Back

Changes To Our Government

July 24th, 2024

I just had an idea I'd like to write down.

If I were the leader of the USA, I'd probably pay our government bureaucrats more. I'd want people scrambling to get positions in the government like how we have people scrambling to become lawyers and software engineers. Ideally, you'd want to attract the brightest and smartest of your talent pool of persons to work in government agencies.

The same of police officers. I'd want to pay them more, not so that we can praise police brutality, no, so we can put more principled and educated personnel in the front and so that they can make educated decisions.

Where would we get this money? Why, from pulling out of the rest of the world! I understand we have bases in these countries as preventative measures against a more expensive and costly war, so it's actually cheaper in the long-run. But we can't afford these preventative measures any longer. The USA will collapse fast if we keep trudging towards this direction. Anything can happen, and I think that this country could fall apart as fast as the USSR did.

I don't think protectionist tariffs are going to do anything but buy time against China. China will keep growing no matter what we do to stop it. I think we should work with China, and try to secure peace. Taiwan will most likely fall, but the question remains of the contention in the South China Sea. Will China be aggressive in their territorial expansionism? Or will they settle at the negotiation table with ASEAN?

If the USA pulls out of the rest of the world, vests its money back into its own economy, we may have a chance at paying off our debts and retaining our assets. Otherwise, we'll begin to see people and companies pull out, and we'll be left with little jobs.

In this day and age, the only thing the USA is trying to do foreign policy-wise is hinder China's ascension via trade war. We are in-denial of the inevitable. I say that the sooner we accept and come to terms, the faster we can focus on bringing our own brand of American prosperity to keep up with China. Hindering others is an effective strategy, but at the cost of the people is not an effective strategy. Keep the people happy and keeping up with China economically is likely to be the strongest move in my opinion.

Trump has a foreign policy I don't agree with. Raising tariffs even higher to full trade war with China is suicidal. I do agree with pulling out of Europe and NATO though. It's not necessary. Europe needs to tend to their own business, and it's not in the business of Americans to be defending lands across the globe any longer. We did it for so long in an ideological bout, but ideology is no longer the driving force. It's just money and it has always been.

Biden is keeping both NATO and the tariffs. I don't think this will be effective in the long-run. Our debt has grown out of control, and I fear the moment we have an exodus of capital and assets by large corporations, the United States is done for. We will have such a quick collapse it will hit us like a storm out of nowhere.

Nobody seems to be thinking of this though. I hope the corporations are not. There are many places to run, like Canada, Australia, stable countries in Latin America, West Europe, and even Southeast Asia, such as Singapore and Indonesia.

I will be keeping my money in cryptocurrency and stocks. I'm thinking of a heavy crypto lean, about 35%, while stocks at a 35% allocation. The rest I will spend for my living expenses. It's rather aggressive, but I think the Bitcoin standard may actually come to fruition at the rate the world is heading.

I think, if I want a more effective picture, I should make friends with people in finance and what they think. I'll ask.

Here's what I'd do to reform our government:

Pay our government works top-grade salaries to make them competitive with corporate standard
Raise the minimum wage to a livable standard
Slash small business taxes
Maintain corporate tax rates
Pull money from the military and abroad
Negotiate with foreign powers and encourage them to militarize
Reinstate free trade, and bring China to the negotiation table
Make the USA step down from a position of authority, we have no right to be lecturing nation-states on how they should be operating. Our moral high-ground era is over, and now we have to focus on keeping American prosperity going.
The entire reason we had American high-ground to begin with was our prosperity, by overreaching constantly these past sixty decades, we have destroyed our own prosperity and gave us no basis for high-ground. The reason nations adopted democracy was always because of the economic success America enjoyed, and not the freedoms or anything ideological of that sort.
Lee Kuan Yew understood that ideological dogma is not a good route to success: success as in everyone's bellies are full, and that everyone has a place to call home, and that there is peace, that is not determined by some sort of principle or ideology.
The question is, is it principle, or is it material success that makes people happy? I am certain though, that in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, both are needed, but a full stomach should come first.
Pay our teachers more. It is ridiculous our education system has deteriorated this much. It's clear by the rhetoric Donald Trump has set that our voting populace is lacking more and more critical thinking. I do not blame Donald Trump, he is clearly intelligent and just playing the media game, I blame the system.
We are in the midst of a Populist movement that will scorch the planet. Anti-intellectualism is growing faster and faster. We need to adapt to this and strengthen the middle class.
Dismantle the media-elitist complex, dismantle the lobby system in its entirety, and raise the salaries of our government officials while banning insider trading in its entirety.

What Should I Be Focused On?

Should I keep up with politics? Probably not.

But a little doesn't hurt. I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs is likelier the thing I should attend to.

The Importance of Being Yourself

Lying to others by assuming a normative personality displays to others that you follow traditional rules and worldviews. This is normal, and doesn't reveal anything of the individual.

Being yourself reveals your values, your character, your ability to be strong and not bend into a will, and your ability to form opinions. It shows what your worldview is and what you bring to the table.

Sure, there are more favorable worldviews, but what people appreciate is a worldview that makes sense and that is straight and honest. If you cannot discern a worldview of a person, if you can't tell what they value and what they trust, you will not like that person plain and simple. It is hard to like, maybe you won't dislike them, but you won't form an opinion at all besides the fact that they are a brown-noser.

The Submarine

Paul Graham writes an article titled, "Submarine." It details our media-press-complex we have here in America. It is a raging issue, of how we can influence the minds of thousands, millions of Americans with enough money, and completely override any sense of critical thinking and self-deterministic thought.

For example, a drug report from Singapore states:

Lobbying by drug producers and other groups with a similar interest to liberalise the drug regime, through well-funded marketing campaigns, has shifted public attitudes towards “softer” drugs such as cannabis, and the misperception that these drugs are harmless.

Here in America, I look around to my peers and see them all with strong liberal stances on drug-use, so much that they believe their parents used drugs recreationally as well. The drug lobby is so strong, and there are so many misconceptions about the usage of drugs.

I hear my cousins tell me all the time, that "alcohol is worse then weed," so weed should be legalized. I've heard that in the news articles, I've heard that in reels posts, everywhere. It's catchy. But is it true? Nobody questioned it. Some article said so themselves. But how many times has a news article gotten something wrong? Have they really clarified the life outcomes of a person on weed?

Anecdotally, I know millions of successful people who use alcohol. But of the few who use marijuana, I find them all to be bums or failures. Low-achieving individuals. Mary Jane is not dangerous persay, but what effect does it have on an individual's whole life, not just their health? Especially when we're dealing with neurocognitive drugs? What can we definitively say and state with certainty, and if not, how irresponsible are we being by telling our young that "so far it looks not that bad?"

Which brings me back to Paul Graham's article. The drug lobby is pushing out misinformation in the media, in journal studies, and everywhere using their mass wealth to sway public opinion to being more accepting of drugs. Has anyone sorted out the facts, truly? And, how much do we know to be making policies on biased scientific results funded and lobbied for by these wealthy companies? It feels as if our system is being taken advantage of, that, money rules science instead of science ruling truth.

To sum up my beliefs, I'm starting to believe that it is the winner that gets to rewrite the truth, not just history, but science and education too. And the winner is the one that has money.

For my own prescription, I ought to not believe anything I read from the get-go, and to be careful of trusting the things I read on the internet. Don't believe everything you read on the internet!