What is America?

With everything going on in this crazy election year and everybody having ideas as to how to make America great again I can’t help but wonder do we really know what America is? America is more than a place on a globe. More than the land of the free and home of the brave. America is an idea thought up by a group of people 235 years ago. It was an experiment. Many of the founders didn’t think it would last 20 years. How long it actually lasted can be debated. The America we live in today is not the America that was formed 223 years ago(when the constitution was written). So the most logical question to me is do we try a new experiment or go back to the one that was started in 1789? Personally I would like to go back to the original one. If you have a better one I am willing to listen. But to find a better experiment to try we first have to look at what’s wrong with what we have today. When you do that, many of those arguments will get the answer that that wasn’t intended to be that way in the first place. Many of the problems we have today are blamed on the constitution when in reality the constitution would fix them if it was followed. The American experiment was that people are better off taking care of themselves. The founding fathers looked at many forms of government in history. They took the best ideas and made them better. America was the first society to give almost all the power to the people. They believed that people would do better when they were able to reap the benefits of their own work. There was still different financial classes of people but America was the first society in the history of the world were people could easily change classes. All they had to do was work for it. And change they did. Americans changed the world. Think about this for a minute. The history of the world changed very slowly. From 0 A.D. til the early 1800’s, how much really changed? How long did it take to make those changes? Is it really a coincidence that from 1800 to 2012, the world has drastically changed? When America became free? When the ideas that have become known as capitalism were formed? I don’t think so. America changed the world. Has it made some mistakes along the way? Yes it has. Is it perfect? No. Why? Because people aren’t perfect. Never will be. No form of government will ever be able to make things perfect. Greedy people will always be around. What makes the American experiment great is that it keeps the power in the hands of the individual. Not in the government. Why is this so important? No form of government will work when greedy self-interested people are in it. Our government is full of them. Both parties. Again I am going to say this as I do in many posts: The America we have today is nothing like the America that was started 235 years ago. Before you blame our problems on an old outdated piece of paper at least understand what that paper meant. It allows us to change things anytime we want. But look at the original experiment as it was meant to be and I think you will find that it’s not such a bad idea.