The breakdown of a system, any kind of system, is always a very difficult time for you know that you will have to replace that system with, if you’ve learned anything, a better system. That will require a lot of work and time. And you have to do it knowing that one day your new system will also fail, for we fallible people live in a finite world.
We are at that point in time. Many of our systems are failing. One could give up. One could endlessly lament one’s fate. Or, one could try to understand the problem and build a new system. I want to emphasize “try” as, whether we accept it or not, we are always in an experimental mode during the few years we are on this planet. We will never have the final answers or build a perfect system. Yet, we are wired so that we are always searching for perfection. Somehow we have to acknowledge that, despite our wiring, all we can really do is slog away and do our bit to help build the new system.
One of the major problems of our current system is the need to have everyone operate the same way we do because we believe that we are superior and our way is best for everyone whether or not we understand anything about other people’s needs, wants, culture or inner life. And we are willing to go to war to enforce our views.
“War” is one of our favorite words – the war on terror, the war on drugs, preemptive war, war to end all wars, war for democracy, and the list goes on. So much of this country’s system is based on that word.
We spend a hell of a lot of money on war. We spend almost half a trillion dollars a year with our regular defense budget. Add to that the supplemental budgets to fight in
The defense department is not the only government agency fighting wars. Homeland Security spends $50 billion a year, up 20% in two years. Our war on drugs has resulted in the largest prison population in the world. We spend hundreds of millions a year advocating abstinence.
What have we gotten for all this money? You tell me.
1 comment:
Perhaps any new system should begin with the rule: war, only in direct defense of the nation? I believe that's written somewhere in the Constitution?
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” ~ James Madison.
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