The 16 Worst of Asinine Politics--Part 1
Humans are most distinct from other species in their ability to reason and their innate sense of ethics. Contrary to common notions, ethics is not dependent on religious inherited dogma, but an inherited trait, like many other inheritable traits which are developed by reason and practice. The Golden Rule is the universal end point of such reasoning about ethics. Unfortunately, humans suffer the fate of believing a lot of notions based on 'faith' not reason. A lot of faith based malarky is harmless enough, and may be provide the emotional strength to handle the stresses of life. Anecdotal medicine and inherited religious beliefs are prevalent everywhere, and are harmless enough unless they are allowed to ruin one's health or harm the rights of others who become the target of religious intolerance.
In the arena of politics, some policies or lack of policies are bad and the worst of the bad policies I have tried to identify in this musing. Worst is based mostly on the severity of damage such policies cause. Written with the United States in mind, there may be policies in other countries which would make the list if I lived in these other countries. But I do not, and therefore all this has a distinct American bent, albeit most apply on a global basis. There are 3 overriding influences on this selection of the worst. Empires in human history come and go including Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British, French, American, etc. Most all of them collapsed because some sort of global empire became too expensive to maintain and too much of the wealth at home accumulated in the hands of too few at the expense of others. Today, one has to include policies which feed the rapid environmental effects of human overpopulation. There is no attempt to go into a lengthy discussion of each worst policy past pointing out the main reason it is listed.
l. Lack of any policy to enforce responsible reproduction.
The global population has doubled in my life time. For unchecked human population to proceed is disaster WRIT LARGE. While we are able to precisely define overpopulation of all other species, we are blind to the same standards which define human overpopulation. Instead, all the many problems being caused by human overpopulation are instead defined in terms of form of government, human rights, religious beliefs, culture bias, nature of parenting, etc. There is not an effective responsible reproduction program in place anywhere on the globe, albeit China has at least tried somewhat. Mindless reproduction remains a sacred right, albeit it would be hard to define what is sacred about it. Some religions even make it a sin to practice birth control outside the absence of sex. Fortunately, many people in religious sects manage to ignore some of the more outrageous and nonsensical religious dogmas. Those who are against enforcement of responsible reproduction are, by any logical standards, a bit off in la la land. Quality of life counts. And the same people who scream about abortion are quiet as a herd of mouses when it comes to the millions who now live in refugee camps, have no land, no job, etc. And in the last analysis, the abortion issue is really over---it just takes a pill to abort these days; so what makes these tunnel visioned faith based religious dogmatics think they can stop someone from getting a pill anymore than they have been able to stop anyone from getting marijuana if they want it? More La La land reasoning.
The rest of the worst would be hard to put in order of worst to least worst, but the absence of any control over irresponsible reproduction is easily the absolute worst of the worst.
2. The expenditure of money on military matters which exceeds the military budgets of all the other industrialized nations combined.
Defense against military invasions by other countries seems reasonable enough. Still, there are countries in the middle of all the war zones across the globe which have survived quite nicely without military mania to protect them. Switzerland comes to mind. Canada comes to mind. New Zealand comes to mind. It mostly comes down to this: those countries whose attitudes and greediness tend to impose interference in the affairs of other countries, need to have military defenses in order to protect against reprisal. The U.S. has taken military defense to absolute absurdity. I can't really think of any country on the globe which remotely contemplates capturing the United States via military means. Yet every invasion of every country is always portrayed as an invasion to protect the security of the United States. What the United States really seems to want is the ability to control the politics and economic policies of other countries. Any loss of this is then defined as a security threat to the United States. Ironically, most of the costly weapons of mass destruction, which we lavishly spend money to produce, and all the military bases all over the globe, which we lavishly spend money to maintain-----so much of this is now irrelevant in modern wars. We arrive in mass in some distant country, with soldiers and equipment and smart missiles, drones, surveillance cameras, and what not----only to find there are no uniformed armies to attack, little way of identifying the enemy and so we are forced to hunker down in established 'green zones', venturing outside these green zones at the risk of being blown up by roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and sniper fire. Essentially, we financially bankrupt ourselves to build weapons and maintain military bases which are almost useless in modern day conflicts. In the 'old days' the country with the most soldiers and most guns could win a war. We killed 2 million Vietnamese and lost only 35,000 American Soldiers and lost the war. And after we lost the war, to the best of my knowledge, Vietnam has never been any threat to the security of the United States. So what was the purpose of the war?. Why do we continue with this mindless nonsense?
3. The police war on drug abuse.
There are a good number of medical experts who understand why people abuse recreational drugs. These experts understand why anyone ever uses a recreational drug: it simply alters the drug users mindset, to boost their spirits, or release inhibitions, or reduces the feelings of stress, etc. Different recreational drugs appeal to different people based on the different mental needs at the time. Many people simply have no real need to alter their mental state and don't use recreational drugs at all or use them sparingly. But way back in the mid 20th century the notion began to gain popularity that those people who used recreational drugs outside of those used by the majority were to be criminally prosecuted. And thus began the police War on Drugs. The underlying cause of recreational drug abuse is medical. Yet we have allowed this whole issue to become one of criminal behavior. It doesn't take an Einstein to understand that if someone needs to take a drug in order to feel better, to bring on some sort of mood they can tolerate better or enjoy more-----that if you tell them to stop, they won't. The solution is not so complicated, albeit difficult. To stop the abuse you have to change the environment which is causing the mental state being altered by the drugs or provide them medical help to alter their brain chemistry. Everything about this issue is medical, social, or economic. But instead we continue to support a police War on Drugs that costs an astronomical amount of money, ensures that the United States has a greater percentage of people in jail than any other country (at a cost of $30,000/inmate), and virtually ensures these incarcerated inmates, once released, will become dredges on society for the rest of their lives.
