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What are your thoughts on...
PremaSagar
Veteran
Hi everybody !
:wave:
What are your thoughts on problems with government and how those problems can be solved ?
0
Comments
You have a great sense of humor!
I know it's a childish and under-thought idea which would never actually work but I thought I'd present it anyway. Yeah maybe that wasn't such a good idea...
But with that aside I'd like to hear other ideas.
They can't. Individual problems can be solved. But there will always be more.
I agree with @Citta, I think we should all stop trying to change the world. Change ourselves and the problem will solve itself out
The problem with governments are that they generally consist of broadly 3 types of people. The first are the do-gooders who think the world is broke and want to fix it, the second are those lining their own pockets, and the third are those who want to control it - those are big problems for the individuals concerned, and keep the wheel turning.
Perhaps Cameron, Bush, Blair, Putin etc. should enrol onto NB, and @federica can offer some of her direct, no-nonsense advice.
In the USA, make Supreme Court justices liable to removal from office. I certainly impeach the majority. That would be a start.
Add me to the list. I limit change to the scope of my influence and don't sweat over what does not depend on me to change.
And also some of her rap in the knuckles ..
:grumble: ..
Well here in the United States our problem is our leaders buy their way in. A lot of them have some VERY shady backgrounds. Honestely one of the biggest problems is that our leaders want us to cut back but honestly our leaders themselves make sure that they are pampered to death at the taxpayers expense. This I think just about kills me and I am not even old enough to pay taxes and yet I get it! Like "Obama Care" its one of the ideas that is going to crush a lot of people that are already at the end of their rope. I don't live in a home that has a lot of money but we get by. I was looking at what Obama Care would do to our budget and I just about cried at both how ignorant and funny people think that we can make it by. They think that we can pull more and more money of us but sadly we don't have any to spare. It honestly reminds me a bit of the times when King George The III and how he taxed everyone to death.
@zetsu -- Well, you certainly seem to have a problem worth working on.
You'll be a lot sicker when you have to have kidney surgery without insurance and it costs you $40,000.
@vinlyn True, but my point is that people who are low income cannot afford to support others and yet the government forces us to. It honestly is completely unfair to those who just simply cannot afford it.
@genkaku Indeed
In the UK we have a national health service that's funded on our ability to pay. The less we earn, the less we pay. It's definitely not a perfect system though.
Hi PremaSagar, not MY thoughts, but relevant and of interest..
"How are we going to stop using hierachical violence to slowly destroy our world, our economy and our selves, and start building peaceful and voluntary solutions to complex social problems? The answer is easy!? Every moral evolution in history has been preceded by incomprehension and followed by incomprehension!"
That actually makes sense but I can see the quarks.
If we capped sports and other entertainment saleries (this includes politicians) we could eliminate hunger, have universal healthcare and free schooling the world over.
Us and them, Boss... Us and them.
^ @ourself
Perhaps you have been paying attention to the words of economist Thomas Piketty!? He would argue that great disparities in equality happen when returns persistently outstrip economic growth. I am to understand this situation is not self correcting (IE trickle down economics is not a reality). One other proposition in addition to what you mentioned is a global tax on the richest.
From my limited understanding
hoarding cash is obviously going to stop people from trading and lead to such things as quantitative easing from central banking thus devaluing the currency?!
If my grandmother had been born with wheels we could have used her as a wheelbarrow.
It is not so different with government just more difficult. Just because it is very difficult and, will never be ideal, does that mean we should never try? Cannot trying help resolve some issues? How can we even make a dent in the smallest of things if we do not even consider the posibility? Are the small things worth much in themselves? A starving child, a person who is innocent going to jail for life, or a politician who useses the system to give himself wealth at the cost of families looking for work.
These may not be world changing but resolving these are still priceless in value to me.
No, it does not mean we should not try.
Well, yes a cap is a cap... I'd put a maximum salary per year and fill the pool with the rest. If there is no top line, there can be no bottom line which means there will be excess for some while others starve. Everybody is good at something we can all benefit from, therefore we are robbing ourselves but too greedy to know it. Education should be a basic human right along with shelter and food.
Also this business about pretending we have all different kinds of currencies for different countries is getting a bit outdated... It's all the same dollar or we wouldn't be able to convert. It's just a game to make us think we're different and give us something shiny the "other" wants to take away.
But no... These are just musings. Never heard of Thomas Piketty.
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All well and good, but first I have to get you lot to consistently toe the line. I see myself having little effect on the Middle East crisis, the Ukraine issue and any other political hot potato you'd care to mention, if I can't even get you lot to behave yourselves while I'm gone for a few days....
No, but you are hugely influential here @federica, you are like a deva - the devil and the divine, but not in that order, and somewhere in the middle.
Go on 'grin' and 'bear' it. ... \ lol / ...
From what I understand a large portion of US budget goes to military defense?
To be honest I agree that the best way to improve government and society is by improving ourseleves.
I agree. But then, one of the ways of improving ourselves is improving the material conditions of life that affect us and the kind of people we are. It's a 2-way street, in my opinion.
Agreed.
That wouldn't work. The Court would swing right and left even more than it already does. The idea with lifetime appointments is to provide some consistency.
The problem is greed and the solution is the cessation of greed.
I believe that by being patient, kind and generous to others, they will be inspired to be the same.
One can only hope, that with time, the world will be a better place for more people and some day a good place for all.
@Ficus_religiosa, sorry though this is a Buddhist forum your words remind me of Mencius:
Mencius replied, 'Why must your Majesty use that word "profit?" What I am provided with, are counsels to benevolence and righteousness, and these are my only topics.
'If your Majesty say, "What is to be done to profit my kingdom?" the great officers will say, "What is to be done to profit our families?" and the inferior officers and the common people will say, "What is to be done to profit our persons?" Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit the one from the other, and the kingdom will be endangered. In the kingdom of ten thousand chariots, the murderer of his sovereign shall be the chief of a family of a thousand chariots. In the kingdom of a thousand chariots, the murderer of his prince shall be the chief of a family of a hundred chariots. To have a thousand in ten thousand, and a hundred in a thousand, cannot be said not to be a large allotment, but if righteousness be put last, and profit be put first, they will not be satisfied without snatching all.nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius01.html