Thoughts on issues

Net neutrality is to some an issue about equal access to the internet for the rural and the poor, and to others it's about legalizing monopoly practices that hurt competition. Encryption is about privacy, but it is also about security. Some people think of the 2nd amendment as the right to bear arms to defend your country and overthrow tyranny. Others think of it as a means to regulate, and feel that the government isn't regulating enough. Encryption is an arm that defends your right to private communications, and some believe that it is a violation of fundamental rights if and when the government accesses your devices. Others believe that it's a slippery slope - if our government can do it, then so can a hostile government, and so can a hacker who wants to extort you. Single payer healthcare is about not punishing people who get sick because they make less money. When I lived a couple years abroad, there was a single payer system, but private insurance means more access to care. Single payer means not bankrupting people who can't afford the insurance. It has nothing to do with Obama. Social Security is a savings account / insurance scheme that only works out for our generation if the population grows and more people put in more money. I paid my social security taxes, but I might not live long enough to take a benefit. Why can't we roll it all up and let everyone take out a universal basic income - something which ensures that our children and parents and siblings get resources for food and shelter and that people don't die homeless on the streets in the "wealthiest nation" on the planet.

My wife taught in one of the most bizarre middle schools in all of America - one of the poorest schools in a super rich metropolitan suburb - within miles of some of the wealthiest companies on the planet. From her stories, I learned that the children of the poorest workers in the same town where $300,000 was a down payment on a shack were going hungry and had family issues. The school had a crisis on Thanksgiving when the kitchen staff didn't properly plan the amount of food assuming that many of the families would take their children out of town, and the children that were there that week ran out of their only food source. We expect our next generation to pay for our social security, but we are neglecting them. How do starving children learn to be future leaders?

Liberty. Freedom. Choice. Money. You have many choices in your life if you are rich. That's universally true, not just in America, but worldwide. It's how you treat the portion of your people who have no money that defines a nation. Americans are obsessed with the rich -- what the best and boldest and most successful in terms of money do. The poor buy lottery tickets, hoping one day to strike it rich. These symptoms are indicative of a larger problem that needs to change from the top down and the bottom up.