President Franklin Roosevelt, in 1944, for pity's sake, proposed an economic bill of rights just before he died. It was a list of rights proposed during his State of the Union Address of that year. In it, he "suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second 'bill of rights.' Roosevelt's argument was that the 'political rights' guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had 'proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.' Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:
-Employment, with a living wage
-Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
-Housing
-Medical care
-Education
-Social security
And the thing is, I think we all agree that we are--or were--the wealthiest nation on the planet. That seems self-evident. And I think we could have done this, I think we could have given ourselves the above but instead of taking care of the nation and of ourselves, we've plowed far, far too much money and materiel into war and defense, even when it wasn't necessary.
For anyone and everyone that thinks that what he or anyone else means by proposing this is that we have "big government" and a nanny state I say stop. That is not what we're talking about at all.
If we took our nation's wealth and ability--and more nations did the same--and plowed it into the people's well-being and yes, infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewage and sewer systems, schools, transportation, etc.), instead of, again, defense and weapons of war, all people and nations of the world would benefit. There would be rising standards of living instead of falling. People would be fed, clothed, housed and have health care and so on.
Think about it.
If we had all been on this path long ago, the former Soviet Union wouldn't have collapsed and wouldn't have had to. They'd have been taking care of their people instead of squandering the nation's wealth on bombs and aircraft to carry them. All nations of the world could have spent less on war and weapons of war.
Unfortunately, the US has, since the Cold War, at least, has continued spending outrageously high sums on defense, even to this day. And it's incredibly high spending both in terms of our own Gross National Product (GDP) and that of all the other nation's spending on defense.
It's crazy. It's unfounded. It's unnecessary. It's obscene.
And it's all those things especially when you know there is so much poverty in our nation and so many go with little food and/or little or no schooling and millions go without good health care, etc.
It won't happen. At least, it won't happen anytime soon but we need to cut defense spending deeply and across the board. We--and the world--need to transfer over to a world of taking care of one another, instead of worrying about some big, ugly "bogeyman" that doesn't exist, by the way, and that may "take us over."
We, the people, need to push for this. We all need to get educated on why and how this should happen. And then we need to make it happen as soon as possible.
Here's hoping.
Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights
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