10 ways to change America (for the better)

[mellowtigger]

Brainstorm time. Suppose you were made supreme poobah and could change any law, any government body, without any interference. What would you do to improve America? If you want to join the brainstorm, I suggest no more than 10 entries, keep each entry short, and include a single-word (sound-bite) title for each entry.

I'm including a useless paragraph here, because LiveJournal did a lousy job or formatting my paragraphs around my photo.

1. Elections. All elections throughout the country (national, state, city) will follow rules for instant-runoff.
2. Elections. If electronic voting is used, it will be done on machinery and software that can be publicly reviewed, with data trails that can be publicly verified at any time.
3. Energy. Build a fusion research site, even better than ITER.
4. Energy. Build at least one free factory for Tata to begin manufacturing air-powered cars in America, with one decade free from all taxes.
5. Energy.  Employers must pay (separate from salary) a transportation wage to each employee, based on the distance from their home to their workplace.  This wage is waived for employees who telecommute at least 90% of their time.
6. Space.  Build a base on Mars to house 100 scientists within 10 years.
7. Knowledge.  Establish a maximum 10-year copyright on any material (software, music, movie, book, chemical, medicine.... anything).
8. Medicine.  If a corporation discovers a medicine or procedure of great public benefit, then seize the intellectual property for the public domain, even before the 10-year limit mentioned above.  Pay appropriate remuneration to the discoverer.
9. Accountability.  No government figure may earn more than 4x the national minimum wage.  No private figure may earn more than 10x the national minimum wage.  Any value (money, services, items) received in excess of this amount will be confiscated via taxes.
10. Accountability.  Citizens are permitted access to any method or product that the government uses on its own citizens.  (eavesdropping, wiretapping, data collection, owning weapons)

There's more, I'm sure, but 10 is my limit for today.

Comments

[mellowtigger]

Your Copyright idea is very different from mine, but I like it a lot. I'd settle for either of our suggestions. :)

In theory, I had a sex ed class one semester, but it was not at all useful. It had to be so sanitized that it was difficult to relate to anything presented. I just don't think society is ready for actual sex ed. "Your homework assignment tonight is to reach orgasm without any visual stimulation. Tomorrow we'll work on journaling about your experience." Practical. But sexual-involvement-on-demand? Ick. There's a different kind of bad precedent. I don't have a good suggestion for this one.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Well, we had reasonably comprehensive sex ed when I was in Jr. High and High School - though parents could opt their kids out of the program. Our health classes also covered drugs in a fair degree of detail, and relatively evenhandedly, though of course the message was "these aren't anything you want to mess with." On the one hand, there was no "Reefer Madness" type hysteria - and they did actually admit that one of the reasons people use drugs is because they make you feel good ... for a while.

I just think rather than trying to pack comprehensive sex ed into one semester - and possibly too late - it needs to be part of the curriculum every year from a certain point, getting gradually more specific as the grades progress. One of the interesting things about my old school district was that they found the kids who'd been opted-out of the sex ed program had a higher rate of unplanned pregnancies....