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Justin Fowler

English 101 13463

Professor Dewey

April 28 2019

America Demands Sacrifice

Our country has become wrapped in an illusion of superiority. We think of ourselves as

the world's greatest when we are demonstrably not. Our pride has blinded us to the gaping

wounds in our country; a great rift of cognitive dissonance has split our government down the

middle, our world is slowly suffocating from a smog pumped out of our mighty factories, and

people waste their time, energy, and sometimes their lives driving down outdated roads in unsafe

vehicles driven by clumsy people. If the United States wants to remain in a position of power we

must sacrifice our pride, greed and some of our leisure to ensure our economic, social and

environmental success.

“In the United States today, liberal and conservative citizens are becoming increasingly

polarized in their attitudes of hostility toward one another.”(Moses 4) Either side is unwilling to

compromise and really listen to each other. Instead, they choose to yell and lie as loud as they

can until their base stops listening to the other side at all. Our news media outlets are constantly

updating us on everything. What is worse is that each station has their own point of view and

bias. Many people tend to only get their news from one source. People who subscribe to one

channel may have a completely different view from another person who gets their news from a

different site. When people don’t have a common set of facts they can’t have a good dialogue.

When they can’t communicate easily they get frustrated and assume they’re right and the other

side is wrong. Many americans identify with their political party and take it as a personal insult
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when their party takes damage. All these factors combine to create a tribal mentality and an “us

vs them” mindset. This makes having good faith debates and constructive arguments near

impossible as the interlocutors are always trying to score points with their base rather than

actually trying to solve the problem at hand. This leads to corruption and “win at all costs”

strategies. Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy,

diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out

important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away

investments and jobs (Biden).

Our transportation infrastructure is outdated. We need to revolutionize our roadworks.

With the increasing popularity and affordability of electric cars we should implement a full scale

overhaul of the entire nation’s auto supply. Roads should be updated with solar panels so they

can make use of the many miles of exposed surface. Driving should be automated to prevent the

countless human errors, such as driving while impaired, which is responsible for ten thousand

deaths per year (NHSTA). With self driving car technology, car insurance must be reworked.

Public transportation can now be expanded and modernized. All of these new works will

undoubtedly cost a high price but we must rise to the challenge. This new infrastructure will free

up a tremendous amount of time and energy that can be applied to other more important tasks.

National productivity would skyrocket as a result.

Oil tycoons and coal miners built our nation and breathed energy into our economy with

their black gold. But the noxious clouds and poison rivers of chemical runoff they produce is

choking our planet. “Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the

air.”(Hansen) Switching our means of energy production would serve to dramatically reduce the

pollution of our planet. Losing the mass amounts of energy producing capital will likely make a
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lot of rich people very unhappy but their greed should not dictate the fate of our planet. We must

abandon our toxic dependency on these machines and make the switch to renewable and clean

energy. This will revitalize our energy economy and ensure a clean and breathable future for

future generations.

In conclusion, the United States has lost its innovative edge by sticking with the old

reliable technologies rather than making risky investments in new potentially revolutionary

technologies. We must sacrifice our complacency and old habits and jump into the chaotic

unknown of trial and error to build a bright and prosperous future. To do this we must renovate

our political avenues of debate, streamline our transportation infrastructure, and revitalize our

energy sector with clean power production. These tasks all require immense sacrifice to

accomplish but any future worth living in is bought with sacrifice. We must accept the fact that

“the future depends on what we do in the present.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

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Works Cited:

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic Safety Facts 2016 data: alcohol-

impaired driving. U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, DC; 2017 Available at:

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812450

External Accessed: April 29 2019

Moses, Jeremy M., "Building Bridges, and Reducing Anger: Liberal-Conservative

Dialogue in the United States" (2014). Capstone Collection. 2721.

https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/capstones/2721

James Hansen (2007). "Testimony of James E. Hansen at Iowa Utilities Board" (PDF).

Iowa Utilities Board, Columbia University

Mahatma Ghandi, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/806111-the-future-depends-on-

what-we-do-in-the-present

“Joe Biden Quotes." BrainyQuote.com. BrainyMedia Inc, 2019. 3 May 2019.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/joe_biden_676835