We have crisis, we have hostage taking, we have headlines, we have economic collapse, yet what we don’t have

 is something better.

We got compromise and no one and everyone cheers.

And that my friends is the problem. It took a compromise of bad ideas to solve a major issue or problem and yet the problem is not solved, just kicked down the road two years and sooner or later another crisis whether real or media driven will make headlines again. 

Do we need to reign in our spending? Yes we do. Do we need to take care of the poor? Yes we do. Does our military need to dominate our budget? No, but we need one. Do we spend too much on healthcare? Yes we do. Are we healthy? Not by a long shot. Can our high school graduates look forward to their future? Yes they do, but not because we are doing them any favors. They have to make their own future in spite of what we have done. And it appears we have left them some tough sailing. Can our high school graduates feel good about their education? Not really and that really falls on society. 

Does anyone feel good about what our government is doing? You can answer that one.

To me, we should and could be doing better, but as long as we accept the crap thrown at us day in and day, better ain’t happening.

We let the fringe, the radicals, the far side of each side dominate what happens to us in society. And even the fringe, the radicals, and the far side of each obtain no benefit from what they do or want or say.

Why is better so hard? Some social scientists will try and tell us an answer or even I will find something or someone to blame. 

We can make better cars or better TVs or better sports teams, but making us better, too much work. Or people tend to think so. 

Is it a matter of common sense? Or is it deep philosophical thinking that will produce the answers? Or should we just turn the planet over to artificial intelligence and let it go? Build robots for the robots until they can build them themselves?

No to either of the above, but we do need to do something different. And what is different? And for some people better is a pejorative term because they would rather complain than find what might actually work. It does take effort to be better or make something better, even a better washer and dryer means something has to be studied, researched, models have to be tested to make sure it is better before selling it. So making government or society better, sheesh, that is some serious work. 

If the human race was an experiment, exactly what is the expected outcome? Or is the expected outcome that we figure all this out on our own?

Whatever the answer, what just happened with the debt limit should not have been the answer. I don’t know if blindly raising the debt limit solves the problem, but blindly accepting a compromised answer is not the answer either.

We are smart people, heck we built smart phones, yet better elude ourselves consistently. There are better answers, but until we decide we really want better,  it will elude us no end. 

On a side note I could think of a thousand ways to have handled that crisis differently and so could you, it is ourselves that prevent us from success. Public policy is just making things better for the public or at least it should be. Why is it so complicated when actual productive answers are written down every day?

Next time you think about the whole of us as humans, as society, as a country, think what you can do for someone else because that is the start of better.  Or am I rephrasing John Kennedy too readily, but hey not such a bad idea if put into practice no matter how phrased or at what level.

Cheers