FIXING COVID

At this point over 700,000 people have died from Covid and that’s conservative!! God knows how many weren’t counted or were attributed to other reasons. We have heard it all for the last almost 2 years. “There has always been Flu, this is no different”, ”It will burn itself out and go away, float right through our population”, “I don’t trust the vaccines they have been pushed through too fast”, “I have freedom of choice this is America”, “I don’t need a vaccine I am healthy and won’t get sick”, “the Pandemic would disappear after the election because it was created by the media” etc. etc. Have these folks come out and apologized for misleading us? Have they stepped up and said they were wrong and encouraged us to protect ourselves. A medical issue has been politicized. How completely stupid is that. If a President, Governor or Senator said wearing glasses was a hoax and optometrist were misleading us. Would you not get your kids eyes tested or throw away your glasses? Why did politics suddenly have a place in medicine and medical care decisions. Well to fix things it doesn’t matter how stupid, or insidious people and leaders are and unfortunately you can’t cure either.

First, not taking a vaccine that hundreds of millions of people have already taken safely worldwide that could save your life doesn’t make sense and is stupid. So going forward it’s mandatory!! (obviously medical exemptions are acceptable but these are rare) no religious exemptions would be allowed. Hard but tough love works. If you refuse, you’re on your own. No insurance company would be required to cover any Covid caused medical expenses and I can’t believe any would do so altruistically. Any requirement by your work regarding testing which would be required, to prove you are negative, would be at your own expense and on your own time and be a minimum of twice weekly.

Not if but when you get sick (because this will be around a long time) if your unvaccinated, not only will you be on your own expense wise (since you will have no insurance coverage) but hospitals will not treat you. So, if you catch this “imaginary” disease and it becomes severe you can die for your freedom. ‘Taking your chances” has consequences. Thus no one will miss treatment for non-covid conditions because the beds were full with covid patients

No unemployment benefits would be available since you would be less employable due to the uncertainty of your tenure or attendance.

No government subsidies of any form, Federal, State or Local, would be available to unvaccinated people without a medical exemption. That includes scholarships and Social Security.

Children when vaccines are available would be require to be vaccinated, or they could not attend school or any other publicly funded enterprise i.e. daycare. (we have these type of rules for vaccinations currently the only difference there would be no grace period with this. To walk in the door you’d need it.)

Any public gathering, concert, sporting event, movie theatre, restaurant, coffee shop, grocery store etc. would require a vaccination or recent (within 3 days) proof of a negative test. This would create a whole industry of jobs similar to our current airport TSA’s.

With these items in place, we can quit talking about it. No more door to door begging people to not be idiots, no more paying people or having million dollar lotteries for doing what you should be smart enough to do anyway. No more advertising expense or special Covid testing or vaccination sites that are all expensive. The medical field and pharmacies would be left to sell services like they already have but the payer would be the individual. The vaccine shots would still be free but everything else would be a personal expense. And as non-vaccinated people get and recover (and develop immunity or die) are added to the vaccinated numbers we should at some point be past this. In my opinion, unfortunately the out-of-pocket costs will be the deciding factor. Helping save lives or saving our economy from potential quarantines doesn’t seem to matter. Rather than tough love this would be getting past stupidity. With the vaccines we have been handed the greatest miracle of most of our life times and for the most part we have pissed on it. It’s sad but its’s time to move on and past this and correct our failure and lack of gratitude. We should have had parades for the scientist not threaten them. We should have inspired children to want to “save the world” hoping to find the next cure when they grow up. You can’t turn back the clock but you can stop tolerating the stupidity, quit making the same mistakes and do what is right.

FIXING CATHOLICISM

My religion of choice is Catholicism but the last decade have made me uncomfortable with it. The beliefs and faith are good but the execution is questionable. But much like Politics the Catholic Church can’t be “fixed”. But it’s day to day operations and underlying approach to its parishioners and community can be greatly improved.

First the priests, yes there was and is scandal but an equally disturbing feature to me is the lack of much feeling of accountability to the parishioners and the community that priest exhibit. The lack of priest in the U. S. has led to not only a lack of services but also to often to an elitist attitude. The best way to repair this alienation from the average man is to normalize priests and the first step in doing this is to allow priest to marry and be married. This would greatly enhance the number of priest and allow them to better understand the people they are spiritually leading and address the void of priest. At the same time Women should be allowed to be priests. Women would bring an understanding and sensitivity that is all too often missing. The male only criteria is a throwback to a time when people also thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. Again, this would increase the numbers of priest which would translate into better coverage, more services and higher standards.