4. The inability to tax the wealthy in a way which prevents too much wealth accumulating in the hands of too few.
It seems rather obvious that for any country to have a healthy economy the distribution of wealth cannot be allowed to become too skewed in favor of the rich. This tendency happened back in the late 1800's and early 1900's in this country. Back then people had the good sense to impose steep graduated income taxes up to 90% and steep inheritance taxes. It worked. It worked so well that this country had an economic prosperity unmatched across the globe. Today it is a whole new ball game. The wealthy control elections via funding candidates, lobbyists control Congress to be sure the wealthy get endless tax breaks, tax cuts, tax shelters, tax deferments, and the list of perks goes on and on. Even when 2-5% of the people own 90% of our wealth the issue is simply ignored. Even I, at the shallow end of the affluent pool, pay around 10.7% as my tax rate. And everyone wonders why both state and federal debts are so high? If the affluent pay less percentage wise in taxes, just where is the money to come from to run government? It is really bad now----meaning that the poor and those of modest incomes have nothing left for the wealthy to take in order to make the wealthy wealthier. So, now to save expenditures, pensions, health care, salaries, job security etc are the target. We have pathetically entered the stage where if any group still has decent pensions, health care, salaries, job security----well they have become the political targets to have such 'perks' removed. After years of building up these benefits as 'desirable' we now refer to them as perks which must go. There is a new kind of freedom on the horizon, and already exists for many across the globe---even in our own country----a kind of freedom where there is nothing left to lose, and nothing is worth nothing, but it is free. Wow.
5. An education system that spends 3 or 4 times more to educate some kids than others.
The right wing conservative and religious segment of our population has convinced most Americans that the children of our urban, rural, and suburban ghettoes---these ghettoes, in large part a product of our War on Drugs----are not victims in need of a level playing field, but rather mere budding dregs of society who need to be locked up as soon as age makes them eligible, preferably with mandatory sentences for crimes, most often related to drug/gang trafficking. Certainly every religion would support the need for government to spend equal amount of money to educate all our children. Whatever children are, they are not responsible for their own youthful environment. Whatever would be the Christian or any other religious dictate of conscience, it certainly would support providing all children with an equal amount of money being spent on their education. Using property taxes to fund education is nothing more than a deliberate act of injustice to innocent children. It is understandable that their own children are first and foremost to parents, but it is equally understood that God, whatever anyone perceives God to be, would consider all children deserving of a good education. On this basis our current method of funding the education of children, all God's children, is unjust. Period.
6. Permitting wars to be fought on borrowed money.
It has to be the height of irony that the political and religious right have been the strongest supporters of every invasion of other countries by the U.S. over the last 4O-50 years. There has never been a war during this time which this segment of our population has not supported. Strange, but this patriotic commitment does not come from any willingness to sacrifice on their part for these wars. Imagine a country going on for decades invading countries, maintaining military bases all over the globe, spending more on military matters than all other industrial nations together, and doing it not only by borrowing the money to do all this, but simultaneously insisting that the wealthy be given tax cuts, and using a voluntary army to fight these battles. When is the last time the U.S. went to war and everyone sacrificed to pay for the war? Probably World War II. In fact, all these wars have made the rich even richer while many of the poor, which make up most of the voluntary army, are made dead. It just seems a cruel and disrespecting attitude to exploit so many of our own citizens in this fashion. My generation ought to be ashamed of ourselves for doing this. Whatever happened to everyone sacrificing and armed service be via a draft?
7. Blaming the poverty levels across the globe on political systems
The bull shit is at least consistent. Every country would be prosperous and peaceful and full of freedom and justice IF democracy were the form of government. I don't know, they have been voting in countries like Haiti for decades and their situation just gets more dire. There is no form of government on earth which can, by itself, save Haiti. Haiti is a perfect example of what happens when human overpopulation passes a certain level. They destroyed all their forests for the wood; in the absence of trees, the topsoil went to the sea, and in the absence of good topsoil, food becomes scarce, and with natural resources depleted, jobs are scarce, and with all this resulting chaos, brutality rule via thugs becomes the reality. Yet the prevalent political mentality is that if Haiti, and other countries like Haiti, could just have clean free elections----well, everything would just be ok. Wow. This La La land politics gets annoying.
8. The inability to keep Church and State separate---all of History has repeatedly shown what happens when any kind of religion becomes the power behind the state. Almost, if not every one of the founders of our Constitution, insisted that religion be kept out of our government. As George Washington said, we are not a Christian government. Jefferson and others were even more blunt about clergy of any sort meddling with governing. The matter is plenty simple enough. Religion is based on beliefs, every person has a right to their own religious beliefs, and no one's religious beliefs should ever be made the law of the land. The Golden Rule suffices rather nicely as an ethical guide for good government.
Part 2 will follow (9-16 + assorted quotations)
