Volume 10, Issue 29
This week, an NBC News poll found that the approval rating among citizens for the U.S. Supreme Court is 37%, President Joe Biden 33%, Democrats in Congress 31%, and Republicans in Congress 23%. All of this is coupled with the conclusions of a New York Times/Siena poll that 87% of the public believes the country is on the wrong track. All of these numbers register unprecedented dissatisfaction of the public with their government leaders and the decisions they are making.
This backdrop of dissension was the motivation for a national research project on American values. Sponsored by AmericasOne, the purpose of the research was to find out what American’s believe and why they believe it. If national parties are not reflective of citizens’ political desires, and if religious institutions are declining as guideposts for moral values, what then is the basis for determining ideologies that generates such energy of dissent?
The findings were an inspirational surprise.
When the American people are left to their own means, they turn to the only single entity or structure in society that, in its purity, represents their cultural values. They trust in their family.
The research is broken out by geographical sections of the country, by age/generation, by ethnicity, and by gender. In each category, the answer to the question, “What influences your values in society today?” was overwhelmingly, “my family.”
Family may be defined differently for traditional values. It may be seen through different lenses of faith. The family unit may be considered differently in purpose and perspective by ideology or philosophy. Yet, in and through the diversity of America, the family is seen as the refuge, the safe harbor, the place of reassurance, a source of personal peace, and most importantly, the depository of generational values.
The American people are trying to tell political leaders and candidates that they want the number one priority of government purpose to be “the stability of the American family.”
- They want the government to fix the economy by eliminating inflation to provide for a stable family life they can afford.
- They desire candidates with a higher caliber of character. They seek leaders who are first servants, committed to providing security, safety, strength, and sensible solutions for a stable environment nurturing the family. By strength, they explained that they meant leadership for the rest of the world, not capitulation to antithetical world values.
- Citizens are not necessarily concerned about the size of government. They are concerned about reasonable government that works. Nonsensical government policy as an unproven experiment is now unacceptable as a threat and disruption to the family.
- Citizens have now become their own leaders. They are counseling elected officials to be compassionate, caring, kind, respectful, honest, trustworthy, responsible, and above all, fair as an example to their children.
Further, over two-thirds of the American people believe that private ownership and capitalism are superior to socialism. Future opportunity for the next generation includes good jobs and the inheritance of an America of which they can be proud.
When asked to identify themselves in a word or phrase, over 70 % responded (in unity), “I am a citizen of the United States of America.”
Much of the societal anger and despair is generated by politicians demanding that divisive issues of policy be the foundation for establishing individual identity. When, in fact, Americans are identifying by a necessity and desire to support their own families and children. They feel isolated in their own country because there is little or no relationship between causes mandated by their leaders with reciprocal respect for their right to determine the destiny of their own families. Citizens want government to allow them the leniency to make decisions for themselves.
The inspirational surprise in the research is that individual Americans are not threatened by the authority or morality of other Americans as it relates to each individual family’s decisions. This acceptance of diversity for the governance of families is the model for the acceptance of diversity of ideology in our country. Unrestricted personal liberty to make individual choices, pursuant to generational family values, should be the acknowledged principle of a “government by the people.”
Government leaders are living in a mythical reality believing that Americans want to be driven apart on the purity of issues before they can be led forward. The American people are telling political leaders that they are on the wrong track. They are not divided on the basic institutional principle that family, as a unit of society, is paramount. Citizens will not yield their authority to government over their own families’ inherent generational values. They, in fact, demand that government yield to them over the direction, purpose, and morals of their children.
Politicians fail to understand that the unity of Americans in reference to the family unit is the answer to their ability to lead the country with national conviction.
In order to restore the electorate’s trust and confidence in the democratic form of government, elected officials and candidates for office must first demonstrate trust and confidence in the collective wisdom of the electorate.
When the American people are left to their own means, they are proven to be the true, unselfish essence of commitment to democracy and individual liberty.
God Bless the citizens of the United States of America.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?