As a society, we’re just drifting haphazardly along. We have no long-term strategic plan and little concern about the effects our actions will have on future generations. We care a lot about our own needs and goals, but very little about everyone else’s. If we think about it at all, we believe the United States will forever be the world’s greatest power.
But how can that be fulfilled when we hear political candidates excoriate incumbents for doing nothing, then see them do nothing themselves once they get into office? Our local, state, and national leaders, decade after decade, seem to lack the vision and guts to make bold, imaginative proposals that could get our country moving toward a better future.
If you want to get sick to your stomach, think for a moment about the years wasted in oratory, arguments, fact-finding studies, and salaries paid to legislators, governors, department heads, consultants, and lobbyists—all playing games over whether or not to build a baseball stadium. It’s insane.
Or think about Congress and the president cleverly deciding that SUVs are really trucks, not cars, and therefore not subject to the already pathetically weak automobile mileage standards. They wink at one another and congratulate themselves on having, once again, fooled the public; the sadness is, they have.
We’ve become so fat, so rich, so full of ourselves that the occasional lone
voice calling out for redirection, or pointing out that just maybe the sky
really is falling, is laughed at or, more likely, ignored. Here are three bold
ideas. They, too, will no doubt be laughed at or ignored. But I submit them
anyway as a tiny prod to get us out of our state of blissful ignorance and
denial, and to open our eyes to reality.
1. Ban real grass and mandate artificial turf for those who want green lawns.
This isn’t a joke. Every year, we use perhaps hundreds of billions of gallons of
fresh water to keep lawns green. There have long been water shortages in western
states, but the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care. I’ve never seen a
projection of when the U.S. will run out of fresh water, but sooner or later we
will, just as we’re going to run out of oil and coal and every other finite
resource. As current stewards of this earth, shouldn’t we think about this?
2. Merge Minneapolis and St. Paul. Some of the great cities of the world have
rivers running through them instead of dividing them. Combining the Twin Cities
would substantially reduce infrastructure expense, eliminate competitive agony
about where to build municipal facilities, and boost the cities’ appeal to
convention planners and tourists. I’d go further and include many of our suburbs
in one great city that could imagine and create services, resources, and
amenities on a far larger scale. Such a move would eliminate the ghettoization
and imbalance of resources that is already creating big social and economic
problems, and threatens greater problems to come.
3. Require two years of public service from all U.S. citizens, starting after
graduation from high school, college, or trade school. Some would be assigned to
or choose the military, some the Peace Corps, some AmeriCorps, some helping
school kids with their math and science studies. Some would go into programs yet
to be developed. Such service could move this country forward in ways and at a
speed that is almost impossible to comprehend. We are falling behind other
countries in so many ways—science and math training, graduation rates, health
care, manufacturing capability, environmental proactivity, and more. The idea of
putting legions of young people to work for the common good is both realistic
and, perhaps, an innovative key to avoiding the path of decline taken by
virtually every "greatest power in the history of the world": Rome, Spain,
England, and others.
These ideas may turn out to be unworkable, but other bold ideas won’t be. When will we give some of them a try?
