Opinion | There's Bucket-lists ... and, Then, There's Bucket-lists

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There’s Bucket-lists … and, Then, There’s Bucket-lists

(c) 2023 by Vernon Miles Kerr and VernonMilesKerr.com

I have been shouting into this deep, dark cave, called “Twitter,” for 8 years now—ever since the Trump-Clinton campaign in 2015. Looking back, my subject-matter hasn’t changed much. At 72, I was already looking at not much life left — now at 80 and being involved in a fight against Cancer, I may have even less than I thought. If I’m gonna leave behind anything helpful on Earth, I need to use writing, the only superlative skill I have. (All my other pursuits and skills are very mediocre, I assure you.)

In 2015 my bucket -list included, places I wanted to go and physical pursuits I wanted to experience, or improve on. Not now.

Here’s today’s bucket-list:

1. Encourage those who have left, or are unhappy in, organized religions. Humans don’t need organizations to have access to God, nor access to “eternal life” — which seems to be a”given,” in my opinion.

2. Get money out of politics.

3. Get religion out of politics by taking away its tax-exempt status.

4. Better yet, start over with a new U.S. Tax Code based on a small percentage of “gross revenues.” (Like my city’s “mill-tax” for businesses — one thousandth of a dollar for each dollar that goes into the till, right off the top.)

5. Whatever it takes, reform the U.S. Government to be the intercessor between human beings and worldwide, rampant capitalism — NOT capitalism’s enabler.

6. Get politics out of government by reducing the number of “elective” offices in its vast bureaucracy, by filling those offices through a publicly-transparent civil-service process. Start with changing the selection of judges and district attorneys.

7. Speaking of “vast bureaucracy,” change the entire regulatory-system to actually regulate and not to promote and enable the industries being regulated: limit industry-insiders on regulatory boards to one or two.

8. Fill the ethical void in our educational system that was caused by the rejection of Biblical teachings, during the early 20th Century. The extraction of the Bible from public education was good, the gaping wound it left is not. We need a basic secular morality (upon which anyone would agree - including the churches) to be taught in our schools. Teaching morality and ethics shouldn’t be tabu. However, that which is taught should be free of religious input, or control.

Finally,

1. Y’all start focusing on the real causation of stuff, not the “effects.” Don’t ban illicit drugs, without dealing with what has caused the HUGE demand for them in our country. Don’t ban “abortion,” without considering the social and psychological reasons that have created the demand for abortions. Don’t focus on getting rid of homeless encampments without considering the economic and (again) psychological reasons for their existence.
   And, most importantly,

2. don’t tolerate your political representatives’ coming up with bandaid solutions to the drug, abortion, homelessness, or any other kid of problem. Be cynical about any legislation that addresses “effects,” and not “causation.” Hold your legislators’ feet to the fire. Call ‘em out and expose it when they pull that crap.

I guess that’s all the “bucket-list” stuff I can think of for today.
Peace be with you,
Vern