Y'all are real funny, y'know that?
Disclaimer: This is where I think the U.S. should go.
1) Proportional representation for minority parties.
2) A major focus upon quality of education. Educators should be among the highest paid workers in the society, but should be expected to have qualifications that warrent such pay. All educators from middle school on should be required to be professionals in their field of study, and salaries should be highly competetive with civilian salaries in related fields. Tenure should be eliminated at all levels of education. Also, since the amount of knowledge necessary to be a productive member of modern society is rapidly increasing, the standard amount of state-sponsored education should increase from 12 to 16 years.
3) We need genuine separation of church and state. Elected officials should be restricted from making religious statements in their official capacity. Tax exempt status for religious organizations should be eliminated.
4) All laws should be subject to absolute sunset clauses to ensure that they are regularly reevaluated for correctness and applicability to the current state of society and the world.
5) Universal health care.
6) We need immediate action to transition to renewable energy sources and dramatically limit CO2 emissions. We need safe nuclear power.
7) Promotion of a worldwide effort to expand wilderness areas as biodiversity reserves. This should be paired with a global population reduction effort. Population pressure is at the root of basically all environmental disruption, from the need to use nitrogen-based fertilizers and pesticides to the cutting of the Amazon rainforest.
8) States should enact strong limits on growth to promote redevelopment and diminish urban sprawl.
This is as far down the road as I can see in terms of utopia. Once these major problems are addressed, then it will be possible to move forward again. We need to stop the bleeding and start the breathing before we can possibly start treating our world for shock. Educating ourselves is the single most important thing we can do to move toward a better world, because there's no way that we can solve the problems that exist if we don't understand them as a society. With a well-educated and engaged populace, it will be possible to approach present and future problems with rational debate and expermentation, rather than the emotionally, religiously, and politically motivated non-solutions we see today. |
