Small ideas

Parks come in different sizes.  There are national parks which can be bigger then some states, and there are tiny parks that equate to nothing bigger then a bench and perhaps a tree.  When thinking about increasing the quality of life for its citizens, cities intuitively think about parks.  This natural inclination is a good thing. 

Unfortunately, parks are not free, and if done poorly, they can become a headache instead of an asset.  Apart from being expensive to maintain, parks can also become a place where criminal activity takes place, for this and other reasons, cities need to think wisely when creating a park.  

One idea is to make the whole city a park.  Many cities have rivers or streams running through them. Unfortunately, some cities have decided to create concrete channels where rivers used to run.  But rivers are a great way to create parks.  By placing benches and trees and creating paths for walking and biking throughout the city, the whole city becomes a park.    This idea is what some people call “urban forests.”   It’s like having one of our Big national parks in our city.    A lot more can be done in this area.

But we also need smaller parks.  This would equate to having parks within the big park.  Small community parks through out the city are the key.  They can come in the form of playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis or basketball courts, or baseball or soccer fields.    A small park can be nothing more then a tennis court.  Tiny parks would be great and there wouldn’t be a need for larger parks because in essence the whole city is a park. 

Unfortunately, most cities take a medium approach.  They make medium size parks and make the have “go” to the park, instead of having parks come to community, in the case of small parks, or having the cities be parks.  Having to go to the park, takes energy and planning.  Most parks are not next to where one lives and one must often have to drive to the park.  This is undesirable.   What needs to happen is that the whole city needs to be a park, and there needs to be smaller parks within the city.

Pollution, traffic and global warming seem to be in everyone’s mind.  Recent demographic projections anticipate things getting worse in the not so far off future.   Freeway expansions, the creation of rail lines and a movement away from suburbs and back into urban centers are all things people are now talking about.  Some people talk about having to build double-decker freeways in order to accommodate the traffic that will come with the population projections. In thinking about finding a solution to this problem, the question should not be, “how do we accommodate all the traffic that will be generated?,” the question should be, “how can we eliminate some of the traffic currently present and keep people in the future from putting their cars on current roads and highways.  Most people shy away from the idea of getting rid of cars, because it could mean your car being eliminated and politicians shy away from it because it’s not popular with voters. However, if we want to reduce pollution, traffic, and address climate change, getting people of the roads is what we need to focus on. 

But, if getting people out of their cars is so unpopular and politically costly, how can we achieve this?  One obvious way, is to make driving and having a car more expensive, currently, owning a car and driving it, is cheap enough that even the poor can afford it, one of the reason it is cheap, is because the price of driving a car is subsidize, both by non car drivers and by the planet.  Currently, people don’t have to pay for the environmental damage they cost, a gas tax and road tax, would be a good way of placing the environmental cost, on the polluters.  The money collected, would go for environmental protection programs.  Those who don’t drive and therefore don’t pollute, would not have to bear the burden of the polluters and the some of the current polluters would get off the road.

 
In addition to increasing the cost of driving in order to push people out of their cars and into public transportation and sidewalks, something else we can do is eliminated the number of drivers on the road.  Passing a law prohibiting certain individuals from driving would reduce the number of drivers on the road. However, passing such a law would be prohibitively politically costly, unless… we pass such a law on a non-voting block.   Such a move does carry with it a certain stench of cowardiceness, nonetheless given the circumstances; it might be a move worthy of consideration.   The block I suggest banning from the road consist of the thousands of drivers in the age range of 16-18.  This block currently enjoys driving privileges, but it does not enjoy voting privileges, we can therefore sacrifice their driving privilege and not have to incur a political liability.   Notice I say sacrifice their driving privilege and not their driving right.  It is important to highlight that driving is a privilege and not a right. 

There would be a number of positive factors to banning people under the age of 18 from driving. 

Most obviously, it would reduce the number of cars on the road, thereby: 1. reducing traffic congestion, 2. reducing pollution.  In addition, it would have a reduction in car accidents and underage drinking and driving.  There are many studies that show a disproportionate amount of car accidents in this age bracket.   An additional benefit would be that we would force this group of people into public transportation and therefore create a habit of using public transportation.  Currently, most people don’t use public transportation unless they have to; the reason for this is that we don’t train people early in their life. Because there are many dangers associated with putting younger children in the public buss system, parents prefer to drive their children. And, as soon at these “children” reach sixteen, they go from being driven by their parents and  directly into driving their own cars.  Because of this, we never have the opportunity to experience public transportation, and we consciously and unconsciously, create a negative bias towards public transportation.  Riding the bus and other forms of public transportation becomes “uncool” and as we become adults we associate riding the bus with economic failure.  Forcing 16-18 year-olds into public transportation will have the effect of creating a public transportation ridership habit that will hopefully continue after they are eighteen.  

