Cartoon 694: Alien

Things look different if I try to see things through the eyes of an outside observer. Especially to the extent that I can disassociate myself from inbred cultural prejudice.

Henry David Thoreau was right. Democracy is basically who can effectively lead the lemmings. A larger number of people participating does not necessary result in timely or the right decisions.

Examples:

• gun control should be a given
• drugs use should be treated as an illness
• drugs should be legalize to bring them under control and curtail the violence from the profits
• medical marijuana should be legalized, the pharmaceutical industry has yet to come up with a suitable alternative under certain medical conditions [helps with some of the suffering associated with MS, AIDs, chemo, and a host of other conditions]
• investments in things in the public good, such as infra structure, should be outside the political process and part of a “decade plan”.
• Church and State should be separate
• some form of universal national healthcare should be a given
• a focus on public education and mandatory government funding from pre-school through college should be in place (this gets at the root of everything from crime to innovation, and productivity)
• mass transit should be upgraded to appeal to larger numbers of people. There is no reason why every bus stop does not display where the bus currently is located and the estimated time of arrival. In fact that information should be available to cell phones and through a website.
• There should be “Manhattan” like projects for geothermal energy and electrolysis (hydrogen and oxygen from ocean water).
• remedial healthcare and birth control should be free
• health claims of products should be independently tested by a government arms length facility
• some nationalism is desired
• business, industry and the financial community should be tightly regulated for the public good
• the disparity in wealth between the richest 1% and everyone else should be changed
• the Medicare drug prices should be negotiated by the government with pharmaceutical companies

These are just a few of the things that come to mind. Unfortunately, they are not politically palatable in our democracy. Despite the fact they make perfect sense.