Selective consolidation of smaller parishes, this would create more viable churches. Remove struggling churches that are always hand to mouth monetarily would mean remaining parishes would have more and better attended masses, more school enrollment, more ministries and more priests at each parish.

More services, daily confession and a minimum of two daily masses. More religious events (at least daily or more if possible) stations of the cross, public rosary, prayer meetings, religious readings with homily, bible study etc. etc. Parish churches would now be a source and catalyst for prayer and meditation not just a Sunday obligation.

Masses take as long as they take not intentionally made longer for arbitrary reasons. Mass homilies would be encouraged to be concise and not rattle on. Possibly a designated homilist for all masses at larger parishes to insure presentation, interest and substance. Longer services are not better just longer.

Personnel, since some of the earlier listed changes would create more and hopefully better priests all parishes would have a minimum of (2) priest to facilitate service and small rural parishes would each have one priest assigned. The practice of one priest handling as many as (4) parishes in rural areas would be eliminated. Small rural parishes could be entry level assignments for new priests not just retirement homes for aging clerics or places of “pony express” type masses on Sunday. With the increased requirements for religious services especially in more populated areas the need for multiple, active priests would be vital.

Vow of Poverty, The Catholic Churches and their priests and administrators would take a vow of poverty. Priest would be schooled in the Franciscan methods and encouraged and required to be an example of this. All Orders, Diocese, and parishes would take an inventory of all assets. This means everything including farmland, buildings, homes, rectories etc. Then all assets would be evaluated again from a Franciscan, vow of poverty, point of view and any that were not deemed necessary to run the parish or Order would be sold. There is not a need for various Orders to own farmland for example or a parish to own rental property. Assets deemed unnecessary would be liquidated. Building not used or needed or available due to consolidation would be sold and some where appropriate repurposed into homeless shelters, low income, free, daycare centers or senior community centers. 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the afore mentioned assets would go to outfit and run these facilities. The other 50% put into a foundation to fund these operations as well as parochial schools going forward. The idea being that Catholic parishes would be universal in helping others. Our rejection of monetary influences would be the example we are meant to portray. At the same time 10% of all parish revenue would be annually donated to NON-Catholic charities that the individual parish selects as long as they are to local people or their local community. This would exhibit a sincerity to a universal approach to do good selflessly. It’s time for us to remove money and its accumulation from religion and to realize that religion is about God and no amount of money is worth allowing others to suffer. We need to do the best we can and a Vow of Poverty is the right direction.

Diocese Authority Scaled Back, Diocese the regional meccas of power in the Catholic church should be greatly tempered. Their 10% tax on all parish revenue would be eliminated. Personnel would be reduced and replaced with NON- paid civilian boards that give direction as to new buildings, major repairs and maintenance, consolidation plans, religious procedures, parish priest assignments. They would have expertise in the areas under there control and have no agenda other than doing the best they could. There would be term limits on length of service but with the talent pool within a Diocese’ area finding the correct new members would be easily recruited and be approved by the existing board members being phased out. The Bishop would be the liaison to Rome and other Diocese and be a teacher / consular not an all powerful executive. This lay involvement would be carried down to the parish level. The Pastor would answer to a board (3) appointed by the Pastor and (6) elected by the parishioners with the Pastor unable to overrule the board on management matters. Too often priests are poor fiscal managers and less than realistic about needs and worldly matters. They are “kept” individuals, housing, healthcare, food, security, etc. all provided and guaranteed. Lay people would temper that greatly.

Many of these ideas need refinement and further explanation. They touch some of the problems that exist but obviously not all and represent the church in the United States.

The objective here is to create a smart, compassionate, kind environment, where giving and helping are paramount, example is foremost and praying and holiness are the norm. We would be about more than abortion. Immigrants suffering and dying at our border and across the world would be as important as an unborn child. The sex of our life partner would be no more important than the color of their skin or place of origin. Acceptance and caring for others, is what Jesus showed us by his example. In his time, he questioned and challenged the beliefs long held, for our redemption. The Pharisees rejected him for straying from age old customs and beliefs. They were wrong and sought to preserve their status quo. Lets not make the same mistake. It is obvious that we need change the simple question and answer is “What Would Jesus Do”

FIXING POLITICS

To begin with Politics can NOT be fixed!! Politics brings out the worst in even the best people. By its very nature it creates an environment that is corrupting. Power and money are so seductive to the base nature of man. You add to it the (24) hour media scrutiny measuring every syllable of every word for a mistake to the newest cesspool of mistrust and you have the perfect storm. But in spite of all this and while we acknowledge that there is no perfect system of government we can only hope to work for continual improvement. To put into place laws and rules that defend good from the prostitution of our ethics. I might say here that all laws, or at least the vast majority of them, have been created and implemented to do good and it has been the malicious or misguided use of them that has cause the erosion of our democracy. As for the limited amount of bad laws passed, these were simply done by bad people which are an unfortunately part of mankind. I would like to think that these aberrations can be corrected over a period of time.

