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Opinion: Musing about what if the American people somehow manage to again have a government that was theirs, instead of the other way around. This is not a blog entry designed to make friends of powerful people, unfortunately for me; but in the long run hopefully could make Americans much the better in general.
1. Responsible accountability on an ongoing basis: waiting until an election term is not nearly fast enough to call for accountability to the American people for doings of their elected (or hired) officials. There needs to be fully effective feedback mechanisms to direct the actions of the government operators, so as to meet the ongoing and future needs of the American people.
2. It is said that there are two things one does not want to know how they are made: one is the composition of sausage, and the other are of the laws. Given that we all know this hallowed way of evolving our legal precedent system of justice and regulation, a process of review of laws and regulations needs to be prepared. Several items that need an unbiased review:
2a. The banning of L-Tryptophane as a supplement for nutrition. Although it is again appearing on the market, thankfully, apparently it is still illegal; it is just that everyone knows that L-Tryptophane is an essential amino acid component of the human being, required for life. That a batch of imported "L-Tryptophane" was heavily contaminated with toxic non-listed substances which caused their kind of ill effects, has nothing to do with L-Tryptophane itself. The guaranteeing of what nutrition is in a container is a separate issue. The banning of L-Tryptophane was one of those
"sausage" laws that needs rapidly getting off the books, to help a huge number of Americans, since it is increasingly difficult to obtain naturally in proper ratios with other nutrients, to enable among other things, adequate sleep so people can function well, an essential for an effective America.
2b. "Roper" stuff: Much has been written about the high multiple value of hemp products. These claims need to be impartially evaluated in balance for life-enhancing uses as well as uses that are not enhancing of life. Is it true that hemp was always growing naturally here in the United States up until a few decades ago? Is it true that hemp rope was the strongest tensile material for its weight than any other material known 50 years ago, and was used to tie up warships to our docks even during WWII, as one use? Was hemp-derived paper used to provide paper during the war for independence, even the declaration of independence was written on hemp paper? Does hemp seed provide a non-ocean-dependent source of the Omega-3 oils found so essential for brain function? Just how damaging to the user is the smoking of the drug derived from one part of the hemp plant, that is used by some as recreational use by some, as compared to, say, caffeine, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, tea, and prescription tranquilizers? Is the THC found in parts of some varieties of hemp plants really useful for treating glaucoma and brain tumors? Is clothing able to be made from hemp plant material, that is unusually durable? Does the growing of hemp for use in paper and fabric production uses etc, really use far less environmentally destructive pesticides than does the equivalent acreage of cotton fields? Has America been shooting herself in the foot in the banning of hemp growing and use in this country?
3. The folk we hire to roust out people who are breaking the law big time, probably have to be of the same nature to have an urge to team up and assault "the other guys" as are the ones we hire them to hunt down and "bring to justice." We run our team thorough quite a training process showing permitted expressions of aggression and harassment of others who are targeted by "our justice" system. This is a far better way to deal with these folk, by somewhat taming them thusly, and conditioning them to be ready to go assault, but only on "our" command. Lots of perks, esteem, and salary satisfy their ego, and hopefully prevent expression of their urge to go assault in more toxic ways. Now, what if instead of prison time for those who they "catch", those ruffians are run through the same process as "our" boys? It might be a lot cheaper, and would bring them into the control system with its hierarchical chain of command, thus hopefully controlling them even better than prison residency, and be teaching them something useful for rest of their life, maybe even become useful members of society as a result. It is said that one cannot change the color of a tiger's stripes, but we obviously consider predator behavior acceptable in "our guys" so why limit it to just them? We could start with some of the folk already in prison ... who knows, maybe our prisons would become things of the past. However, one cannot pit our tamed predators against other predators if they are all on our staff, so some other use would need to be made of their innate urge to assault as a team; the military would not be suitable as these kinds of assaulters want to bully with little risk of being much hurt themselves, unlike military who go in knowing equal risk is to themselves as to their quarry. Fully comprehending what drives the bully-mind needs to be researched so as to bring it responsibly within civilization, there are huge numbers of them amongst us, and the threat of imprisonment clearly is not enough means to get them all into line. Their super-ego needs need to be met in more wholesome ways for all concerned, including wholesome for the rest of us Americans.
