How To Heal Our Nation - Solving Problems That Divide Us

When a person gets sick, there are usually symptoms associated with the cause of the illness. An example would be the flu - the symptoms are fever, achiness, congestion. But the cause is a virus. If you eradicate the cause, you will not suffer the symptoms. But if you only deal with the symptoms and never address the cause, the symptons (and cause) will return over and over again.

And there lies the crux of many of America's problems. We are a nation divided by those who want to deal with symptoms and those who want to deal with the causes.

Take the big issue of the day - jobs. Some people blame the corporations and the rich for taking the jobs overseas. But they are only symptoms of the real problem, and not the problem itself. When someone speaks out and asks, "WHY are they taking the jobs overseas, what is the CAUSE?", they turn a deaf ear, because they have already made up their mind where the blame lies.

And by tackling the symptoms with still higher taxes on such businesses, the problem never gets solved and more jobs leave. Sure, you feel good that you punished those big, evil businesses, but you did nothing to solve the problem or to stop the bleeding. Those businesses you punish, however, are the same businesses that provide jobs, products and services that we all want. So you are actually punching the "gift horse" in the mouth. That's like saying, "I am going to beat you up - by the way, would you help me get my car started?"

In this example, the problem lies in the business environment in America. America is not friendly to business. One of the highest tax rates in the world coupled with the expense of unions eats up too much of the profits - and profit is the primary PURPOSE of business.

If we attack the actual cause of the problem by changing the environment here in America, jobs would stay here, which in turn eliminates the symptoms.

There are many polarizing issues that divide this nation unnecessarily. And the only way to heal America is to teach Americans how to ask "WHY?" And keep asking why until you get to the core problem, then tackle that problem.

Problems are like a golf ball. What you see is the dimpled surface. If you dig a bit deeper, you will find a mesh of rubber strands. Dig deeper still and you get to the hard rubber core. And THAT is what you re after.

If we stop to ask why, and keep asking why until we get to the lowest common denominator, we will find the causes to problems. And that makes solving them a lot easier.

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