I listen a podcast by Dan Carlin called Common Sense. He's got some good ideas, a good way of looking at things, and an interesting way to describe the situation as he sees it. His background is that he used to work for broadcast companies as a news man and later commentator/personality. He felt restricted by it and now podcasts and blogs to get his ideas out.
In his last Common Sense show, he re-emphasized an old analogy about how steering the ship of state is just like that, and there's a big iceberg out there. His point is that if you see the iceberg a long way out, you have plenty of time and it only requires small corrections to avoid the iceberg. He seems to think that we are right in front of the iceberg, bearing down on it and our two-party system is gridlocked and unable to respond.
I've had an old analogy that is something like that. In mine, the two parties are in a vehicle and each keeps grabbing the wheel and yanking it their way. The analogies are similar, because it has those governing us not paying attention to where the ship of state is headed. Unfortunately, those that are elected usually concentrate on the next election and no one thinks about the long solution and what direction we want to take the country in the long run.
Here's what I wrote on his forum message board:
"Your analogy about avoiding an iceberg is similar to an analogy of mine. I always thought our governing cycles that swing back and forth between the parties were like a car going down a ridgetop road with a steep drop off on either side. One side veers one way when they have control, and then the other side takes over and steers us back onto the road briefly, then on toward the other cliff. I suppose there are less perilous times when the terrain is flat, like the dry lake bed they land Shuttles on. Then it doesn't matter if we veer drunkenly around, at least we don't hit anything or fall over the side, but even then, it's a damned inefficient way to make it to your destination. The problem is that our elected leaders don't have a long term sustainable goal, and therefore don't tend to steer the ship of state in a straight line toward a safe harbor or rich trade port, or even a sexy vacation destination. We're out somewhere in the ocean dodging icebergs. Let's take the ship to a good place! Can't anybody appreciate visionaries?
"Today we need solutions that piss off everyone but harm no one. We need to roll the Bush tax cuts back by 50% and cut spending about 50% of what the last draconian proposal was. You don't diet by eating everything you want and exercising all day or by eating concentration camp rations and sitting still, you eat less and exercise more. We need to legalize marijuana and tax the hell out of it while scaling back DEA and foreign aid for drug interdiction. We need to cut all the wars off immediately and stop arming ourselves to the teeth. We need to raise the retirement age to the neutral point (the magical age where those paying in equal those taking out, plus about a year for slippage and inefficiency). We need to put everyone on Medicare on a program where they go in for annual checkups and if they stay healthy and loose weight, lower their cholesterol and blood pressure and stay off tobacco, we give them a check for $1,500 every year. I'm convinced that it's cheaper to bribe people to stay healthy than to pay for expensive and preventable diseases brought on by chronic unhealthy lifestyle choices. Don't promise people it will continue forever, tell them it stays in place until it stops showing a financial return. If we stopped subsidizing the incredibly profitable oil and gas industries and gave tax breaks or incentives to solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and other alternative energy producers, we could generate jobs here, cut our dependence on foreign oil that only funds states that support, harbor, or generate terrorists, and then sell the technology to the rest of the world.
"Each major problem has a common sense (and usually untried) solution that both sides in Washington reject. This has gone on entirely too long."
No comments:
Post a Comment