4. Efficacy, the combo term for effective and efficient, needs to become a respected criteria for decision-making. The imposition of standards designed to regulate one industry does not at all necessarily imply suitability for the performance of a function do-able by other means than by that industry, despite the industry's possible pretended claim to the territory. The regulations that are designed to provide safety in automobiles, such as the need for a windshield and red taillights, ought not to be imposed on the pair of shoes and streetclothes one wears, although either the shoes or the car can get one down to the market and bring back a sack of groceries. What if the person had to have a windshield and taillights on the rear when going to the store on foot? Just because each is an effective and efficient way to get the groceries from store to home, does not mean the same rules apply. Application of such a principle could well go towards many things, such as:
4a. The requiring of the same scientific evaluation standards that are applied to new pharmaceuticals, ought not to be required to the evaluation of "natural" substances, including the "neutraceuticals" being discovered continually as well as those time tested for centuries or millennia. The individual has the responsibility for good health of self, and the freedom to sample for that which really works for themselves.
4b. The efficacy of many common medical practices that go unquestioned because of "standard practice" could well be evaluated. For example, the use of tourniquets being moved from patient to patient when taking blood samples in hospitals, was recently found to pass along pathogens that in some cases caused severe illness later. Yet it was an unquestioned standard practice before.
4c. The efficacy of the quite well developed electrowellness technology for use in do-it-yourself wellness practice around the world, needs to be rationally evaluated. That it might cut into the profits of the powerful business groups that do similar things, for example pharmaceuticals, as claim to business territory is not necessarily the best interests of the American people for maintaining their wellness and functionality at lowest cost. Although pharmaceuticals do wonders for people at times, and are supreme at some wellness things, they are not at all necessarily the only means for totally achieving the bottom line of wellness of Americans. For example, the use of a specifically applied signal of 395,000 Hz from hand to hand might be an effective and efficient way to control the parasite that causes Toxoplasmosis, so widely prevalent even in Americans, and now linked to curious mental effects, and spread by our beloved pet cats down through history. Blocking use of electrowellness technology is like not playing with all of one's marbles, and the stakes are quite high: the continuous high functionality of we the American people, enabled in effective and efficient manner.
5. Entities. Clear definition of responsible entity identification needs to be derived. For example, an entity in the form of an individual person can be sent to prison for causing the demise of a person; but an entity in the form of a corporation cannot be sent to prison for doing the same thing. People's survival instincts provide immunity against challenging teams or other groups of people acting together, unlike they might challenge individuals doing the identical activity. So it is not an easy goal, yet if we are a nation of individuals, responsible action needs to be not confined just to individuals but also apply to entities defined as a group such as a corporation or team, for examples.
6. Windfall knowledge accessed by investigators of all kinds, needs to somehow be brought into line. For example, gaining private information about an individual, ranging from who their girlfriend is to what is used to make an invention he is working on, needs to be somehow prevented from access by investigators looking for, say, contraband; and the faking of claim for the right to do such investigation needs to be similarly made an unacceptable risk to those who improperly investigate. This is becoming especially important at a time when obscure harmful people are being sought within the country at enormous cost to the taxpayers, by what must be a huge staff of investigators. There may be valid excuse to seek potentially harmful people within our borders, based on such things as the destruction of the building in Oklahoma City, and the spread of anthrax by mail, eventually found originating from sources within our own country. So, "they" lurk amongst us, it seems. The point here is that the knowledge gained as windfall knowledge accumulated in the course of "investigating" all the people of the country, could be used to very easily control the people by a future unscrupulous bunch. Cravings for power over other people seems to crop up like weeds in the garden, and needs to be prevented, or the weeds will take over the garden. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is said.
7. Education. A human potential is a terrible thing to waste, it is said. We individual humans have incredible potential, and it seems to me that most of it is going to waste nowadays. Humans have a responsibility to tend and maintain this planetful of beings and systems, in addition to being able to munch from its resources. We need to tend the garden if we want the garden to continue to produce indefinitely. Otherwise we are just raiders, hunter-gatherers; when the jungle is huge, that is an OK mode, but those days are long gone. We have to tend and care for that which provides our nourishment: our Earth with its land and seas and air and sunshine is where it comes from, and we need to get with the job of tending it all. We need a much higher functioning human population to do this in an efficious way. Education needs to take on new levels of functionality; the little red schoolhouse worked for its farm community, and our current educational institutions similarly serve a larger surrounds, but the job is far more than they are designed to do. The internet and computer system has enormous potential for linking Americans into knowledge and skill bases, as well as task definitions.
