Happy New Year! 2020\n\u2013 the year of Hindsight! I hope it is your best one yet. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2019 wasn\u2019t the\nbest of years, though we did get a chance to visit Ireland, meet some\ncousins, and attend a Worldcon, as well as a brief visit to Iceland\non the way back. Between travel and medical issues I only got to\nspend half a year on the golf course. The good news is that,\nmedically, I am back in the pink for 2020. Physically, I need to\ncontinue the exercising and stretching I began last year with the\nSilver Sneakers program down at the gym. That should also help on the\ngolf course. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we enter the\nelection year, I am conflicted. I support Bernie Sanders\nwholeheartedly. I believe his Democratic Socialism platform is the\nbest for the US moving into the 21st<\/sup> century. Our own\nConstitution starts with \u201cWe the People\u201d and mandates to: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n if that\u2019s not\nSocialism, I don\u2019t know what would be. But, the man is 78 years\nold; I really believe he would not survive first first term. I wish\nhe had a groomed successor in his 50\u2019s ready to go, but the other\nDemocrats in the running don\u2019t seem ready to adopt his platform.\nThis also means his VP pick will be critical and I expect that\n\u201cpolitics\u201d will give us a less than optimal successor. It will be\nan interesting year. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do think it is\ntime for Congress to take back its constitutional duties and to stop\nceding them to the executive. Especially sending American sailors,\nmarines and soldiers into combat at the whim of the executive. \nCongress opened the door about letting the Executive use military\nforce without direct Congressional approval and the Executive has\nripped the door off the hinges. Our military actions throughout the\nworld over the past 70 years have not been the actions of a\ndemocratic republic promoting its ideals to the world. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we do seem to\nbe doing is making the world safe for business. Not safe for the\npeople who patronize the businesses but the businesses themselves.\nAnd to add some confusion to the mix, businesses are becoming\nmulti-national and and by making the world safer for business we are\nmaking it less safe for ourselves, since if the business is engaging\nin practices our country deems unsafe, they will just move to another\ncountry that doesn\u2019t prohibit or limit those practices. The\npractices are still unsafe and continue to create a harmful\nenvironment; it is just at a remove from us. And we still protect the\noverall business that is engaging in these practices. Realistically,\nwe need to ban\/prohibit these businesses from doing business in our\ncountry if we find them engaging in practices that we prohibit here\nbecause they are harmful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Business\nconcentrates money, politics concentrates power, concentrated money\nbuys concentrated power, concentrated power can intensify\nconcentrated money. We need to break this cycle. Let\u2019s start by\ndiffusing the power. Let Representatives have a maximum number of\nconstituents, say 100,000 per Representative. Triple the size of the\nSenate and let the top three vote-getters be seated in each\nSenatorial election. Set a restriction that a person cannot hold\nsuccessive terms of office. A Congressional incumbent can not run\nfor the same office, but they can run in the following election when\nthey are not the incumbent. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress should also\nincorporate sunset timelines into every bill, say 20-25 years, then\nthe bill\/law expires. Of course Congress may just reaffirm all the\nsunsetting bills en mass, so we restrict that so no more than half of\nthe sunsetting bills can be approved in a bundle. The rest must be\napproved on to case-by-case basis. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the money side:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually, I have a\nwhole income taxing scheme that I will discuss in a later post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy New Year! Let\nthe Fun Begin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Happy New Year! 2020 \u2013 the year of Hindsight! I hope it is your best one yet. 2019 wasn\u2019t the best of years, though we did get a chance to visit Ireland, meet some cousins, and attend a Worldcon, as well as a brief visit to Iceland on the way back. Between travel and medical … Continue reading Happy New Year! 2020<\/span>