Well, I was in the airport the other day and had a couple minutes to write down what I thought were some good large-scale political issues:
America's place on the world stage - Are we ever going to decide what we are? Are we everyone's friend, or the world policeman, or that policeman that only takes notice when a buddy of his gets his truck stolen?
Illegal immigration - Emphasis on the 'illegal' part. If you want to come here, come through the proper channels. However, I think it should be a lot easier to enter the country to work, and perhaps harder to become a citizen.
Energy - Regardless of whether you think we are running out of oil, or think that the world is warming because of it, we need to rethink out energy needs and ways to get it. Just because we have the power to burn oil for the next 50 years doesn't mean we should.
Election procedures - How about voting machines that keep a paper copy? How about no computers? How about just checking off the name of the person you want in office (or better yet, circling it)? It would take a couple weeks to count the votes, but then we'd at least be sure about who is winning our elections.
Clean elections - Keep special interests out of politics. For more information, see
http://www.democracymatters.org/. Maybe we should push for this in Grand Forks or Fargo and see what we can do to change the world.
The National Debt - How can we teach our children not to spend money they don't have if our country continues to do so?
The lack of a difference between the two major parties - Whether they are both corrupt or not, they are similar enough that nothing seems to be getting done. We need a break, or we need a third party with a charismatic leader.
The "War on Terror" and what this means - So who exactly are we going after? Is there a list somewhere? What specific acts are we trying to prevent? Why is it our job?
The Patriot Act - I know it's a slippery slope argument, but I think it's true in this case. If we give up those freedoms we don't specifically need right now, what's to stop them from taking freedoms we want in the future?
Just a few things.