How to increase the number of Americans that vote.
xx% of Americans or approximately xxx Americans are eligible to vote. Of
those eligible to vote only yy% actually register to vote. Of those who are
eligible and who register to vote only zz% percent vote. That means
that out of every 10 adults you see, xx of them decide our future.
How to encourage a more responsible media in a
competitive environment without affecting the need for a strong free media.
How to deal with our differences in ways the ensure
equal treatment and opportunities for all Americans while still encouraging
our differences - and doing so without burdensome legislation.
How to ensure the privacy of each citizen in an age where technology
enables the instantaneous and widespread acquisition and dissemination of personal information.
"
According to United States and European intelligence experts,
a massive electronic intercept program called Project Echelon scans all Internet
traffic, cell phone conversations, faxes and long-distance telephone calls -
virtually every type of electronic communication - looking for evidence of
terrorist activity, military threats, and transnational crime." - PC World,
May 2000
While the project's intention seems valid, the potential for misuse is huge as
this intelligence project apparently operates in total secrecy.
How to ensure that each American has hope.
Texas Governor and presidential candidate George W. Bush summed up this
issue well in his acceptance speech at the 1999 Republican convention.
"But
our new economy must never forget the old, unfinished struggle for human
dignity. And here we face a challenge to the very heart and founding premise of our
nation.
A couple of years ago, I visited a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, and talked
with a group of young inmates. They were angry, wary kids. All had committed
grownup crimes. Yet when I looked in their eyes, I realized some of them were
still little boys.
Toward the end of conversation, one young man, about 15, raised his hand and
asked a haunting question... "What do you think of me?" He
seemed to be asking, like many Americans who struggle ... "Is there hope
for me? Do I have a chance?" And, frankly ... "Do you, a white man in
a suit, really care what happens to me?"
A small voice, but it speaks for so many. Single moms struggling to feed the
kids and pay the rent. Immigrants starting a hard life in a new world. Children
without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship, where drugs
promise peace, and where sex, sadly, seems like the closest thing to belonging.
We are their country, too.
And each of us must share in its promise, or that promise is diminished for
all. If that boy in Marlin believes he is trapped and worthless and
hopeless -- if he believes his life has no value, then other lives have no value
to him -- and we are ALL diminished.
When these problems aren't confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On
one side are wealth and technology, education and ambition. On the other
side of the wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair."
The place in society of gay and lesbian
couples as compared to heterosexual married couples.
How to cope with an increasing attitude of not taking responsible for our
actions, of being victims and of getting something for nothing.
How to ensure that the gap between the haves and the have-nots get
smaller, not larger.
