--Call me old fashioned, but my 1st job was literally bagging groceries - so I like having someone else bag them when I shop. I *hate* self-checkout stations - I flat-out refuse to use them.
--When I go into a fast-food restaurant, I like being able to tell a person what my order is. It gives them a job to do (and income, even if it's not really enough to live on by itself), and some human interaction for me. I have no desire to punch a possibly complex, 1-off order into a limited touchscreen interface if I'm feeling like getting something different today - that's their job.
--Try and take that away, and workers should rise up en masse and demand protection from the law - because *millions* would be put out of work if we tried to automate all the Mcdonalds. We have so many people out of work as it is, why would you want to make it worse? That's why the tax laws haven't been reformed BTW - you can't put all the H&R Block, etc tax preparers out in the cold with nothing to fall back on.
--Our best bet is expanding into SPACE - we need a new Frontier.
--America was arguably at its best as a country when we were expanding into the West. After WWII (and especially Vietnam), we started the long slide downhill. 'Murika is becoming East Germany with all this spying bullshit anymore - give us a new planet to build on already. The Moon is right there and not being exploited yet - that would be a good start. After that, the asteroids. And after that, we can terraform Mars. Give us a dream!