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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 38: The Major Issues:
February 17, 2003:
Now it is time to get to the issues. In that, I must first address
four which I consider to be of overriding concern and somewhat
equal in weight. All of these will have many subcategories and
issues of their own. I must go into the details of each of these
and determine what needs to be done. Only through detailing these
things can I deal effectively with the legitimate areas of overlap.
After I cover the major issues I will take up the larger list
of other issues.
It would be nice if we had the time to resolve these things in order one at a time. Unfortunately the press of ongoing events will prevent that. Time is already short. To some extent we must deal with all of them simultaneously. However, for the purpose of discussion, I must put them in order while realizing that none of them can be totally deferred. They must all have our ongoing attention. Here are the overriding issues as I see them.
First and most important to me is child welfare. This is the protection, nurturing, and education of our kids. Our kids are the future. Everyone says that, but no one does anything different though it is obvious we are losing our kids. It is time to get off of the dime. I believe this discussion could be a book by itself. The first step, of course, will be to list and order the many facets of this huge subject. Then we can discuss and attempt to resolve them one at a time.
Our abject failure in this area is at the very source of our current problems. It's why adults now are so uncaring, insensitive, and selfish. It is the reason we have so many sociopathic and psychopathic teens. It is the damage they sustained as children that makes them that way. For sure, a lot must change before we can deal with those issues and we will address those as we go along. Many things, we will find, are prerequisites to a new philosophy of child nurturing and education. We cannot separate education or any other issue from the fabric of the culture which must support it.
Our major goal must be to protect children. Caring for children in a very positive way is at the heart of my philosophy. We must make sure they believe in themselves. Only through this can we be sure they will know and strive to achieve their potential. They will assume that they are destine to be great. Most of the adults and all of the people in power are wrong about this. I hope there are just a handful of adults who are not wrong, who understand, a few besides me. We must come together and start to act.
Our next issue must be restoring the rule of law in America. To do anything else, we must first have our own house in order. We must sweep our own porch. That means restoring the constitution. We must stop our political beasts from violating the law at their own convenience. Until we do that, we can have no moral force in the world. Everything else we do must come out of that. Of course, this means getting an honest government. That is something we have not had since George Washington. It has been downhill from there on. We have finally reached the point where our government is no longer viable. The cost is enormous and the results are frivolous when not dangerous.
Part of our hope of surviving is contingent upon building strong communities and taking back our government. Right now, our entire governmental structure can be likened to a battery of loose cannons going off in all directions. From a cost standpoint alone, it has become untenable. I don't know why it does not terrify people that the FBI and CIA are invading every facet of our private lives. The federal establishment has gathered enormous power and is using it more each day. What will happen when they run out of Arabs? Once the guard dog has tasted blood he is not going to spare the sheep or even the shepherd. Read the history of Germany for goodness sake. Read what happened in the thirties and forties. Hitler targeted Jews. We are targeting Arabs.
The third issue is about restoring and preserving our environment. Our environment is being damaged in a number of ways, by many different groups. This must all stop. It should be clear that our current government is anti-environmental. Exploitation of the environment at the expense of the future is heavily favored for the benefit of the grasping profiteers among us. If we don't stop that, our kids will have no quality of life at all. There will be no environment to support them.
The government spends enormous amounts doing stuff they should not be doing and no money doing the stuff they should be doing. Right now, the environment is among the most important issues we have. It is much more important than the space program. It's more important than getting Iraq. Recently a ship, The Prestige, went down off the coast of Spain. It was carrying oil. It created an environmental disaster worse that the Exxon Valdez. We should have a viable alternative to oil for our energy sources. We don't because no one is investing any funds in finding one. Meanwhile, we risk and damage our environment every day. The solution would seem to be in controlled, clean, nuclear fusion. Many people believe that, but no one has put any money into the research.
Our fourth major issue is the need to democratize the world and end terrorism. This is a long term goal, but it must begin immediately. We missed a good opportunity to begin in Afghanistan. Instead, we put a bandit chief in charge. I think we can still bring it off, but it will now require us to be a bit highhanded. So be it. We need to hold the rest of the world at bay while we do that.
On this issue, many people will argue for a world government. Some will even make the ridiculous suggestion that the United Nations, as it is now constituted, could serve that function. I will offer these points. First, a viable world government would be nice, but it is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. Second, a world government is not necessary to world peace.
What is necessary to world peace is equality of human opportunity. This can best be achieved when all the nations of the world have some form of representative democracy. I think the evidence speaks for itself. The people who live in representative democracy nations have much more of everything than those in the so called third world countries.
We need to bring the third world into the twenty-first century. Sending them aid is not how we can do that. The only long term solution to the third world's problems is to democratize it. There is no way we can support them indefinitely. They must join us as equal partners in a world economy. Despotic governments cannot make that happen. Only people in a free society can achieve our kind of productivity. Look at the USSR for goodness sake. To be sure, they built an outstanding war machine and got into space, but they did so by robbing their citizens. Now, the citizens are still paying the penalty for that.
As to the United Nations becoming the world government, get serious. The UN is a room full of rabble with a few thoughtful people. So what? So is the United States Congress. The difference is, the members of our congress are relatively equal representative of relatively equal groups of people. That is bad enough. It is as bad as I want it to get. It is at least self limiting.
What I do not want is the unequal representatives of a world
full of unequal ragged beggars being able to vote on my future
or my kids future. Those people are ragged because of their leadership.
First, let's democratize the world. Let's create equal opportunity
for all people. Then we can talk about a world government. If
we can democratize the world, we will have an enormous achievement.
We need not expect that next week. It is a huge, long range task.
Is this imperialist? For sure it is and I think it is time we
quit apologizing for being imperialists. I think it's time to
export democracy. It beats heck out of Marlboroughs, blue-jeans,
and Coke. Democracy is the finest product we have.
Next time I will begin looking at the issues involved in child
welfare.
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