Categories
culture

American Greatness


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While writing about Independence Day I began thinking about what makes a nation great. I thought about how we can become greater, and how we can lose our greatness. It seems to turn on our perspective. If we believe that we are great and spend our energy and time focusing on what we have to offer we become greater. If we focus on our perceived weaknesses we lose the greatness that we have.

There is value in admitting our imperfections, but if we focus on those imperfections and idealize what is happening in other parts of the world we will become like the rest of the world. If that is what we want then we must not be a great nation because the rest of the world has something that we want. Sadly on the 4th of July I found a post from a self described “Progressive” stating that we should do away with displays of national allegiance.

If we are to become greater we must recognize what we have to offer the world. What we offer the world is our demonstration of the responsibilities and rights that are inherent in individual liberty. The key is “individual.” Our greatness does not stem from our form of government – that has been copied and modified in many places with varying degrees of success. Our greatness lies in individuals striving to better themselves. We often talk about individuals and families striving for better economic situations, but that is a two dimensional picture. What we should be talking about is the individual liberty to make choices, wrong choices and right choices, and accept the consequences of those choices. We should be emphasizing the responsibility of people in our country to overcome discrimination, not the right of people to play the victim.

I am coming to believe that individuals striving to better themselves does not include individuals striving to use the law to make others participate in improving the economic situation of those around them. As John Stossel put it, “when people are ordered by the government to be charitable, it’s not virtuous; it’s compelled. . . . Moral action is freely chosen action.”

In my Independence Day post I concluded that remembering and reciting our historical founding were keys to becoming real Americans – Americans who have bought into the idea of America and American liberty. As I was looking for ideas on a new title I came across U.S. History.org with a list of 18 historical documents which help define America and what we stand for. These range from the Magna Carta in 1215 to the American’s Creed in 1918. Go have a look. I believe that familiarity with these founding documents will help to create a framework for common understanding of our historical context which then shapes our current issues and discussions.

Categories
life Local

Misleading Headline


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It’s frustrating to read articles such as the Daily Herald’s “Lehi residents talk about east-west freeway” because the title suggests that there might be a Lehi viewpoint to the article. It looks more like a UDOT viewpoint.

The results of their informal survey – asking whether people prefer the UDOT plan for a 2100 North freeway or the Lehi plan for a 4800 North freeway – are that six people chose the UDOT plan, one chose the Lehi plan, and one person said “whichever gets my mom home from Salt Lake the fastest.”

There are two things that really disturb me about this. First, of these 8 “Lehi residents” there are 4 residents of Eagle Mountain, 1 from American Fork, 1 from Alpine (really not connected to this issue), and only 2 from Lehi. Lehi did not even have the highest individual representation, let alone a simple majority. Second, the single question does not provide enough background to make any kind of informed choice between the options.

Of the two residents from Lehi, one chose the Lehi plan for 4800 north and one chose the UDOT plan for 2100 North. I accept that there are residents of Lehi that would choose 2100 North, but the reasoning behind that particular answer seems to confirm what I suspected – that the people being questioned were not generally informed on the issue. The reason given by that Lehi resident was that 2100 North would “harm less people putting it there because they wouldn’t have to remove as much.” That is true only when the 2100 North option is compared to the other UDOT options but not true when compared to the 4800 North freeway that UDOT has not yet considered. 4800 North would not remove any residents while 2100 North does. It is probably safe to say that respondents were also not aware that the UDOT plan is for 2100 North and nothing else while the Lehi plan is for 4800 North plus boulevards at 2100 North and 1000 South in addition to making Main Street wider west of the city where traffic is heaviest.

Next time I see an article about “Lehi residents” I hope they are actually residents of Lehi. I also hope that we can circulate more complete information on this important project.

Categories
General

Caught Up


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The 9th snuck up on me this month, but I consider myself to be caught up on candidate endorsements. Admittedly I did not do an endorsement for Fred Thompson, although I had him on my list. I consider myself caught up because Fred has not formally announced his candidacy and there’s an outside chance that he will not choose to run. I have been watching closely and he is very interested in running, but unless he is holding several aces up his sleeve he is not ready to run a presidential campaign yet.

As I indicated last month, I will be writing a post to clarify all the endorsements I have made. I will list who I think are the best candidates and why. I will discuss my perspective on what our nation needs in 2008 and how that differs from the current political rhetoric. I will also be seeking feedback on that post from any of my readers so that I can refine my thinking.

As we draw closer to the election season (primaries included) one of the things we most need is informed discussion from mainstream Americans which can hopefully influence parties and override the extreme viewpoints that often dominate party primaries. This informed discussion might also have the power to generate more participation from the electorate as people choose to vote who otherwise might feel unprepared to make an informed decision at the ballot.