In addition, a driving ban would cause this group to walk more and have a positive effect of the health of this age group.  Obesity in this age group is currently a growing concern, getting these kids off their cars and into the pedestrian lifestyle might actually save some of their lives.
 

There is a group of teenagers in this group for whom driving is akin to a “necessity,” perhaps special exceptions can be made for them; however for the majority, it will be nothing more then a minor inconvenience, an inconvenience they will thank us for once they turn 18 and gain the privilege to drive and don’t have to share the road with those pesky 16-18 year olds.

 
In thinking about our current legal tax system, questions of legitimacy are immediately raised.  At their base, these theories of taxation lead to two fundamental theories of ownership.

            One theory states that the root of ownership is the feeling that one is separate from rest of the universe.  If different parts of the world are disconnected from each other, then the connecting of things through the process of ownership brings them to a higher state of being.  In such circumstance a person who appropriates, a person who through productivity is able to bring things that are separated from each other into togetherness through the amassing of material wealth by ownership, should be regarded as a hero for bringing order into chaos.  A person who amasses possessions through wealth does not owe the rest of the world, in fact, it could be said that the rest of the world owes him/her because they have created something out of nothingness; they have brought order and productivity where there was chaos and waste.  Taking this view of the universe and of the amassing of property and wealth, one can easily see why taxation can be seen as illegitimate, may even as theft.  It can be seen as repulsive that the unproductive masses use the state apparatus to usurp the hard work and productivity of those who have worked so diligently.  Seen through these lenses, taxation can only be legitimize when it is done with the consent of the person being taxed and/or when the return on the amount taxed is indeed returned in in-kind services.  But the rich, those who have amasses most wealth, argue that they pay more money into the system then they take out and this is inherently unfair.  They might even go as far as to say that the rest of society owes them for the wealth and order they produce, because, through a trickle down effect, the unproductive ultimately benefited from their resourcefulness.
           

            The conflicting theory is simply the reverse of the one stated.  This theory states the theory of ownership is simply ridiculous.  In this way of seeing the world, one has no rights only liabilities. We are simply guess on this earth.   The oxygen we receive, the sunlight we consume, everything we use is owned by something bigger then us and that something, (called God by most), is the only true owner of all.   We are part of this bigger thing, of this universe, and therefore we can not own. We owning anything, is a ridiculous as saying that my thumb can own something.  My thumb can not own anything, because it is not an entity in its own right, in the same way, we can not own anything because we are only a miniscule part of that which is bigger then us.   For this reason, when something that is “bigger then us” i.e. God or Society, asks us as individuals to give something, they are not asking is to give something that is ours, they are asking us to return something that we were temporarily allowed to barrow.  

These are the ideas behind taxation.  When we are tax, are we being asked to give up something that we owned, or are we being asked to return something to the true owner, something that that society allowed us to barrow?

In thinking about refugee law is and what it should be, one should take Global Warming into consideration. The question will be “should people displaced by “natural disasters” attributed to Climate Change, be eligible for refugee status?

Currently, the definition of Refugee is, “a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.”

If for example, Haiti was hit by a Hurricane or was for some other reason completely flooded; would we call the displaced Haitians refugees? I assume that we would; but current refugge law wouldn’t recognize them as such because they wouldnt be being persecuted nor would they owed their fear on account of their membership to “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”.

Common sense dictates that if such a catastrophe was to occurred, we would take then victims into our bosom and change our current “refugee law;” however, it makes a lot more sense to start thinking about this early on and make some changes in our law proactively so that we know what to do in such circumstance. It would be most unfortunate if the fiasco of Hurricane Katrina was to repeat itself, the implications of something like that occurring would be devastating. If Katrina cause so much strife and it did not involve “aliens,” imagine what would happen if those affected where not US citizens and our “refugee law” system was not prepared to handle it.

Welcome to Blogging

A friend recommend that I blog, at first I said, "sure," and then forgot about it. Today I’m trying it for two reasons: 1. I’m bored, and 2. because the best way to become a better writer is to practice. In the coming future I will use this space to practice my writing and to wrestle with “small ideas,” in hope of furthering developing them into “substantial ideas.” I’m still not sure how this blogging thing works, or if anyone will ever read this. In the mean time I will assume that no one reads it. I can’t think of any reason anyone would. In case anyone those, feel free to post a reply, but don’t feel offended if I don’t reply back.

I Welcome Me to Blogging.