Who Are We?

Lately I find myself thinking more about social philosophy than I do politics or public policy. I guess that's because I think if we as a nation can come to some consensus on how we want to define ourselves as a society, then much of the policy will take care of itself. In other words, I think that in order to solve many of our problems we must take an honest look at who we are as a nation and who we want to be. We as citizens need to understand our role in a democratic society as well as how our government works so we can decide what we want its role to be.

There needs to be a greater awareness of our history and how our government works and for this to happen we need to work on improving our education system. Unfortunately, there are those who seem to promote exactly the opposite because they, who are always looking for gaining the upper hand in their quest to dominate others, believe in a society of competition rather than one of cooperation. Their anti-government,  get-the-government-out-of-everything, let-the-private-sector-do-it-all mentality is the perfect self-serving construct for keeping the rich rich and the powerful powerful, especially with respect to education.

Although they'll argue the contrary, there's no question in my mind, or in the mind of any rational thinker, that privatizing education and leaving it to the whims of a market economy would result in less access to education for a greater number of people. That's a perfect arrangement for them: less government spending on education means, in their warped way of thinking, more money for the private sector, believing that all money that goes to the public sector constitutes a net loss to them. Few admit to the other motive for destroying public education which is to have greater control of a dumbed-down populace and less dissent against the rigged system they paid for.

We need to understand that it's not always a good idea to try to have every moral issue reflected in our laws. In fact, the attempt to control certain kinds of behavior through laws often results in other kinds of harmful behavior, especially when we try to outlaw certain activities that are well established in our society, even though they are of questionable social or moral value. Look at the consumption of drugs and alcohol. Look at abortion. These are human activities that have been going on for a long long time. It is delusional to believe that these activities can be stamped out entirely because of a law to prohibit them; and I would argue it is not constructive to even try. Instead, we come to terms that some behavior will not be eliminated through legislation and we should make laws that are designed to mitigate the negative effects that certain activities have on society as a whole. That is already done to some extent with alcohol. It is not illegal across the board but through laws, it has age limits, restrictions on blood alcohol levels for driving, advertising restrictions, special taxes, etc. So, although we as a society recognize that the use of alcohol can cause harm and there should be some coercive measures to control and mitigate its harmful effects, we also recognize that outlawing it outright would be an unnecessary infringement on the freedom of those who drink responsibly and would give rise to other harmful things like a black market and consequently other more serious crimes, as we learned during prohibition.

More common sense is needed to approach our common needs and problems. Religious dogma can often translate into better behavior and a potentially better society but it is often too rigid to be reflected in our laws. And if it were, it would often cause more harmful consequences than the original harm it tries to eliminate. Look at some isolated parts of the muslim world: stoning for adultery. Cutting off of limbs for theft.  Is this a good way to deal with such things? Look at our society. If many Christians had their way abortion would be outlawed. Let's look at the consequences of that. It might dissuade some women from having one, but many more would have them anyway and it would be done with much greater risk to them because they would be done secretly and illegally. And what social good would be served if more women die or are harmed because of an absolute moral opinion about abortion that disallows others to have the free will to follow their own moral compass. Let's not fail to recognize either that there are parameters that govern the legality of abortion; namely that it would be legal up until the 25th week of gestation based on the scientifically recognized fact that that is the point at which a fetus could possibly survive outside the womb and therefore is not entirely dependent on the biological system of the mother. Most people believe that such a restriction on abortion is reasonable.

There must be as much wariness about the power of individual citizens and corporations as there has been about the government. Please recognize that much of the anti-government rhetoric we hear is primarily an attempt by the powerful few to control the government and affect public policy and legislation as much as possible so they can eliminate government "interference" and become the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. The government is only as good as how much the will of the people is reflected in its laws and policies and if only a few people are zealously participating in the democratic process it will serve only a few people. And if those few people tend to be at the top of the economic heap then those are the people whose interests are most likely being served.

One of the biggest issues that need to be solved is our energy needs. This is not a right-left issue; or it shouldn't be. There is no question that our standard of living and way of life is greatly dependent on the use of fossil fuels. We need something to fuel the vehicles we use to get to our jobs and to take care of other matters in our lives. We need electricity to run our devices as well as fuel for transportation and to heat our homes. But when the government ignores better systems that would promote the greater good for the sake of the status quo and fails to legislate accordingly, then democracy is not living up to its ideals.

That's all for now. Comments are welcome!