Categories
General

Daniel Imperato


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I have been conflicted on whether I should endorse Daniel Imperato. He has experience in business, which is generally a good thing for a president, and he appears to be a candidate with conviction. He seems to know what America wants, but he lacks the ability to inspire people to follow him. Considering my original criteria I must conclude that he is deserving of votes. Therefore, despite the reality that he would be lucky to even make it onto your ballot, I endorse Daniel Imperato.

Categories
meta

No Working Title


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Following the wise lead of Laura I am changing the title here to be more reflective of my focus. I have been at this long enough to recognize the kinds of things that I write about here. For some time I have felt that “Recovering Technophile” was not a very good fit. I tend to write about political and social issues more than technology, or even anti-technology. The only problem is that I haven’t thought of an acceptable title yet. Suggestions are more than welcome for both the Title and the Subtitle.

Categories
culture technology

Lehi News Organization


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One primary concern for a Lehi news organization would be cost. Especially the upfront cost. Getting a website would be financially painless, but getting paid reporters or printing with any regularity would become cost prohibitive very quickly without a revenue stream. Without a very compelling argument I would not want to take money from the city to run the organization. It should be privately funded and run from neutral sources of revenue. Advertising on the site should be able to pay the modest costs of running the site, but I would be wary of expecting it to pay for much else (at least until I saw actual revenue coming from that advertising). Ideally the cost of printing would be such that a modest price for the printed version of the paper would cover the costs of printing and print distributions thus allowing people to access the news for free from the site if they did not want, or could not afford, to pay for the printed version.

For the reporting, I wonder if it would be possible to get by with less than 5 paid employees. One would serve as editor and head of the paper, perhaps three would be paid reporters, who would be expected to extensively use bloggers and comments from readers as sources of information to drive their reporting, leaving one employee to manage any other administrative functions. I wonder if there would be any possibility of collaboration with the high school or with university students interested in reporting as a way to add some unpaid staff to the press corps.

The initial move in starting such an organization would be to find out how much interest there is. Are residents interested in having a Lehi-centric source of news? Are there bloggers who are interested in their community (as opposed to some other special interest they might blog about) who would be willing to contribute and work with reporters? Are there others who are not current bloggers but who are interested in contributing to an ongoing discussion of local news items? Would the city council and local businesses be interested enough to provide information relative to whatever discussions are current?

Anyone from Lehi or surrounding areas is welcome to answer.

If you are not near Lehi I would still like to hear your thoughts on this – would this interest you in your location? Does the idea seem sound?

Categories
culture

Community News Organization


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I read a blog post on 10 things about the future of newspapers which seemed to paint a clear picture of what news can and should be like in our current age. One of the key points was that newspapers need to be focussed on items of local importance because national news is pretty well covered already. It struck me that a local orientation to a newspaper could be a very valuable tool in building a community. At times it might seem necessary to “make news.” If that were done by using slow-news days to bring a spotlight on areas of the community that often go unnoticed (like local artists, or community projects) it might help people feel connected to each other in a more meaningful way.

Among the 10 things there is a heavy emphasis on embracing many things that might otherwise be considered competition by the newspaper – search engines, and online advertisements may seem to cut into the potential revenue that is needed to run the paper. Bloggers and other amateurs of reporting might be seen as competitors to paid reporters when they could be used as allies. In the current world of publishing there are also more opportunities for publishing in a variety of media formats (text, audio, and video) and through many different means of distribution (print, rss, website, podcasting, mobile devices). These same technologies open doors to allow more participation and interaction with the audience (comment boards as well as letters to the editor, even the possibility of allowing people to submit images, audio, or video in response to what has been published) so that the newspaper is really a vehicle for discussion instead of becoming a platform for declaration.

This gets me interested in breaking Lehi away from the publishing center of Utah County. Currently we have a town section that gets published weekly by the Provo Daily Herald. With a population of 30,000 there is no reason that Lehi should not have an independent community news organization. We should have no aspirations to compete with the New York Times, or even the Daily Herald, but there is nothing to stop us from controlling our own platform for local news coverage.

I will have to write about how a Lehi community news organization might be formed, run, and financed and see if the idea is viable.

Categories
culture life

Independence Day


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Let it be known openly that the Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love this country. I love what it stands for. I love the way that we celebrate it (family, fireworks, and food). I think my love for the country stems from my youth as I participated in Boy Scouts (which is a very patriotic organization) and studied history, government, and our constitution.

I love the sentiments of American by Choice. (thanks to Scott for linking there)

The idea of being an American by choice points to an important, and perhaps unintended truth: being American is not simply reducible to the happy accident of birth. Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained–they must be made.

Peter Schramm asked his father when they were moving to American why the family chose America. The reply:

“Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place.”

Dad, in his way, was saying that he understood America to be both a place and an idea at the same time. Fundamentally, it is a place that would embrace us if we could prove that we shared in the idea.

