the level of a third world country.  People are standing in lines again for jobs while countries like China continue to add to the books the money we owe them, the safety of the home in our social world is collapsing, and the education system, once the envy of nations, is now taking a backseat to countries we once thought inferior.  America is faltering.  America has not failed, but if we continue down this road, we will become that third world country that envied us in years past and stand on the brink of certain failure.

To further this problem, our party, the backbone of the anti-slavery movement, the strength of a woman’s right to vote, the force behind the fight to end the Cold War, and the bell-ringer for Civil Rights and desegregation is faltering.  We have party members spending donor dollars for entertainment, we have county parties splitting, we have people leaving the party for other parties, and we have people sitting around searching for the next great Reagan.  Here’s the facts, we must gain control of our party spending, we must unite county party groups, we must bring those leaving the party back, and must accept that as great as Ronald Regan was, he cannot and never will be replaced.

President Regan left us a bold new frontier.  He left us with a fighting chance to turn the world around.  He left us better off than we had been, and he left us with the tools, the economic resources, and the growing educational institutions to go forward.  He said he saw a bright new dawn ahead for America.  I am glad he is not here to see what Americans have done with that new dawn.

The thoughts I want to convey tonight as I write this is that we can rebuild and build that future that Republican’s have so long fought to preserve.  Together we can take back our economy, we can take back our social lives, and we can propel our educational institutions into this new century.  We cannot do it, unless we start at the ground level.  Invite a friend to a Republican meeting, share the word on social networks, write your leaders, fly your flag, and if necessary be ready to step up, run for office, and defend this great country again from the city council meetings, to the Congressional meetings in Washington.  In the coming months and years, you will have the opportunity to do all this.  Together, we can rise up as a generation that the future will one day look back upon and declare, “They stood and because they did, we stand today.”