We need to change our paradigm. Not because of the dramatic 
changes occurring in the Middle East (but that would be a good reason, anyway. May the changes bring democracy to that part of the world). No, because we Americans have learned the wrong things from our own recent history- and those errant ways will make it difficult for us to grow and prosper as a nation.
The first thing we learned due to recent history is to never trust our leaders. Yes, it’s true that many of ourleaders go out of their way to reinforce this belief. But, since Richard Nixon was President, we have become a people who only believe the worst of our leaders. Richard Nixon was an anti-Semitic, paranoid President, who clearly considered his power to be his personal choice to do with as he pleased. He made it “chic” for us to question every leader’s motives. We still have had bad leaders- but we have only ourselves to blame: we voted for them! Let’s become more civil in our regard for our leaders. I, for one, am tired of every “…gate” headline that our media employ. (At this time, I should add my immense pleasure at the “unified” front our government has displayed during the “Egypt Problem”.)
And, Richard Nixon helped culminate another problem in America: our disregard for laws. He didn’t start the problem- it actually started with the passing of bad laws (and that began early on- with our esteemed Constitution and it’s 3/5 valuation for Blacks). But, the passing of the 55 mph speed limit (so that the rich could still drive their gas guzzlers) made us all question which laws we would follow and when. Think about it- when was the last time you really obeyed the speed limits? And, that “little transgression” renders the next violation just a little bit more likely…
Finally, the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster this past week reminded me that this was among the major causes behind our disregard of scientific and technological advice and knowledge. We had believed in the infallibility of our designs before the Challenger disaster. Since then, we have found (rightly so) that nothing is infallible. But, our disregard for the multitude of scientific data is amazing. It took us some 10 years to finally dispel the lie perpetrated by Wakefield scaring people away from vaccinating their children to preserve their health. The disbelief about climate change is similar in scope.
Yes, we must learn from history to preclude repeating it. But, we must learn viable concepts, not to employ rumors and errors.
