After thinking hard I eventually came up with my own current efforts:
1. Helping support a STEM student
2. Donating a rat maze so some elementary students can measure time improvements from running the same course, changing to a different course and then back again, the effect of sleep on improving run times.
3. Wrote a counting program to help a young person with grasping units, tens, hundreds, subtraction by decrementing. And a program to show how programming works.
Hi M&M,
Well, if your 'making America great' is just doing good for others, I have quite a long list. In my life, I have ministered to the homeless, worked a number of years for a local food bank, delivered meals to older, some very, very poor people, through meals on wheels, paid my taxes, supported my local fellowship of believers through offerings of time and tithes, worked a very brief stint with Habitat for Humanity and for the last five years have participated in our local feed the 5,000 Thanksgiving meal preparation. Actually raised a STEM student who ended up as an honor roll college graduate working a very good job with a major computer firm. I also gave of my time and efforts as parent participant in my son's local FIRST robotics team and attended and worked with that team at many of the meets. Provided transportation for the team to and from many of the meets. Played the part of Peter for many years in my then local fellowship in Miami of the Passion play at which event the gospel was presented to thousands of local people who came to see the play. Personally presented the gospel to many since I was born again myself. I regularly donate blood for the medical needs of my community.
I believe that each and every one of these efforts is at least as qualified as 'making America great' as any of your list. I don't say that to boast, but just offer it as an assessment of the value of your contributions as compared to the value of mine. Offerings and work such as our two lists have always been made by Americans and so 'making America great', per your parameters, has been ongoing for at least a number of decades. For certainly as long as I can remember, there have always been a certain number of people within our borders that do good things for others with no reward of any earthly remuneration.
Many, many teachers do for their students the kinds of things that you listed. Yes, there are some teachers who just see it as a job, but there are many who take a certain responsibility, if you will, to really do the best that they can do to teach our children the kinds of things that you have listed. They don't do it for any greater pay or reward other than just wanting to provide their charges with the knowledge that will help them through their future in a positive way.
I believe, again based on your parameters, that there have always been millions of people working to 'make America great'. And America has always been great. Yes, there are times and circumstances that we can't be particularly proud of, but by and large, our government and our people have always worked to 'make America great' and keep America great.
Despite what President Trump would try to have us believe about ourselves as a nation, America has long been and still holds a greatness that is its people and its governance. We are without doubt the greatest military power on the face of the earth. We have long been the greatest nation to provide a certain large amount of freedom and protections for our citizens. Some of those freedoms and protections I am in agreement with and some not, but America was established with a form of government that allows that we don't, individually, always get what we want. And trust me when I say this, or not, every other nation has these same issues. Some Canadians, Mexicans, Europeans, etc., agree with some of the things that their governments do and some don't.
I believe, that in honestly assessing the past of America, that we have always been a great nation. We have had our turmoils just as every other nation has had, but overall we are a great nation. We always have been pretty much since our inception and for the foreseeable future, I believe we will remain so. I don't give that credit to the presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, I believe that he's doing more to present our nation to the world as a stumbling, bumbling nation. This certainly seems to be evidenced by many of the comments that current world leaders are making about the leadership of our country. There is even quite a bit of evidence that even those within the Republican party itself believe that President Trump is making some serious errors in his leadership role.
God bless you,
In Christ, ted