8. Military. A sense of proportion needs to be made. The resources to be expended needs to be balanced against the potential losses risked if the military expenditure is not made. Balance, not mere might. Although we Americans became heros to the world by waging war off our shores in defense of our favored friends who were getting aggressed by powerful assaulters craving power over others, we ended up with the only world superpower military, along with nukes enough to exterminate the planet. But waging war beyond one's own borders in defense, is normally a major turn of purpose. Such resources could be tantalizing to those who crave power over others, and conceivably use the knowledge of what makes public opinion to enable them to get into office, where they also just thereby happen to have control of that awesome military, free goodie. If we do not take steps to guarantee responsible use of our huge leftover military might, other countries will have to focus on matching that ability to assault, a game played too often by people in the past. Have we not learned anything? Sure we have learned lots. Now let's use our knowledge gained so tragically, that it not have been acquired in vain.
9. And in general, taking a swing at a fantasy target pasted on a real somebody is likely to stir up some interesting drama for all concerned; but let's keep the drama level down to a conscionable level, OK? Drama is clearly a real need in people's lives; yet there is potential drama galore in the struggle to keep our planet alive and diversely vigorous, our civilization growing and healthy, and to prove out the wonders that humankind can do. However, as a species we need to become far more responsible for what we do before we dare risk expanding our life into the space nearby, or we will risk a "star wars" kind of adventure, might as well just stay here and mess with ourselves instead, is easier. But we have so much real potential, would be sad to thusly throw it all away in glorious monkeybusiness. Surely we can do much better than that. We have the potential. And it can be a lot more comfortable.
Well, this has been a writing that is not designed to win friends, and is likely to irritate some of the few who might now still be a bit friendly towards me. But I am an American, and that entails a unique responsibility, to tell it like it is, lest we waste ourselves in struggle with shadows. So, hopefully these principles could help make life far better for those of future America, and thusly to the world. Our forbearers have taken that choice, and made things as good as they are now. Gotta do one's best to keep it going.
J E D Cline 20070817
Opinion: Musing about what if the American people somehow manage to again have a government that was theirs, instead of the other way around. This is not a blog entry designed to make friends of powerful people, unfortunately for me; but in the long run hopefully could make Americans much the better in general.
1. Responsible accountability on an ongoing basis: waiting until an election term is not nearly fast enough to call for accountability to the American people for doings of their elected (or hired) officials. There needs to be fully effective feedback mechanisms to direct the actions of the government operators, so as to meet the ongoing and future needs of the American people.
2. It is said that there are two things one does not want to know how they are made: one is the composition of sausage, and the other are of the laws. Given that we all know this hallowed way of evolving our legal precedent system of justice and regulation, a process of review of laws and regulations needs to be prepared. Several items that need an unbiased review:
2a. The banning of L-Tryptophane as a supplement for nutrition. Although it is again appearing on the market, thankfully, apparently it is still illegal; it is just that everyone knows that L-Tryptophane is an essential amino acid component of the human being, required for life. That a batch of imported "L-Tryptophane" was heavily contaminated with toxic non-listed substances which caused their kind of ill effects, has nothing to do with L-Tryptophane itself. The guaranteeing of what nutrition is in a container is a separate issue. The banning of L-Tryptophane was one of those
"sausage" laws that needs rapidly getting off the books, to help a huge number of Americans, since it is increasingly difficult to obtain naturally in proper ratios with other nutrients, to enable among other things, adequate sleep so people can function well, an essential for an effective America.
2b. "Roper" stuff: Much has been written about the high multiple value of hemp products. These claims need to be impartially evaluated in balance for life-enhancing uses as well as uses that are not enhancing of life. Is it true that hemp was always growing naturally here in the United States up until a few decades ago? Is it true that hemp rope was the strongest tensile material for its weight than any other material known 50 years ago, and was used to tie up warships to our docks even during WWII, as one use? Was hemp-derived paper used to provide paper during the war for independence, even the declaration of independence was written on hemp paper? Does hemp seed provide a non-ocean-dependent source of the Omega-3 oils found so essential for brain function? Just how damaging to the user is the smoking of the drug derived from one part of the hemp plant, that is used by some as recreational use by some, as compared to, say, caffeine, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, tea, and prescription tranquilizers? Is the THC found in parts of some varieties of hemp plants really useful for treating glaucoma and brain tumors? Is clothing able to be made from hemp plant material, that is unusually durable? Does the growing of hemp for use in paper and fabric production uses etc, really use far less environmentally destructive pesticides than does the equivalent acreage of cotton fields? Has America been shooting herself in the foot in the banning of hemp growing and use in this country?