What we can do is change the obvious flaws that aid in the destructive and abusive trend in our democracy. Currently the whole point of government and governing is to get re-elected! Be it Democrats or Republicans or even lunatic fringe the only goal is to get re-elected no matter the cost in ethics, money or good. Do whatever, say whatever, truth, exaggeration or lie that accomplishes that end. So, the prime directive would be to remove as much as possible of those factors. To do this the first and most important change would be TERM LIMITS.

TERM LIMITS: This would be throughout all government, both Federal and State. I would think at a Federal level the limits should be as follows: Senate, (4) year terms with a limit of two and in the House of Representatives, a (3) year term with a limit of three. In the House this would attempt to alleviate the continual campaigning with terms of two years. At least now they could get 5 years of work done. One from the first term, one from the second and 3 from the third since they couldn’t be re-elected. This would allow elected officials to gain experience but not become overly indebted to fundraising or become too powerful with a steady new makeup of new people populating the legislative body. The President would be limited to ONE (6) year term. No re-election to consider, the only consideration would hopefully be, what would be best for the country and his/her legacy. While you can’t remove the corruption, power has on all of us you can limit it by limiting terms. This is a must if any real progress is to be made.

NO SUPERPACS: These are simply ways for a few rich corporations or individuals to buy legislative votes. Senators and Representatives should vote on what their constituents want, or what their beliefs support but not because they OWE a contributor. Contributions would be limited by individual contributions, which would be public. Campaign contribution laws would be scrutinized closely. A person’s individual liberty does not entitle you to ‘buy’ an election just as your freedom of speech does not allow you to “holler fire in a crowded theatre”. This would limit campaign spending which currently is the measure for a successful candidate. There needs to be a top end limit on spending on each race. So, a House race would be X dollars and a Senate race would be Y dollars (being Statewide vs. a District. Wiser people than me should decide on those limits but there should be limits!

NO FILURBUSTER: This has always been an antiquated gimmick that was made easy by a boy’s club agreement. To delay or derail a piece of legislation that the majority wants by silly games is beneath the seriousness of the tasks at hand and has no place in a real democracy by any party or any person. Thus, a simple majority in each body would pass legislation.

NO JERRYMANDERING: The practice of selectively drawing congressional districts that look like a “four fingers and a thumb of a hand” by the party in control to insure the election that party’s candidate is wrong and has no place in a fair and equitable democracy. Panels in each state would be assigned by an independent source with no political affiliation. They would draw districts as fairly as possible not by micro analysis of a million past tendencies, voting records, or surveys of the people who live there but by population and fairness.

NO LOBBYIST: The excuse is that our elected officials need these people to help them understand the problems and consequences of their decisions. I don’t buy that and the companies who have and or hire “lobbyist” are paying people to wine and dine elected officials. I’m sure any questions could and should be answered at public hearings. Again, this would remove a layer of money out of the equation. This will not stop corruption but remove one possible off ramp to it.

SUPREME COURT: Here again term limits are needed. “Position for Life” are too absolute and are unnecessary. The Court should not be turned into a third legislative concern. Recently the Supreme Court has been politicized while the real intent was to make them the ultimate referee in settling disputes. I’m not advocating any change in number of Justices but all new appointees would be for (9) years with the Chief Justice’s term being (11). Current Justices tenure would be limited at these same guidelines from adoption of this change. This would allow for consistency but make change possible. At the same time no President could appoint more than (2) Justices during his term. All Federally appointed Judges would also be limited to (7) year tenures. All vacant positions would be required to be filled by year end so that the Senate could not drag their feet waiting for potential election changes. Again, the ultimate goal is to take the politics out of our judicial system.

NO JUNKETS: This is a personal rub of mine and very minimal in the big picture of everything talked about previously. We do not need to pay for our elected officials to vacation. Trips to Europe or the Far East are all to common for some very vague reasons and opportunities. In the future trips would be limited and required to be published in the elected official’s State newspapers outlining the justification, the cost, and the duration as well as who attended. This would at least limit trips and hopefully make unnecessary trips a common campaign issue. Everybody loves a free vacation but resents when it’s not theirs but they have to pay for it.

These are just some simple and obvious ideas and I’m sure there needs to be more. Think how just with these few changes we could impact our Democracy and make it better.