Big idea here - might be a little pretentious, but here's a question I want to see asked, so I'm asking it.
First, go read this webcomic over at Zen Pencils - http://zenpencils.com/...
It's an illustration of a quote from Antoine Saint Exupery:
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up men to gather the wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
We're on the cusp of a long liberal renewal. As we start to leave the empty hulks of defeated conservatism behind, we're missing only one thing -
Vision. We need to begin to articulate a vision with BIG IDEAS. We've been working on the basics of real Christian thought (be nice to each other, take care of each other), and on finishing the promise of the New Deal and the War on Poverty for decades (though both have been rolled back a bit recently).
We need a new set of goals, a new vision to put in front of the American people and to teach them to aspire to.
I'm not going to lay out those goals, I'm going to ask you to lay them out. What can we give America as a vision in the distance? What can we teach America to yearn for as a nation that's more inspiring than a cheap cheeseburger and free porn on the Internet? What can we decide to make inevitable?
Some thoughts that grow from the last fifty years - Reiteration of the elimination of poverty. Creation of a safety net that enables entrepreneurship without worry of destitution and ruin. Technological leadership across the board. Manufacturing leadership across the board. - Like I said, I need help here.
What true Vision should we push for America over the next fifty years, and how do we begin?