He continues:

Because America is more than just a place, being an American citizen is different than being the citizen of any other country on earth.

Because ours is a bond of principle and not of blood, true American citizens are made and not born. This is why, odd as it may seem, we must all learn–those who are born here, and those who come here by choice–what it means to be an American.

In recent weeks, there has been much talk about immigration, but very little informed discussion about what it means to be an American–about what is necessary to make Americans. . . . I hear frequent conversations about failures in integration and assimilation, even among recent legal immigrants. This is not new. What is new is that America’s own natural citizens increasingly have forgotten what it means to be American. . . . If we no longer understand or believe in that which makes us Americans, then there is nothing substantive to assimilate into. We become many and diverse people who share a common place, rather than E Pluribus Unum.

. . . If government “of the people, by the people and for the people” is to endure, its endurance can only come from the devotion of Americans–born here and away–who have been so made.

The question remains – how can we make Americans? Dennis Prager talks about “the mother of American holidays, July Fourth, the day America was born” and suggests that we learn from the Jews who have transmitted their culture across millenia while we struggle to maintain ours over mere centuries.

His suggestion:

Our national holidays were established to commemorate the most significant national events and individuals in our history; they now exist primarily to provide us with a day off. . . . National memory dies without national ritual. And without a national memory, a nation dies. That is the secret at the heart of the Jewish people’s survival that the American people must learn if they are to survive.

When Jews gather at the Passover Seder — and this is the most widely observed Jewish holiday — they recount the exodus from Egypt . . . as if it happened to them. In the words of the Passover Haggadah — the Passover Seder book — “every person is obligated to regard himself as if he himself left Egypt.” . . . That has to be the motto of the July Fourth Seder. We all have to retell the story in as much detail as possible and to regard ourselves as if we, no matter when we or our ancestors came to America — were present at the nation’s founding in 1776.

The Seder achieves the feat not only through detailed recitation of the story, but through engaging the interest of the youngest of those at the table (indeed, they are its primary focus), through special food, through song and through relevant prayer.

I think that the key lies in repetitive recitation. Scott has a personal Annual Liberty Pilgrimage to maintain his patriotic spirit. I have been flying my flag since before Memorial Day and I hope to make that a year-round reminder to my family that our nation is more to us than merely the place we happen to have been born. We must make our celebration of independence mean more than just family, fireworks, and food. Those things should engage the children, but lets make sure to tell them the meaning behind the floats and fireworks.

Can we imagine ourselves at the nations founding? Can we imagine ourselves leaving the old world behind, where nationality was a matter of geography rather than ideology, and coming to America where the ideals that bind us together are thicker than our past allegiance? If we can’t imagine that journey then we should probably work a little harder to make ourselves into true Americans.

Categories
culture

Community: Ritual


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Ritual in a community includes parades, holidays, and customs which bind the community together. The rituals of a community help to create a shared identity. Some examples might include the Fourth of July or Christmas. While the entire nation (which is a community) celebrates the Fourth of July we can see the identity of smaller communities in the way they celebrate this national holiday. Some might have a parade while others have fireworks. There may be memorial breakfasts or inspirational speakers.

These rituals help to define the way we see and portray ourselves. They help to give expression to our shared values. This is a useful way of helping newcomers become a part of the shared identity. It is also a useful way to participate and add their unique perspective to the existing community.

I wrote this last week as part of my community series – this morning I found this post about ritual.

No national or cultural identity can survive without ritual, even if the group remains in its own country.

Americans knew this until the era of anti-wisdom was ushered in by the baby boomer generation in the 1960s and ’70s. We always had national holidays that celebrated something meaningful.

. . . Congress made a particularly foolish decision to abolish the two greatest presidents’ birthdays as national holidays and substituted the meaningless Presidents Day. Beyond having a three-day weekend and department store sales, the day means nothing.

Columbus Day is . . . not politically correct.

Christmas has become less nationally meaningful as exemplified by the substitution of “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas.”

Memorial Day . . . fewer and fewer Americans visit military cemeteries just as fewer communities have Memorial Day festivities.

(It also has some nice stuff for my post tomorrow.)

Categories
culture

Community: Entertainment


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Entertainment could also be called arts and entertainment or any number of other names. It consists of things like theater, art, and parks. Essentially it provides the infrastructure for relaxation and play. Relaxation and playing are important aspects of our lives. People will find ways to play and relax on their own, but a community where there is little or no opportunity for shared play/relaxation will be an incomplete or out-of-balance community at best.

Things like theater generally combine commerce with entertainment, which is fine, but there should also be some opportunity for uncommercialized entertainment as well. The reason for this is not simply that some people can’t or won’t afford the entertainment which has a commercial element, but also because I believe there is a different kind of fun when all connection to commerce is removed. Sometimes people just need to get away from commerce.