In Charge

What if I were In Charge?

Dangerous idea, that.

If you were in charge–if you were King–what would do? What would you fix? What would you ignore?

The Socratic ideal is the philosopher king, whose first act upon accession to the throne is to abdicate. The idea being that a truly ethical thinker would refuse to accept the responsibility to rule a nation.

Pity the world doesn’t work that way.

The problem with such systems (though I use the term “system” lightly, since abdication implies there would be a lack of any system)–and there are many, including those proposed by certain self-proclaimed Libertarians–is that human nature refuses to cooperate. There’s a kind of Malthusian coefficient involved–population growth always outstrips the potential for ideal behavior. All such utopian systems are based on one fallacy that keeps gumming up all the works of any system anyone cares to name.

The fallacy is that We’re All Alike.

It’s a widely touted formula–the things that we have in common outnumber those that divide us; underneath we’re all the same; people are people. The Libertarians believe as an article of faith that if government got out of everybody’s way, we’d all be fine because people basically know what’s best for themselves and their immediate circle of intimates. Socialists believe (mostly) that without class structures, everyone would get along quite nicely. Communists like to assume avarice is an aberration that can somehow be bred out of the species.

If only.

The fact is, we come in all shapes, sizes, talents, capacities, points of view, prejudices, and predilections. The closest we get (for the purposes of this essay) to being alike is that we seem to be different in exactly the same ways. We’re not the same in precisely those areas that make such blue sky hopes for the self-responsible, self-actualized, self-controlling individual a reality. Government ends up becoming a default necessity to keep us from each others’ throats as much as keeping the whole thing working in something resembling order.

Do governments go too far? Sure, often. Government is an imprecise tool, a blunt instrument. It’s reactive more than proactive. It makes huge blunders, overlooks details, stumbles along an ill-perceived path. In frustration–or under the same illusion that people are all basically the same (or should be)–many governments become autocratic, despotic, fascistic, tyrannical, brutal. They squeeze tighter on the reins in the futile attempt to force a population to conform to certain standards. Combined with a fervent belief that only They know what’s best for their country, you have all the ingredients for classic botched jobs.

Then there are those times and places where someone–a Hussein, a Khaddafy, a Stalin, a Hitler–does end up In Charge and sets about actually remaking the country according to their ideas. From the outside, occasionally, things look like they’re working quite well.

There is Order.

Misery doesn’t have to be loud to be real.

But the hypothetical I put as the title applies to us all to some degree, because it is true that rulers rule by the consent of the ruled.

Ultimately, when people–the euphemistic, legendary, all-but-mythical The People–have had enough, a ruler or ruling class just can’t keep them on the farm no more. France boasted one of the most autocratic, absolute despotism in modern history and look what happened to poor Louis XVI. Bad haircut day, one where the barber missed by several inches.

So. If I were in charge, what would I do differently?

First off, being an American, I would declare one day a year in which all classified documents would be declassified. For a day. Let the free-for-all start. Get in there and find what you think is there (or not) and gloat over being right or crawl back into your niche when you find you’re wrong. Whatever slipped through the fingers of those hungry conspiracy theorists, the press, the general run-of-the-mill paranoiac–tough. Gotta wait till next year.

This would allow for release, for breathing space. Illegal, hidden things would still go on, but imagine the safety valve such a day would have! Miss your chance one year, just wait till next year. It would provide a format in which those who openly distrust the system would have their say. Of course, it could not be a cheat. It would have to be real. Otherwise it wouldn’t work. I give as an example–an outre one, to be sure, but classic–Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s program to deal with UFOs. A look at the history of it shows that they shot themselves perpetually in the foot by not declassifying everything. The fringe maniacs who really believed they were hiding something could continually point to the things not revealed and make a quasi-legitimate claim that there, indeed, were the relevant revealing documents. As it has turned out, there never was anything that actually threatened national security, but because of the habitual inability of government to let go, they created (or at least provided unlimited fuel for) the present day UFO frenzy–and its related groups, like those folks who believe the UN has a clandestine bunch of storm troopers who can kidnap people…

Anyway. That would be the first thing.

