The West – and America, in particular – is in the same boat as late 1940s Japan. We are in such deep debt that we cannot capitalize out way out of this financial nightmare. We, too, need a revolution in the way we operate. Let’s do it, then. Let’s do it at the ultimate government level.
We’ll begin now. So what are our basic principles? Any solution should be adaptable and able to evolve. Nothing too specific, like “we pay one million dollars to every county to implement computer tracking in prisons” can be listed, as that isn’t a principle. Our only principle will be this: The business of the Federal Government is to ensure a fully functioning infrastructure to support growth of a creative and innovative society.” In effect, that surmises the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the U.S. Constitution in one sentence. But we have to deal with a word in that sentence: infrastructure.
I think it is safe to say that we all will agree that roads are infrastructure. Having a system of roads allows for people to move to where they are needed to work and to where they want to live and find happiness. I’ll say the same for sidewalks. Look! We’re well on our way.
Early in the history of electricity, the electric grid was viewed in this same way. The same is true for potable water distribution and sewage collection. Though maybe more controversial than roads (maybe because we’re just not used to it), I claim that these things are also infrastructure.
The military, police, prison systems, and executive cabinet positions, such as environmental protection and public health are also infrastructure, in my book, but in a more specific way than they are practiced today. The fact that we need these things in order to ensure protection of the fundamental principle and resources makes them infrastructure, maybe, but that doesn’t give any of them a blank check to inject themselves into any and all parts of our life. It doesn’t give them unlimited funding, either. Public health can run the FDA and regulate the production of medicine and cigarettes, but it shouldn’t be able to say that it is illegal for us to smoke pot. It can only present the real data that is known about any of these substances and study what is not yet known. The military is charged to protect the country, but having a standing army at full-war readiness levels all the time isn’t a foregone conclusion. We have to play within the system, after all, and nobody is smart enough to micromanage every earthling on the cheap. This leads into another – and the most vital – part of infrastructure: education.
When was Civics taken out of your high school? When were you last expected to understand the full breadth of risks associated with something you ingested, instead of relying on a seal of approval from a governmental watch dog group? And how would have you been able to research the structure of mortgage investments to determine whether you wanted to risk the funds in your 401k in those securities or not, should have you wanted to? Do you realize that everyone gets a cold sometimes, or do you go to the emergency room when you cough? No governmental reform will succeed in providing the bedrock for a happy and innovative society if the people under that government are ignorant of what is out there and why. Having the knowledge (or access to it) to assess the outcomes of our decisions is the way society has grown over the millennia and it is no less important now. Education, then, is infrastructure for us, going forward. Without it, nothing else really matters.
What can help to support a good education infrastructure? Some of the basics are ensuring full access to everyone, that students are not hungry, and that they can see the board and the books in order to read what is being taught. Thus, equality and some basic form of health assistance is infrastructure for an innovative society.
Without any detail, these are only the first level definitions of the word “infrastructure,” which is vital to our basic principle. We don’t need to worry about funding, implications, existing social or business roadblocks or anything else yet. We only need to agree on two things: 1) what is the point of having a country and 2) what principle guides that country’s government. Still, I feel that these claims are being less accepted by the “right” as I move along. But I don’t understand why. This all seems perfectly obvious to me.
This is not meant to be a full list of what should be in infrastructure. Perhaps you, my dear readers, can offer opinions.
No comments:
Post a Comment