After the Reckoning

At this point, discussion on the future of our country is a form of idealism that few seem willing to engage in; we seem to have reached a conclusion that the ship is indeed sinking, and the rats are leaving.

What happens next seems inevitable. I think we're headed towards Balkanization, and it's happening because we live under a system that blended Orwell and Huxley all too well. I cannot believe that a system like that can truly prevail, but the road past it is steep and treacherous.

I never wanted that for my family, my neighbors. But a reckoning is needed, and so we face it, like it or not, together. And I ask myself; what happens after that?

Here's what I hope for. The system originally built to govern our nation was, and is, an extremely good idea, and its failure now, while truly systemic in nature, does not point to an unworkable system, but rather a system that lost its way. I think it could work, following a reset, with two simple changes.

1. The immediate, complete, and unconditional abolition of the fiction of a "corporate identity". In other words, no organization may ever be allowed again to evade personal accountability and consequences. Is it a higher risk for the businesses, if they can serve jail time for bad decisions? Of course it is. And that's how it should be.

2. The iron will to enforce the assertion that centralized government is a complete failure, and a return to local governance. Our culture is addicted to the idea of central control working with "just a few more rules." No system of governance works at large enough scale. It can't; the complexity creates the idea of broad decisions that hurt people no matter how well intended, and once that idea becomes acceptable, the movement from being the good guys to being the bad guys is unavoidable, even without the idea of an elite cabal driving things. That's not to say that there isn't one; there is, and we all know it. Regardless, systems can never be allowed to replace judgement.

You plant seeds today for the trees you want your grandchildren to shelter beneath.