How to create a better society

[afro-elf]

As an off-shoot of the N-word thread, what are some TANGIBLE ways to create a better society. Not perfect but better. What do you think the biggest issues are?
But also balanced as best we can? Everyone will not be happy but what are some good compromises?

[Landroval]

Have everyone perform qualitatively-equal jobs; rotate people between jobs when that isn't possible; compensate for lower quality jobs; pay according to effort (not performance, inheritance, or capital); decisions should be made by those who are affected by them; include in the pricing of goods the social costs of producing them;...

[Earniel]

Decent and accessible education is an important step, I think. People with no access to a proper education usually start with a deficit compared to others. But children should be taught more than just what they need to get a job. Teach them a healthy dose of responsibility and you're building a good base for the future IMO.

[Jonathan]

Promote democracy and society will self-improve.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

That's funny, I was just about to recommend re-instituting monarchy.

[Landroval]

Jonathan, how do you define democracy?

[Jonathan]

Freedom to form your own life and the right to discuss your views freely without risking persecution or similar. Basically free elections and indenpendent media.

[Landroval]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Freedom to form your own life and the right to discuss your views freely without risking persecution or similar. Basically free elections and indenpendent media.

Hm, I don't see free elections, in and of themselves, as ensuring the freedom of forming one's life. That still leaves those people in charge of most things that concern you, with you having little if anything to say about it.

[Jonathan]

As you say, free elections alone aren't enough to ensure your right to form your own life. That's why I threw in the "independent media" there.

As long as the media is independent, it will be much harder for the people in charge to stay in charge unless they in some way can ameliorate the lives of the voters. There are countries where free elections take place but where the media is more or less controlled by the government. That way, some political parties or politicians can get unproportional media coverage whereas others can be completely ignored by the media (people won't vote for anyone they don't know exist or what they stand for). Using or abusing the media is one way for the people in charge to stay in charge.

For instance, I think the Russian society would improve with more independent media. That would indirectly lead to more individual freedom.

[Landroval]

True enough, no tyrant can resist without the consent of the people. However, this still is an uphill battle.

What if we are completely informed on what our politicans are doing, either when we vote them, or afterwards? In how many countries can voters bring down a politician who doesn't live up to their expectations? Sure, we do have lobbying institutions to promote _some_ interests, but this still leaves, in my opinion, most of the population out of the loop. There is a time-honored idea that the masses are a wild heard that cannont manage itself; I disagree with that. There is sufficient practice and theory concerning self-managed communities and I think that can be implemented at wider levels too. Top-down hierarchies are pretty much a way to ensure that a small amount of people monopolise a good deal of benefits, at the expense of the rest.

[afro-elf]

Originally Posted by Landroval

What if we are completely informed on what our politicans are doing, either when we vote them, or afterwards? .

Humm..... political responsibility that would be a good start.

[Zilbanne]

Get rid of the two party political system in terms of elections at least. Let everyone run on platform issues and not the assumptions of the party view points. Everyone could vote for canidates based on what they would like to be able to achieve or are actually achieving. Limit political terms, so no more career politicians. Have a six year term for each president and then no one gets to be president twice! Each president has to do what they think is best for the country in one term without re-elections

At the beginning of each fourth year in the six year presidential term, a review board, chosen at random, larger but like a jury, will spend three months reviewing and evaluating the presidents actions and policy implementation. This is also done for the presidential cabinet of advisors and their policies etc...

On April first the presidential review board will annouce if the the president's term will be ended by the fourth year of office or will be allowed to continue on until the end of the sixth year. The same is done for each presidential cabinet member.

If a president is asked to leave at the end of the fourth year instead of the sixth. New candiates for president and there must be at least four not two, will campaign from July through October of that year.

Political cantidates for potential election will be elected in a primary at the end of June, based on candidate debates. Primary debates will be available only as a sound or text based media without, video or photos of any kind permitted until after the debates and resulting primary election is held. The debates will be held daily form the second week of April until the end of June, after which a primary election to include four possible presidential candidates

Elections for four candidates will be held in November. The new president takes office in January etc...

Huge corporations will be taxed in such a way that this money goes directly to fund college and University tuition and also to improve high schools. Offer a more diverse ciricullum to students at High school. Teach societal ethics courses to high school students as a required course.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

And go back to a more classical education.