3. The folk we hire to roust out people who are breaking the law big time, probably have to be of the same nature to have an urge to team up and assault "the other guys" as are the ones we hire them to hunt down and "bring to justice." We run our team thorough quite a training process showing permitted expressions of aggression and harassment of others who are targeted by "our justice" system. This is a far better way to deal with these folk, by somewhat taming them thusly, and conditioning them to be ready to go assault, but only on "our" command. Lots of perks, esteem, and salary satisfy their ego, and hopefully prevent expression of their urge to go assault in more toxic ways. Now, what if instead of prison time for those who they "catch", those ruffians are run through the same process as "our" boys? It might be a lot cheaper, and would bring them into the control system with its hierarchical chain of command, thus hopefully controlling them even better than prison residency, and be teaching them something useful for rest of their life, maybe even become useful members of society as a result. It is said that one cannot change the color of a tiger's stripes, but we obviously consider predator behavior acceptable in "our guys" so why limit it to just them? We could start with some of the folk already in prison ... who knows, maybe our prisons would become things of the past. However, one cannot pit our tamed predators against other predators if they are all on our staff, so some other use would need to be made of their innate urge to assault as a team; the military would not be suitable as these kinds of assaulters want to bully with little risk of being much hurt themselves, unlike military who go in knowing equal risk is to themselves as to their quarry. Fully comprehending what drives the bully-mind needs to be researched so as to bring it responsibly within civilization, there are huge numbers of them amongst us, and the threat of imprisonment clearly is not enough means to get them all into line. Their super-ego needs need to be met in more wholesome ways for all concerned, including wholesome for the rest of us Americans.
4. Efficacy, the combo term for effective and efficient, needs to become a respected criteria for decision-making. The imposition of standards designed to regulate one industry does not at all necessarily imply suitability for the performance of a function do-able by other means than by that industry, despite the industry's possible pretended claim to the territory. The regulations that are designed to provide safety in automobiles, such as the need for a windshield and red taillights, ought not to be imposed on the pair of shoes and streetclothes one wears, although either the shoes or the car can get one down to the market and bring back a sack of groceries. What if the person had to have a windshield and taillights on the rear when going to the store on foot? Just because each is an effective and efficient way to get the groceries from store to home, does not mean the same rules apply. Application of such a principle could well go towards many things, such as:
4a. The requiring of the same scientific evaluation standards that are applied to new pharmaceuticals, ought not to be required to the evaluation of "natural" substances, including the "neutraceuticals" being discovered continually as well as those time tested for centuries or millennia. The individual has the responsibility for good health of self, and the freedom to sample for that which really works for themselves.
4b. The efficacy of many common medical practices that go unquestioned because of "standard practice" could well be evaluated. For example, the use of tourniquets being moved from patient to patient when taking blood samples in hospitals, was recently found to pass along pathogens that in some cases caused severe illness later. Yet it was an unquestioned standard practice before.
4c. The efficacy of the quite well developed electrowellness technology for use in do-it-yourself wellness practice around the world, needs to be rationally evaluated. That it might cut into the profits of the powerful business groups that do similar things, for example pharmaceuticals, as claim to business territory is not necessarily the best interests of the American people for maintaining their wellness and functionality at lowest cost. Although pharmaceuticals do wonders for people at times, and are supreme at some wellness things, they are not at all necessarily the only means for totally achieving the bottom line of wellness of Americans. For example, the use of a specifically applied signal of 395,000 Hz from hand to hand might be an effective and efficient way to control the parasite that causes Toxoplasmosis, so widely prevalent even in Americans, and now linked to curious mental effects, and spread by our beloved pet cats down through history. Blocking use of electrowellness technology is like not playing with all of one's marbles, and the stakes are quite high: the continuous high functionality of we the American people, enabled in effective and efficient manner.
