UpAmerica

When I started this blog, I had to come up with a name for it. After a little thought, I decided to call it “UpAmerica.” So what does it mean? Well, to me it represents several goals:

    1. Lift America to a higher standard of moral behavior.

    2. Unite our people to lift one another up.

    3. Raise up new generations of Americans who have stronger positive moral values than previous generations.

These goals are why I started this blog and the reason I hope to expand beyond a blog.

I believe that three moral values will create a moral foundation that will help America achieve the goals above. They are:

-              - Love People

-              - Keep Passions in Their Proper Place

-              - Seek Truth

Read more about these values in my post “The Change We Need."

I’d appreciate your feedback on these goals and moral values. Please comment below. Thanks.

Respect and Communication

I’m currently in a business communication class. We’ve been learning about writing professional letters and other documents. I think it is interesting that consistently, we are told how to write and organize things in ways that will be least likely to upset someone. For example, if we are giving negative news, we are told to use the indirect method, which means that we explain the situation first, before giving the bad news. Normally, we would be more direct and talk about the main point first, then explain it.

Now if business people are being taught to be civil and polite and to be respectful of others, what is wrong with the rest of the population? Shouldn’t this be standard teaching for everyone? How often are children in elementary or high school taught how to communicate respectfully? Sure, when they do act badly, calling someone names or some other sort of disrespect, they may get yelled at or punished.

But does anyone explain to them how our words and actions can affect others? Do the adults around them act this out as an example? What kind of examples are their media images presenting?

Parents and educators need to model respectful, kind behavior and they need to explain the benefits, as well as what can happen when people don’t treat each other this way. Let’s teach the next generations that people are worth respect and kind treatment, no matter who they are.

To Parents

You saw mistakes your parents made while raising you. You told yourself you wouldn’t make the same ones with your children—you would do better. Now as you raise your children, you have those ideals firmly in your mind. You’re trying to be a better parent than your own parents. Maybe you are doing a good job of avoiding some of your parents’ mistakes. That is a great and admirable achievement. You’ll be satisfied with the improvements and one day your family may appreciate the things you’ve done, as well.

On the other hand, though, are you possibly making your own mistakes? It’s likely, since no one is perfect. No one has all the answers. An area of great importance, which seems often neglected in our day, is the area of moral values. Where do our children learn their values from? It is possible to get some idea by considering where you learned yours from. If your parents were very involved in your upbringing, teaching what they believed; regulating what you watched, whom you spent time with, where you hung out, and so on; and making you responsible for your own behavior; you probably got many of your values from them. But if your parents sort of let you do what you wanted, without a lot of moral guidance, then what? Where did you learn your moral values from? Most likely, you learned your values from the places where you spent the most time. Perhaps it was from friends, perhaps from T.V., or maybe from books. If you were involved in a church, perhaps you learned some values there.

It’s no different with your own children. What they spend the most time seeing and hearing will have the most impact. Where they go on the internet will affect them. What they see on T.V., what they hear on the radio, or what they read in books will affect them. Their friends’ attitudes and ideas will affect them. Their religious education will affect them. And hopefully, their parents’ good influence will affect them, if they are exposed to that enough.

Raising children without specific, directed moral guidance, is like tossing them into a storm and hoping they land in a great place.

Looking at the big picture, parents have a lot of responsibility to raise up the next generation. How parents raise their children will, in large measure, contribute good or bad to our nation and its people. With all the good organizations and programs meant to help adults make better lives, and with a justice system intended to deter bad behavior, it’s hard to say that it’s really working very well. A major problem is that much of our nation’s organized system for instilling moral values is aimed at adults. In other words, our system attempts to fix people who have developed years of baggage and bad habits, or even worse: toxic attitudes. These are hard to change.

According to medical practitioners, children establish much of their value system in the earliest years of their lives. This puts parents in the best position to guide a child’s path and development of moral values. Parents can be the main influence in a child’s life. But it takes work; it takes effort. It takes being conscious of what their children are exposed to and what they are learning from their experiences.

Perhaps it seems a little overwhelming to think of the results of raising your child in terms of how it will affect our nation. One more ingredient can help. Along with the things listed above that a parent contributes (work, effort, etc.) it also takes direction. Parents need a direction to guide their efforts. They need to know where they are heading. Otherwise, they will just pass on whatever seems to stand out at the time, perhaps with no overall goal in mind.

I see great hope for parents and our nation if we adopt three foundational values and teach them to our children (please see The Change We Need). I hope to provide parents information and tools to guide them toward a better child-raising experience that will build a stronger nation through a solid moral foundation. It will take time, perhaps several generations, to improve our nation. But parents may see something better in the near future as their children adopt these values and live accordingly.

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Each post on this blog will relate to one or more of the three foundational values. These posts may expose false information in our culture or they may point out more specific issues to consider. The range of what I might discuss is quite broad, but it will always relate in some way to these values. What I post here will mostly be intended to inform and educate the person reading, rather than giving specific steps or methods to teach children. The idea here is that parents will be more effective at instilling these values, if they adopt them first as their own. Then they can choose their own ways of passing them on to their children.

The Change We Need

What is the most important thing we can do to strengthen our nation? China has for some time been advancing in their technology and economy. Many view China as the next superpower, likely to outdo us. Do we just need more scientists and engineers? Do we need more business people or better government regulations? Well, surely we could make quite a list of things that would help our nation improve on something.

But I believe we need a deeper change. We need a change that unites us as people. We need a social and cultural change in a new direction. For the past several decades the cultural changes have only divided our nation. We are losing our grip on greatness because of this. Our overriding individualist mentality sets people one against another. Our appetites for money, power, and sex lead many down paths of eventual destruction. And as we claim to seek truth through scientific endeavors, we have instead developed a new form of ignorance regarding our own origins as human beings, rejecting the aid that we could seek from our creator.

I strongly believe and I think history can show that the strength of a nation is tied to its moral values. In particular, three foundational values are essential for our unity and strength. The first of these is to love people. What I mean by the word love is to appreciate the good in others and care enough about them to want to help them regardless of whether or not we get some sort of gain in return.

The second essential moral value is to keep our passions, our desires, in their proper place. This includes anything that tends to get out of control. Unbounded pursuits of money and power often lead to harm or destruction of others’ lives. Unrestrained sexual desires can lead to diseases, addictions, sexual abuse, unwanted children, and so on. Obsessive video game playing can deprive people of opportunities and worthwhile growth. Anything carried to excess tends to have negative consequences.

Third is the moral value of seeking truth. This includes getting an education. It includes studying religion. It includes scientific research as well. But it also includes sharing what is true with others, rather than intentionally deceiving them. We also must acknowledge the truth that we don’t have all of it and that no matter how much we know, there is more to learn. Also, when one truth is discovered, it doesn’t necessarily negate other truths. In particular, because science has come to tentative, theoretical conclusions about evolution, this is not evidence that a creator did not create life on earth. We must remain open to this possibility and look for the evidence as we study life.

It seems intuitively evident that as people adopt these three values in growing numbers, unity would increase between people. Instead of hurting one another, there would be more mutual understanding, more assistance to others. This is the aim of all that I will post here. As Americans adopt and practice and teach these values, our people will gradually unite. Perhaps once again, the United States of America will be a great nation. Once again the world may look to us for leadership.