November 1, 2025: Sapiens—Barely Out of the Starting Blocks

Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone’s different needs. Terry Eagleton

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Leadership is a serving relationship that has the effect of facilitating human development.  William Arthur Ward

Those who promote blame before solutions and suggest there is a final solution, should never serve as advocates for human rights. Hoonōs

A thought about the basis for some problems along with some offered solutions, none of which is meant to be a complete accounting:

Leaving people to struggle or die may be a quandary first responders are sometimes faced with, but they did not create the disaster to begin with.  Can politicians make the same claim?

What is the source of most of our inequitable solutions?  One guess is allowing corporations to buy back their own shares which is tantamount to allowing the fox to guard the henhouse.

Another guess is any tax code that allows the wealthy to borrow against their wealth, especially at very low interest rates.

Yet another source of inequitable distribution is allowing “Citizens United” which treats corporations as individuals.  Let the collective money bury the individual vote?

James Madison, this country’s fourth President and labeled as the “Father of the Constitution” and who also promoted the Bill of Rights amendment, advocated for a majority rule but warned about “the tyranny of the majority.”

When a monied minority is treated like a majority and that “majority” is given the keys to the realm, guess who controls the headwaters?  (SCOTUS apparently did not figure out their decision to affirm “Citizens United” would give rise to Super Pacs which could learn to skirt so-called restrictions forbidding direct contact or coordination with candidates or political parties. Yet no rectification is forthcoming by Congress, whom SCOTUS deems responsible. So, allow a problem to arise by making a ruling in favor of “individual rights” that actually does the opposite and then let the political party in power guard the henhouse?)

How about social “entitlements?”  Pundits or politicians who posit that “entitlements” are the problem assume the ones who are in a mess are the ones who created the problem.  The rest of us only need to offer minimal handouts along with a list of “shoulds.”

The previous few examples are about folks and corporations enjoying the benefits of laws and interpretations that serve them—for good or ill. The next category are big time grifters—those who seek to control the fountainhead of resources by hook or by crook. These are the real illegals. The grifter’s gig is to create or exaggerate a problem to sell a corrosive solution that strips “buyers” of their own money.  “Let the buyer beware” is the grifter’s mantra.

Good social democracy and positive capitalism are not that which takes away value, it is that which adds value.

Fiddling with numbers marking only immediate profit and loss is like deciding food that tastes good is good for us.  It is not just immediate economic gain to be considered, but also on the cost to not provide. That bit of math doesn’t reveal itself as fast as debts do.

The folks who are selling the product of doom if we don’t allow the freedom for the rich to get richer do not much want to participate in the wellbeing of all of us, as it is up to each of us to succeed. Poppycock!  Few, if any, get rich by themselves.  And the above influencers do not mention the sell they are promoting includes enhanced entitlements for the monied, all the while claiming it’s the entitlements of the poorer economic class that is wreaking the nation.

Am I “selling” another “us and them?” No—I am writing about closing loopholes. The story seems to be too many people and too few resources, so we need to cull the former and increase the latter (“people should get jobs, not handouts” is a lazy bumper sticker—there is way more to it than presented).  There are not too many people.  There is not too little land. There are not too few resources.  And what there is does not need to be owned or controlled by a few.

Maybe we can’t start with everything and everybody, but we can set a sane example. Tech can help, but only if it allows the human nervous system to catch up with the tsunami of information and change being thrown at us (hey—there’s a conservative view).

So, imagine the outcome if: there is quality food, clothing, clean air and water, safe shelter, individual power banks instead of grids, comprehensive health (medical, dental, food inspection, etc.), quality education and\or training, quality information including platforms and user-friendly technology, transportation, sewer/septic, disposal services, safe retirement, and actual advocates for the wellbeing of all. Imagine…

And while we’re imagining, think about what happens to a society who feels safe and cared for as opposed to a polarized society who thinks it is others who are the enemy. A healthy society does not look, think, or act like everyone else.  There will always be similarities and differences. That is the life blood and heartbeat of creation.

Let’s quit hanging around the beginnings of what the Constitution and Bill of Rights birthed and get on with providing the promise of no kings, of no monopolies controlling any fountainhead.  There is not one expert, there is not one sole human who wields power. Apparently, we’ve forgotten.  Have we also forgotten to remember?  America has a very checkered past, but we do have a promise to keep going forward.

Now for the blame: In closing, I address those who blather on about eliminating the swamp and have not only miserably failed but have managed to build a broken sewer instead.  I old-man fart in your general direction, well aware you will not smell a thing as you’ve gone nose- and integrity-blind promoting your “identity” as the identity.  My voice and vote are likely lost in the noise of your largely misleading complaints and slights about others.  So be it.  It would be worse for me to  be passively quiet, though I’m no expert.  It’s called free-speech and if I’m disobedient, I am at least civil.

If you do not know an identity or standing beyond skin color, sex, profession, education, wealth, etc., you do not know enough to serve, only to infringe.  I do not have an identity dependent on what I do or what I’ve done.  It can be an influence, but a single identity seems to be a warning of the undiscovered. Besides, I do not wish to be an influencer, opting instead to make an effort at being a positive contributor. And I realize that positive does not mean perfect.

The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element. Norman Angell, The Great Delusion