Second thing, I would feed people. America has always grown a surplus. Food prices are kept high artificially. We can sell to other countries, but Americans should eat. Give it to them. Not candy, but real food. (I would also make this a part of welfare–no food stamps and no exceptions for the junk people buy. You come into the supermarket with foodstamps and then produce cash for alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, and so forth, the food stamps are not to be accepted.) Give it to everyone, though, not just welfare recipients. The guy in the mansion should have access as well as the single mom laid off from her job and living hand-to-mouth. (I guarantee the guy in the mansion won’t use it–too embarrassing. That’s why you rarely see people from rich counties shopping at Save-A-Bunch–they prefer spending more at an upscale store because it keeps them apart from the scruffy and impoverished.)

Third thing, I would federally fund schools at the primary and secondary level and keep them open 24/7. Classes would go on all day long, all night, all week, all year, for students to attend when they chose. They would also be staffed in such a way as to provide safe havens for children. Yeah, you’re doing the physics class with Dr. So-N-So, the experiment will take three months, you can sleep over. They would also have clinics attached to provide everything from first-aid to birth control to psych counseling. School should be the place where you mature, get healthy, learn, become what you want to become.

Fourth, taxes would be changed from income tax to purchase (or sales) tax, with exemptions for food, clothing, medicine, and books. Property tax should be assessed purely on a square-foot basis, regardless what’s built on it. (Second floor, more square feet, and so on, but the “improvement” of the property would have no bearing.) Business taxes would be altered to an annual licensing fee–your business does X dollars per year gross income, this is how much the license is. Period. Adjustments could be made over time, but I really do agree with Libertarians on this–a tax just because you make a certain amount of income is unethical, probably immoral, and retrograde. Tax what people spend, that’s different–except for necessities.

And retired people should be exempt from taxes. You hit retirement, leave the work force, taxes end. Period.

Between high school and college, there will be a year to two year long program everyone will participate in of public service, what the courts now term community service.

Everyone. Rich, poor, whoever. If you want to avoid it, join the military, which will be exempt from conscription. Everyone will give a year or two to helping the poor, forest management, urban renewal, charity work. The time will count toward student loans to underwrite college. But for one or two years, everyone will be part of a Peace Corps type program, working in communities that need help, doing all the stuff that needs doing, learning what it means to be a part of the community at the most basic level. Essentially getting your face rubbed in the real world so we can begin to minimize the myths surrounding poverty and work which poison so much political discourse in this country.

I would issue stringent requirements for people wanting to get married. It should be hard to get married. People do it for all the wrong reasons, all the time, and make a mess of it, and all it does is make money for lawyers, courts, and, at a certain level, the yellow press/tabloid market. It should be hard to get married, easy to get divorced. (Certainly you can live together, but there would be no palimony suits allowed and whatever legal arrangements a couple–or more–would want would have to be done through a lawyer via legal instrument. Marriage is a whole ‘nother ballgame.)

No children except for those willing to go through the byzantine machinations of getting married.

Which leads me to possibly the most controversial program.

Upon puberty, all boys would have a quantity of sperm harvested, all girls would have eggs harvested upon menarche. Once banked and filed, boys and girls would be “fixed”. No more teen pregnancy, no more pregnancies to blackmail people into relationships, no more unwanted babies. Later, after maturity, if two people really want a child, they have to make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE TO DO SO–because it will be done not in the heat of sexual congress, but thoughtfully, with the aid of a councilor, at the clinic, when they sign off to withdraw sperm and egg and actually MAKE A BABY. I fervently believe that too many children are born unwanted, even if from the outside they seem to have good home lives. People do things for reasons having nothing to do with the requirements of the thing done and I’m sorry, but just “But I want it!” is insufficient reason to be allowed the opportunity to fuck up another human being’s life.

That’s some of what I’d do if I were In Charge. Doubtless everyone has a list, but I thought I’d offer mine just for the sake of discussion.

Probably a good thing I’m not In Charge. Or likely to be.

Still, it kinda makes you wonder.

Doesn’t it?

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The above is intended purely for the purposes of a Thought Experiment and are not intended to be taken as anything more than that.  I am not, nor would I ever wish to be, In Charge.