Looks like there’s another survey from the White House. This one only has four questions. The first two are checkbox selections about what I think the Trump administration has done that is significant and what issues I think the administration should focus on. What a weighty word, significant. There are a lot of things it has been doing I believe are significant, but that word manages to hide any ability to report back on whether it is for the worst or the better. It robs me the feeling that this feedback will provide any guidance at all.
Words are important.
Because of that, I wanted to share what I wrote in for more open questions, which were, “What are your ideas to make America great again?” and “Other comments”.
Here were my replies:
Become scientific leaders in combating climate change, increase funding to the NIH and NSF to foster more biomedical advances, take steps to reduce hate crimes against the most vulnerable in our society, protecting the right of women to be able to make choices about how they live their lives, get private money and business influence out of politics, enact term limits, make election day a national holiday so that everyone can participate in our democracy, make redistricting less partisan so our House more accurately resembles the demographics of their respective districts rather than being drawn to primarily keep one party in power, expand social programs to ensure there is an adequate safety net for vulnerable populations, improve access to healthcare and enact a single-payer system so our country can catch up with the rest of the first world countries, use our expertise and wealth to assist in relief efforts around the world, raising the minimum wage to make a livable wage more accessible to more people, reducing the cost of higher education and the resulting burden of student loan debt, closing tax loopholes so corporations and wealthy individuals can as easily avoiding paying their fair share.
I believe all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of EVERYONE in our society, which means we have a duty to protect those who are most vulnerable from exploitation and discrimination. We need to protect against and work towards dismantling hate. Help others to have better access to social programs and access to affordable medical care to help people get back on their feet, not punish them for having stumbled. A world with no government is impossible, and rolling back regulations that protect the most vulnerable among us does not enable more freedom, it simply enables greed and corruption to take root. It is the place of government to protect us from tyranny – ALL of us from tyranny, not become an apparatus of the very thing it is meant to protect us against. Please remember this. We are a government of, for, and by the people. Not of, for and by those with access or wealth. Please listen to us. ALL of us. Not just those who agree with you.
Check out if you got the link for the survey in your inbox. I’m guessing I probably received it because I have signed White House petitions before.
I’ll leave you with a Hubert Humphrey quote from 1977:
“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
