Pipe Smoke 1

So many folks are looking at our world with confusion approaching despair.  The problems just seem so deep set, so intractable.  But they're not, not really.  You just have to approach them with two thoughts in mind: first, do what no one would ever think of doing, the radical thing, the unimaginable thing; and second, make sure the thing you've decided to do will in absolute concrete and literal fact increase justice, real justice, the balance of effort to reward, responsibility and rights.  For example, the welfare systems of the United States.

Fixing welfare is easy… if you want any form of public assistance the back side of the deal is that you will relocate.  Get 'em out of the damned inner cities and put them to work doing what ever they are able to do… and pay them what their work is worth, hire them some French union folk to negotiate for them in good faith with the farms and state highway departments and industries who will be buying their labor.  If they live in the rural areas and drive a cowboy Cadillac based on nine illegitimate children they go the other way… into the cities to help rebuild the blight.  Or better still, put 'em to work building and rebuilding the rail systems while there are still enough resources in the country to get that critical job done.  Stir the pot, and stir it hard as you turn the fire up.  But the one constant is that where ever they had lived they live there no more… break, burn and bury the culture of living on the public tit, deprived of a most primal of human rights, the right to say "this is mine because I earned it in fair trade!"  You'll probably lose 1 in 5 to psycho shock, but still cheap at the price… the remainder will be restored to full human rather than losing them all.