[afro-elf]

Zilbanne, I liked your suggestions.

Gwaimir, Classical Education yes.....

ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
(O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde)
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
(keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi.)

Go tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, by Spartan law, we lie

AE

[Zilbanne]

Thanks Afro Elf!

Gwaimir, I like your suggestion of a Classical education too.

I apologize for the length of this post but I thought my previous ideas needed expansion.


My idea is to get our elected officials to truly be public servants and deal more specifically with pressing issues that effect nearly everyone, health care, education, employment oppportunities, domestic terrorism, gang violence, illegal drugs, environmental protection, etc... That's why I feel we need more than two main political parties that have real clout. Often the way it is now, by voting for the green party or the libertarians in a real presidential election, it seems like just a throw away vote.


I think if there were more political parties than democrate and republican then it couldn't be business as usual. I would like to see about eight people running for pontential presidential election. Any one of those eight having an equal chance as any other in the running to be elected as president. Of course each political party would announce their running nominees. However, during the daily debates before the primary election, as I've described previously, names of the candidates and visual media of the the candidates wouldn't be used.
The candidates would have to debate issues and policies. In this way candidates both men and women from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds could be nominated. However the looks of a person and their gender, ethnicity etc... would be far less important than what that person as potentially the President was claiming he or she was going to accomplish and considered most important. So during the audio and text driven debates these eight candidates would be only known as to as types of fabric so as to be distinguished from each other. The actual party affiliation of each person wouldn't be stated during the debates. ( This would be very difficult!) They could be called these temporary fabric names until after the primary election was held, immediately following the period of debates. For example they could be called Candidate Suede, or Presidential hopeful Rayon, Nominee Cotton, Candidate Seersucker, Nominee Plaid and Presidential hopeful Flannel etc... Fabrics would simply be used because they don't immediately suggest a stereotype and seem less impersonal or suggestive of desirable order than numbers.

What is more, on the primary ballots these presidential candidates would be identifyed only as their fabric names. No party affiliations would be listed or mentioned on the primary ballot or during the debates. Why? Because that way everyone in the country would have to think and listen to what the candidates were actually saying about what they would like to accomplish and intend to achieve. Everyone would be talking and thinking about what could happen.

The purpose of the primary election would be to reduce the number of candidates by half. Everything is done by majority vote After the primary election we would have four presidential candidates. Some of the parties and their nominees, assuming there were eight to begin with would now be illiminated and potentially out of the running completely.

Then before the main presidential election was held, the four remaining candidates could now be named, would again announce their party affiliations now that everyone would know more about them. They could campaign under their own names and be televised and photographed interviewed in a more personal mannor etc...
Personal campaigns would go on for a maxium of about five months. Longer than that is a waste of time, money and public collective memory.
To keep each of them from wasting time bashing the other candidates and again making everyone stick to issues... the candidate with the majority vote after the major election, would be the President of the United States. The vice president would automatically be the candidate with the second highest number of votes.
Yes they would have to learn to work together!

One problem I have in thinking about all of this, is that I don't know how the House, Senate and Congress would be effected by this new system at all.
It makes me feel like a rather common Hobbit, no not a Baggins, wandering into the Counsel Of Elrond and making odd proposals.

An added year of high school might be a good idea. Between freshman and sophmore year, students would do a year of community service and not be in classroom very much at all. Helping the elderly, helping to mentor other younger kids at risk for gang involvement, helping to repair vandalism, assisting in hospitals, working on environmental habitat improvement projects, helping to build or work on homes for impovrished people etc... These activites would all be done with proper supervision of course.

Our infra( sp?) structure is crumbling. We need something like the old WPA works program like it was offered during the great depression to be done again and that would create more jobs and improve our physical environment in the country at the same time.

[Elfhelm]

I would include learning other languages in education, and make it mandatory. English speakers would have to learn Spanish, and vice-versa. But even more important, Chinese. A westerner raised using an alphabet system needs to learn a totally different way to communicate (i.e. http://zhongwen.com/). It moves the mind out of the provincial ethnocentric view of the world to a broader more universal base. After that, other cultures (music, poetry, etc). Then the person can appreciate his own culture better by contrast. One need not only accept the familiar into one's world.

