Earlier this month, while visiting an entrepreneurial daughter on the West Coast, we  boated over to Alcatraz Island which sits  in San Francisco Bay. The visit re-kindled an old dream of mine, one which actually started on the East Coast of our country.

Shining Symbol Of A Free People

There is a small island off the tip of Manhattan.  A fort was constructed there for the War of 1812, and inside its courtyard now stands the most majestic statue in the world, a shining symbol of a free people, the Statue of Liberty.  It was erected in 1886, a joint effort by the people of America (who funded the pedestal) and the people of France (who designed and funded the Statue). In the 1980’s, a public-private partnership raised $87 million to restore the Statue and the restoration was completed in time for “Lady Liberty’s” 100th anniversary.  The UN then declared the Statue a World Heritage Site.

All That Is Great About Our Country

The Statue of Liberty is huge, standing 305 feet tall from its pedestal base to the tip of its torch.  From head to toe, Lady Liberty herself is 112 feet tall and has a 35 foot waistline.  She weighs 450 thousand pounds. There are 354 steps inside the Statue and pedestal, and visitors to the crown have 25 viewing windows from which to peer out at America.

Known throughout the world, the Statue of Liberty symbolizes all that is great about our country: the opportunities, hopes and aspirations made possible in a land where individual freedoms are assured by both our Constitution and a long-standing culture of liberty.  So powerful was the message that it drew hard-working, responsible people from around the world to come to America to raise their families, to pursue their dreams, and to take pride in introducing each new generation to a higher plane of life.  The Statue of Liberty became the symbol of the American Dream.  And many generations of Americans achieved this Dream.

We forgot something vitally important: to sustain our success as a people and as a nation, we must individually retain a strong sense of personal responsibility.

But, over time, an erosion set in.  As we became more successful materially, and reached the highest standard of living ever known, too many of us started to become less resourceful, less self-reliant, less responsible.  Not everyone, of course, but too many of us started looking for the “free ride.”  This portion of our population now wants all the latest material comforts (from cell phones to HDTV), but are unwilling to work for them.  They want the joys of children, but are unwilling to commit to lifelong parental partnerships to raise these children.  They want a secure retirement, but are unwilling to save for it.  As more and more of  our people lost their sense of personal responsibility, our elected officials (politicians) pandered to this weakness (to “buy” votes, of course), and this seemed to validate and accelerate the loss of responsibility.

We Must Individually Retain A Strong Sense of Personal Responsibility.

We forgot something vitally important: to sustain our success as a people and as a nation, we must individually retain a strong sense of personal responsibility.  The same sense our Founding Fathers had when they declared our Independence and adopted our Constitution.  The same sense the people of our young nation had when they tamed our country’s wilderness.  The same sense our poor immigrants had when they came to America to build their fortunes.  The same sense that enabled us to revolutionize the world through the Industrial Revolution, to win two World Wars, and to develop technology which now enables us to do things almost beyond imagination.

Now however, we must come to realize that freedom without responsibility results in chaos.

Now however, we must come to realize that freedom without responsibility results in chaos.  The early signs of this coming chaos are all around us: political parties that deadlock the decision making of government; massively unbalanced federal budgets; enormous accumulated federal debt; a government which prints huge amounts of its own money (thereby devaluing its money) to feed its spending habits; a culture of illegal drugs; a wide-spread acceptance of unwed motherhood; an ever larger portion of our population in jail; an embedded attitude of entitlement; deteriorating results in our public schools; a declining standard of overall health (notwithstanding the fact that we far outspend all other nations for health care); and on, and on, and on.  Unless we revive our individual sense of responsibility, and do it soon, this chaos will consume us and our nation.  The shining torch held by Lady Liberty will be extinguished, and America will deteriorate into a land of broken dreams, hopelessness, and dispair.

Personal Responsibility

Personal responsibility.  It balances freedom.  Together they enabled the American Dream to become a reality.  We had them both before.  That’s how we became great.  But we are losing responsibility now.  We must regain it.  We need a symbol, visible to all (not only in America, but around the world).  This symbol must say we are reclaiming our sense of personal responsibility, each of us are.  This symbol must be as powerful as the Statue of Liberty.

Personal responsibility. It balances freedom. Together they enabled the American Dream to become a reality.

We need a Statue of Responsibility! This is my dream.  And we should build it on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

Alcatraz is a small, hard rock island jutting up just a short distance inside the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was widely known as an inescapable federal prison, and confined about 1,500 of our nation’s most notorious convicts from 1934 to 1963.  Previously however (since 1853) it was the site of a lighthouse and early fortress, a Civil War fortification, and a military prison, before becoming a federal penitentiary.  The island is now under the protection of the National Park Service, which is engaged in an effort to restore the integrity of its deteriorating buildings.

The prisoner’s recreation yard on the north end of Alcatraz Island would be the perfect spot to erect the Statue of Responsibility.  The location is clearly visible to all who enter our country by coming under the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as to all those living in San Francisco and around the Bay.  I envision a statue of a man holding the hand of a child (“father and child”); a statue rising at least 100 feet above its pedestal; a statue depicting a “responsible” father and a “trusting” child.  The Statue of Responsibility should be equal to the Statue of Liberty in size, grandure, and impact.  Hopefully its pedestal could be funded by Asian nations (whose people have immigrated to our country) and the Statue itself by voluntary contributions from our own people.

We need a Statue of Responsibility! This is my dream.

The symbolism of this father-child Statue of Responsibility would be clear (“responsibility earns trust”); the message powerful (“liberty” must be balanced with “responsibility”); and the reach global (a message to all the people of the world that we the people of America intend to re-gain the other key ingredient to our past success, namely “personal responsibility”). “Lady Liberty” on the East Coast entry to our country; “Father Responsibility” on the West Coast entry; together, they “bookend” the American Dream in between. We will not let chaos take over because we lack personal responsibility!

I envision a statue of a man holding the hand of a child (“father and child”)

Let’s get started on this now...Bill O’Neill