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Hi Kerry!
If we did "stand in line, pay our taxes and keep our mouths shut, like they do in most other nations" would we really be Americans? Would we honestly be a "beacon of the free world"?
We're not good at all at "keeping our mouths shut". FREEDOM ON SPEECH is a beautiful thing.
Freedom is the magic word. Even though we aren't really as free as we think we are, we have more freedoms than many nations.

Upon this, Kerry, we can agree... sort of. LOL!

It started our being 'equal opportunity for all' but the trends o the recent couple of decades, starting with Reagan has been to shift all the power to the megacorporations and institutions and gradually limit 'equal opportunity' by placing all the power in the hands, not of the people, but the mega corporations like the banking, investment bankers and insurance industries..

We built and are now destroying what has made this nation great -- a large middle class. As more and more are reduced to poverty, we don't have the power as a people we used to. As more and more and devoting their time and energy and resources to just survival, working two or more jobs just to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, we are less affluent to not only finance and build our industries and markets but to be an influence on other nations' economies.

When private corporate interests buy our representatives in Congress, it is no longer a nation 'of the people and by the people' but a nation 'of Citibank, Exxon, Cigna, the Pentagon, Shearson'

Our freedom of speech becomes only to wail in despair.

I always believed that if you found a person who says they agree 100 percent with another person, you have found someone who is unable to think for himself or herself.

Mark Twain said " Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority , it is time to reform " your opinion . I find this to be true personally , since I am rarely on the side of the majority .

Each one of us has one vote. A bank president and a janitor both have one vote each. The second most important power you have is the dollar in your pocket. You can decide where to spend it, or where to place it on deposit. Everyone has to compete, from the owner of bubble gum machine to the worker who is looking for a higher-paying job.
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The most important thing you have in your pocket is your wallet. "He who has the gold rules." At least in a capitalist society.

Those with the gold have bought our representatives. Our votes just mean we put into office different players for them to bribe.

I would like us to become a populace to produce individuals who seek political office because they posess knowledge of the psyche of the common American. Individuals who know how to rally the citizenship toward common causes to strengthen America and the American people.

In his first Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson reminded his fellow citizens that their happiness and prosperity rested upon a "wise and frugal Government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." He thought this to be the "sum of good government" and that which was "necessary to to close the circle of our felicities."

I think that the germ of the beliefs re government expressed by Jefferson in the quotation above, lay in his belief that governments should restrain individuals from encroaching on the equal rights of others, but compel them to contribute to the necessities of society.

I would like to see an America with educational systems that supply all it takes to produce men and women who have the smarts to hold these thoughts of Jefferson as attributes of good government; and a populace smart enough to elect them to hold policy making offices. For this to happen a lot of changes must be made.

Yes , elizkaye , the first change has to be total campaign finance reform .

That's the absolute key. The money has to come OUT of the formula before our politics will be "for, of and by the people"