This sort of thinking leads to toleration. But the drawback is that you end up with little patience for the stubborn provincialism of those who choose ignorance because it is easy. That's why it has to be mandatory.

The Renaissance happened because cultures interacted. We need more of that.

p.s. and the Classics, too. That's actually a Confucianist value

[Zilbanne]

Elfhelm I like your ideas for multiculturalism. They are more likely to come about than my interesting but impossible ones. I stumble at the reality of mandatory though. You can get a human to read a thesarus but you can't make him or her think. Yes I've come up with mandatory requirements in my brainstorming of societal improvement possibilities too. It's hard to think that fluency in another other than a person's first language could be made mandatory. Maybe the best we could hope for is thorough exposure and cultural exchange.

It's great when people have the opportunity to grow up learning more than one language. Though from an early age I was exposed to Spanish and French, I really only speak English and that with problems. These other languages have certainly have increased my appreciation for people of other cultures and countries though. To see other people from other backgrounds as more valuable is what we are almost screamingly in of need of in the U.S.

[The Telcontarion]

I don't think that we need to make anything manditory. If we were left alone we would have world peace already.

As it is we are being manipulated into war over and over again. Alqaeda did not destroy the towers eliments in the Us government did.

The buildings did not fall from the planes coliding into it, they were demolished. Why did WTC building 7 fall when no planes hit it.

Think about it, how can the government know when a misssile is fired from any where in the world within a few seconds and not see 3 planes flying oof course for 40 minuits, not responding to the radio and they were not intersepted. You have people who get intercepted flying off course for less than 15 minuites with any explanation. Buildings do not fall straight down into it's footprint naturally. It had to be demolished which means there were bombs on the columns, and that meant months of planning by people who had access to those intereior columns; alqaeda could not do that. You really think that a bunch of guys in caves planeed that and flew those planes.

Let me brake it down because the truth is stranger than fiction or any movie. Just as in star wars where the senator palpitine is playing both sides against each other, this is exactly what is happening in reality. President Bush is not your president, he did not win the last election or the first. Did you know that there is no paper trail with these new voting machines. Did you know that they recently dedicated a statue to bush, that states when his presidecy begun in 2000 but no end date. Even though by the constitution he can only run for 8 years the left the end date blank people!!! Do you get it yet!!!

The US trained Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Huesan, did you know that!!!

Do you know that...I could go on and on, but if you don't want another false war aimed at distracting us while these facist murderers take over the world, by bringing back the draft. China threatens to bomb us all the time with nuclear wepons that they actually have and they are talking about Iran?!! It's not about people trying to terrorize us, it's about people that has no bombs that we can actually terrorize into our slave system, without fear of them justly bombing the livin daylights out of us.

Let me just finish by saying, if anything do not take any micro chip for any reason, do not give your children any vaccines (it causes autism-yes!!! among other things-do the research).

Important links:
infowars.com
prisonplanet.com
originofaids.com
www.healthyworlddistributing.com

Videos:
911-the road to tyranny

That is how you make a pefect society, stop being manipulated through your fears, how you do that? Knowledge is power!!! Get informed, they are taking you for fools and they are laughing at you. Google "Alex Jones"!!!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

I would include learning other languages in education, and make it mandatory. English speakers would have to learn Spanish, and vice-versa. But even more important, Chinese. A westerner raised using an alphabet system needs to learn a totally different way to communicate (i.e. http://zhongwen.com/).

I'm guessing that you refer to Mexicans, and not to all Spanish-speakers?

I definitely agree that children should be required to learn another language; spot on there, EH.

It moves the mind out of the provincial ethnocentric view of the world to a broader more universal base. After that, other cultures (music, poetry, etc). Then the person can appreciate his own culture better by contrast. One need not only accept the familiar into one's world.

This sort of thinking leads to toleration. But the drawback is that you end up with little patience for the stubborn provincialism of those who choose ignorance because it is easy. That's why it has to be mandatory.

The Renaissance happened because cultures interacted. We need more of that.

p.s. and the Classics, too. That's actually a Confucianist value

Good ideas, all round.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by The Telcontarion

I don't think that we need to make anything manditory. If we were left alone we would have world peace already.

I rather doubt it.