From the Pragmatic Party...

It’s time to start thinking about the present and dealing with the shit.

How we got here is not the priority, and it doesn’t matter what the founding fathers believed or wanted.  We are here, now.  The country is in extremely sad shape, and it’s time we start cleaning up the mess.  Our infantile empire is starting to show and it’s already on life support.  We need to make some radical changes.

I’m not fond of people who complain with no ideas, so here are some ideas….

 We need an overhaul of the welfare system.

I fully believe that we should provide for every citizen in this country.  We have the capacity, and no one should be homeless or hungry.  However, there ain’t no such thing as a free ride.  If you want to address all the complaints of free loading, you introduce a work requirement and change how the support is delivered.

We need to work toward a new program where every able bodied person contributes something to the system for the aid.  Eventually I see this system becoming support mainly for young people making the transition to independent living.  But I believe the ideas will work well for much of our present population.

10 hours a week of some productive contribution will get you 3 hots and a cot.  We give this to the prison population for nothing, so I think we can extend it further.

And it’s literally just 3 hots and a cot.  I envision the cot being something like a coffin hotel; a foam floored space that’s big enough to lay flat in and sit up straight.  I’d design them with shelves and compartments built into the wall and provide a networked computer.  They’d be comfortable enough, but not too comfortable.

These would be housed in dorm style facilities.  The three hots would be severed in a cafeteria.  All food severed would meet basic nutritional requirements.  (New guidelines would stipulate that all material and supplies would be American made and obtained locally as much as possible.  Contracts would favor smaller business.)  Medical care would be provided on site (By doctors and medical students working off their public service.)  Child care would be provided through the schools.  Much like dorms there would be facilities for printing and other business services, and there would be an organized program of entertainment and events.  There would be public spaces provided both in door and out door.

I believe that such a facility would work equally well for students, people struggling to get back on their feet, and the differently abled in our society.

15 hours of service will get you a 12x12 room with a private bathroom.

20 hours gets the 12x12 with one small bedroom.

These would still be housed in dorm style complexes, and meals would still be in a cafeteria.  Accommodation in these complexes would also be available on a for rent bases with reasonable rates.

The people staying in these arrangements would be employed supporting the complexes.  Jobs would be assigned, with an effort to place people in work they would enjoy.  Somebody who hates kids wouldn’t be placed in the daycare.  As time goes on these complexes would maintain gardens.  People in this system would also take up things like picking up trash on the streets and along the highway.  We could start containing and recycling the trash that is blowing around our landscape.  We could use these civilian cores as a means to clean up and recover the inner cities.  Develop job training programs for construction and carpentry and maintenance with an emphasis on developing a sustainable life style.

It’s a way to clean up our streets, in more ways than one.

And I hear many of you groaning about how to control all this…

For now I can see this being controlled by a board made up of residents, contributors, and officials.  Surely some of the dorms that are already out there have regs that can be adapted.  But I'd keep it minimal, and the room is a private space, no surveillance allowed.  Everyone has a right to some privacy, weather we like it or not.

Cuz, I for one, don’t care that there are some slackers that will work their ten hours a week and then loaf the rest of the time.  Personally, I don’t care if they work their ten hours and spend the rest of their time zoned on their drug of choice.  If that makes them happy, so be it.  As long as they show up and do the work, they get the three hots and a cot.  Keeping the required number of hours fairly low, gives those with the ambition to find other employment, or pursue some other goal, the opportunity to do so.  This would be a major aid to the artistic community and also a pulse for scholarly pursuits.

Along with this I’d make education and basic job training non-profit.  Education through the doctorate level should be free, with the requirement that the student perform public service in exchange for the degree.

And only those that make the grades advance to the next level.  If you can’t maintain at least a C average, you don’t get the education.  Combine this with job training programs and apprenticeships, acknowledge that all work is respectable, regardless of what it is, and let people find the best place for themselves.

I have a very wise and intelligent friend that regrets the fact she choose collage over beauty school.  Maybe in a better system she would have chosen differently.

I think we need to scale some of modern life back, to build a network of smaller communities, to simplify and live local.  I would love to be able to walk to the corner shops and buy what I need for dinner tonight, fresh and cheap.  I think life would be better with a resurgence of main street, small farms, and mom & pop stores.

But, I think I’m done with thinking for now.

Cuz day light’s burning and there’s stuff I need to do…..