5. Entities. Clear definition of responsible entity identification needs to be derived. For example, an entity in the form of an individual person can be sent to prison for causing the demise of a person; but an entity in the form of a corporation cannot be sent to prison for doing the same thing. People's survival instincts provide immunity against challenging teams or other groups of people acting together, unlike they might challenge individuals doing the identical activity. So it is not an easy goal, yet if we are a nation of individuals, responsible action needs to be not confined just to individuals but also apply to entities defined as a group such as a corporation or team, for examples.
6. Windfall knowledge accessed by investigators of all kinds, needs to somehow be brought into line. For example, gaining private information about an individual, ranging from who their girlfriend is to what is used to make an invention he is working on, needs to be somehow prevented from access by investigators looking for, say, contraband; and the faking of claim for the right to do such investigation needs to be similarly made an unacceptable risk to those who improperly investigate. This is becoming especially important at a time when obscure harmful people are being sought within the country at enormous cost to the taxpayers, by what must be a huge staff of investigators. There may be valid excuse to seek potentially harmful people within our borders, based on such things as the destruction of the building in Oklahoma City, and the spread of anthrax by mail, eventually found originating from sources within our own country. So, "they" lurk amongst us, it seems. The point here is that the knowledge gained as windfall knowledge accumulated in the course of "investigating" all the people of the country, could be used to very easily control the people by a future unscrupulous bunch. Cravings for power over other people seems to crop up like weeds in the garden, and needs to be prevented, or the weeds will take over the garden. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is said.
7. Education. A human potential is a terrible thing to waste, it is said. We individual humans have incredible potential, and it seems to me that most of it is going to waste nowadays. Humans have a responsibility to tend and maintain this planetful of beings and systems, in addition to being able to munch from its resources. We need to tend the garden if we want the garden to continue to produce indefinitely. Otherwise we are just raiders, hunter-gatherers; when the jungle is huge, that is an OK mode, but those days are long gone. We have to tend and care for that which provides our nourishment: our Earth with its land and seas and air and sunshine is where it comes from, and we need to get with the job of tending it all. We need a much higher functioning human population to do this in an efficious way. Education needs to take on new levels of functionality; the little red schoolhouse worked for its farm community, and our current educational institutions similarly serve a larger surrounds, but the job is far more than they are designed to do. The internet and computer system has enormous potential for linking Americans into knowledge and skill bases, as well as task definitions.
8. Military. A sense of proportion needs to be made. The resources to be expended needs to be balanced against the potential losses risked if the military expenditure is not made. Balance, not mere might. Although we Americans became heros to the world by waging war off our shores in defense of our favored friends who were getting aggressed by powerful assaulters craving power over others, we ended up with the only world superpower military, along with nukes enough to exterminate the planet. But waging war beyond one's own borders in defense, is normally a major turn of purpose. Such resources could be tantalizing to those who crave power over others, and conceivably use the knowledge of what makes public opinion to enable them to get into office, where they also just thereby happen to have control of that awesome military, free goodie. If we do not take steps to guarantee responsible use of our huge leftover military might, other countries will have to focus on matching that ability to assault, a game played too often by people in the past. Have we not learned anything? Sure we have learned lots. Now let's use our knowledge gained so tragically, that it not have been acquired in vain.
9. And in general, taking a swing at a fantasy target pasted on a real somebody is likely to stir up some interesting drama for all concerned; but let's keep the drama level down to a conscionable level, OK? Drama is clearly a real need in people's lives; yet there is potential drama galore in the struggle to keep our planet alive and diversely vigorous, our civilization growing and healthy, and to prove out the wonders that humankind can do. However, as a species we need to become far more responsible for what we do before we dare risk expanding our life into the space nearby, or we will risk a "star wars" kind of adventure, might as well just stay here and mess with ourselves instead, is easier. But we have so much real potential, would be sad to thusly throw it all away in glorious monkeybusiness. Surely we can do much better than that. We have the potential. And it can be a lot more comfortable.
Well, this has been a writing that is not designed to win friends, and is likely to irritate some of the few who might now still be a bit friendly towards me. But I am an American, and that entails a unique responsibility, to tell it like it is, lest we waste ourselves in struggle with shadows. So, hopefully these principles could help make life far better for those of future America, and thusly to the world. Our forbearers have taken that choice, and made things as good as they are now. Gotta do one's best to keep it going.
J E D Cline 20070817
posted by Unknown at
14:39
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