Considering the peril we face, it occurs to me that there is possibly a great coalition of Americans waiting to come together. There are many areas of common concerns where, democrat or republican, there can be agreement in calling upon our elected officials to restore a responsible approach to government.

One such area is energy. The recent fall in gas prices has taken this issue off of the national stage, but be assured it will return. The idea of appointing Al Gore to head a rumored “Energy Security Council” is troubling. If there is a more left-wing, anti-growth, anti petroleum loonie on this planet, let them step forward. What is needed is a serious national commitment for energy independence that goes beyond mere rhetoric.

It is not as though we have not been warned. The 1973 oil embargo, the 1991 Gulf War, and the latest huge spike in gas prices all teach the same lesson: Dependence on Middle East petroleum is a recipe for disaster. Is this not an issue that most Americans agree on? It will be vital that we join together in applying pressure to see rapid and significant progress on this front.

Another area to watch closely will be Supreme Court nominations. A case decided recently perfectly illustrates the importance of this subject. In a 5 to 4 decision, the court correctly decided (my opinion) that the Navy can continue to use a specific type of sonar in training its crews. Extremist environmentalist groups had contended the practice must be stopped since, according to them, it ran the risk of causing injury or death to whales. Never mind that discontinuing the practice would run the risk of injury or death to those of us who actually depend upon the military for protection from foreign threats. Forgetting for the moment the task of trying to decide how they found four college educated justices who would side with whales over people, just imagine where we would be if the court had just one more liberal justice! It would have been a 5-4 decision in favor of the big mammals. Surely a great majority of Americans would agree that we need a Supreme Court that places a greater value on the security of Americans than it does on whales.

Any discussion of large things must bring to mind the federal budget. We are now ten trillion dollars in debt, which amounts to a cool 130 grand for each family of four. I have yet to meet a single person who considers that to be good news, much less the prospect of increasing it. And yet that is the outlook if President-elect Obama fulfills his election promises of lowering taxes for practically everyone while increasing spending by hundreds of billions a year.

The excuse might be used that increased spending is called for in tough economic times. But  Mona Charen, in a recent article, quotes former Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau’s testimony before a congressional committee in 1939. "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot." And Morgenthau was an ally of then president Roosevelt.

Surely we can join together in agreeing that the federal budget must be balanced. Cut spending (And, no, a scalpel won’t do…think “chainsaw”.) or increase taxes, but balance the budget. Leaving this debt for our children and grandchildren to clean up cannot be viewed as an option.

This list can be concluded by mentioning gay marriage. Again, this is a subject upon which a great majority of Americans agree. Other individual’s sex choices are not the issue here, but when it comes to the subject of marriage, we must be unapologetically plain with our stance. No person has a fundamental federal “right” to marriage. It is a privilege granted by the governments who are supposed to represent us. If we extend marriage to include two members of the same gender, then how can we justify limiting it to only two people? Who would we be to tell three people they cannot marry, or a man and a fourteen year old girl, or two men and two women, or…well, you get the point. Enough of this talk of depriving others of their rights. Every person has the identical right to marriage, so long as it is to one person of the opposite sex.

Do you agree with these positions? Then let’s combine our voices. No matter our political affiliations, in these areas we must demand progress be made in the next four years.