Three Legislative Proposals to Make the World a Better Place

1. War: We could do much to stem war as being a viable and even easy option for politicians by passing one simple law. If politicians were forced to vote a single member from their own family into war at the head of the army – from Chelsea Clinton to one of the little Bush twins – we would do much to stem the rush to use war as a political option. Imagine, if each legislator knew that they would be condemning a member of their own family to psychological destruction, physical injury or potential death when they voted for war. This simple law would certainly make them appreciate in its entirety what it means to go to war. Not to say that all wars would be stemmed – World War II, for instance, might well have been fought under these pretenses – but that the succession of wars of choice that we have fought over the past 75 years, making use the absolute most war-like nation over this time, would be stemmed.
Even the most hateful and narrow of Southern Republicans would have a difficult time voting their own family member into war, and the noxious tide of our own self-destructive impulses would be curtailed.

2. National Service: everyone under 30 is a little narcissistic snot who is essentially untrustworthy and out only for their own remunerative gain. The upper classes are over-indulgent with their kids (I should know; I’m both one of those kids and one of those parents!) and the children coming from struggling families are made to feel worthless. They either make it on their own, at all costs, or they’re out: society will in little way help them, or honor their struggle for success in our post-modern world.
As such, we must have a democratizing event that brings the whole of society together when there is still hope – when people are out of high school but before they start down their career path. The idea of the individual worth and democracy for all are the best aspects of our contemporary milieu; with the draft gone, however, this aspect has slipped from the specific awareness of our youth.
A year of national service that concentrates on good work and is funded by the state, where all peoples are moshed together in working for some common good (whether it is cleaning up destitute areas, mentoring at-risk kids, planting trees or other) in the tradition of Roosevelt’s WPA, would do a tremendous amount to knit this heterogeneous society together. Not only would young adults at a tremendously formative time in their lives come to feel the warmth of working for the common good (instead of their own narcissistic little desires), they would also be forced to work with and perhaps even befriend “the other,” people from other geographical areas, religions, ethnicities, backgrounds etc.
This would add tremendously to the positive impetus in our American culture, and do much to combat sectarian, economic and racial rifts that have yet to be healed (and sometimes seem to be on the rise) in our society.

"Moses Maimonides," acrylic, ink & collage on canvas, 72" x 30", 2007

3. Moral Ombudsman: A little more complicated, perhaps, but an idea that would attempt to insert a moral center into the Machiavellian, power-driven politics of today’s America. I am calling for the creation of a group whose natural constituency would be all Americans - that would ignore political affiliation or economic clout when dissecting current events in the political field. This would be a non-profit group consisting of members from a variety of religions and political views that would dissect from a moral point of view the specific proposals sludging out of our legislative bodies.
Issuing its decisions in policy papers, op-ed articles, press releases, scorecards on the votes of public servants and reaching out in other like manners, this non-profit watchdog would finally offer a true moral center from which to judge the legislation and the public actions of our elected leaders. By developing and implementing an agreed upon moral matrix - developed by a wide collection of religious and political leaders - through which to view current events and, most importantly, the slurry of noxious legislation emitting from our various legislative bodies, a Moral Ombudsman could begin to turn the political discussion away from what is most politically expedient and/or monetarily remunerative for a lucky few and towards a view that is morally correct and helpful to the greatest number of our fellow citizens.

By injecting a moral center into the public scrum, the whole context within which we see the political process, which is currently limned by political advertising and the press, would be changed for the better, proffering a center that would not move with the political winds. By setting up and hewing to a moral reference point, the Moral Ombudsman would help to change the public discourse and, at its very best, lead our country out of the wilderness of competing, personal and corporate interests towards a politics where the true constituency would be the people themselves.
Difficult? Sure. Impossible? Perhaps – but nonetheless, something well-worth trying, regardless of the nay-sayers and practicians that populate the public square . . .