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America is already pretty great; let’s make it greater with some simple actions

'Government is evil' didn't work in 80s, not useful now

State employees gathered outside the Labor and Industries Building in Tumwater Sept. 10 as part of a statewide walkout to demand fair wages and safe staffing levels. Guest writer Jeffrey Copeland says our country must promote a robust middle class and workers. (Photo courtesy of Laurel Demkovich/Washington State Standard)
By Jeffrey Copeland Guest Writer

One of our presidential candidates is just wrong in so many ways, but in particular with his sloganeering: America is already great. But we can make it better with some simple actions:

Speak the truth and be nice: Shouldn’t be hard; should be learned in pre-school and at home. We must demand honest discourse from our elected officials. A moral nation can not be governed by amoral leaders. An honest nation can not be governed by leaders who are incapable of telling the truth.

Welcome immigrants: Historically, they’ve brought new ideas and energy to America. They built this country. In less than a century, my illiterate Italian grandfather’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren built on his legacy of going from coal mining in western Pennsylvania to building his own business to become teachers, financiers, engineers, builders, doctors and business owners themselves.  And taxpayers.

Slow global climate change: We can slow down the hurricanes, the wildfires, the ice storms and the wind storms. The National Weather Service doesn’t control the weather, but we all can. Drastically lower the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere. Renew our industrial might and build solar panels, wind turbines, battery storage, electric cars, and the infrastructure (and regulations) to support them.

Promote a robust middle class and workers. The industrial might of America came from union workers.  Steel, automobiles, airplanes. The weapons that won two world wars.

Support our K-12 schools. Learning math and science means it’s harder to be scammed. Learning history gives us perspective and teaches us not to make the same mistakes our ancestors did. Our kids must learn that “a more perfect union” is a constant work in progress and our past mistakes can be corrected.

Universities, too. Research is what keeps us competitive socially, economically, industrially. We’re a destination for college students from every other country, and our research institutions are why Americans have won more Nobel Prizes than citizens of the next six countries combined. Don’t like something a college prof or student says? Don’t try to shut them up. Learn how to argue better and with better information.

Don’t dismantle our government agencies. Government does things we can’t do individually, like keep our food safe and our air and water clean. We can’t each predict hurricanes or fight forest fires. And you and I can’t organize an effective response when a hurricane or forest fire destroys a town. We can’t regulate the banks or prosecute crooked businesses by ourselves. Our parents and grandparents didn’t fight the Second World War alone, the government organized and equipped them to do it together.

Care for our veterans. They put their lives on the line for us. PTSD can derail a life. A traumatic brain injury is not just a headache. If we can afford the money to send our citizens to war, we must also afford the money to educate, support and honor them when they come home.

America is pretty great, but the “government is evil” movement started in the 1980s and the recent anti-immigrant vitriol and demagoguery, along with the false claim that our economy is failing, makes us believe our country is on the skids. The truth is that the U.S. has an economy that’s the envy of the rest of the industrialized world and we have immigrants who revitalize rust belt towns.

We can cast off those shackles of lies and move our shared reality back to the post-war sensibility that made America the greatest industrial and intellectual power in the world.

I’m proud of the country I’m a citizen of. I want it to be better. If we want slogans to act on, let’s remember that Reconstruction-era Sen. (and immigrant) Carl Schurtz didn’t just say, “My country, right or wrong,” he finished the thought, “if right to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

Jeffrey Copeland is a retired software engineer who lives in Bellingham and believes that yelling “BULL!” at the top of one’s lungs is sometimes an act of patriotism.

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