Dear Tom:
I hear what your saying. I'm wondering about your statement about people having to get a license before have kids. I think this may cause more problems because people would have to pay for there licenses and if they couldn't manage not to have a ton of kids without having their own lives together and being able to take care of all their kids well, how are they going to be able to pay to get a license much less have the time and money to take classes to become better parents. Will the government make more money from people paying for parenting licenses and throw people in jail if they don't have one or make them pay a fine for not having one. This may exasperate the problem for these unprepared parents of many kids. I think having to get a marriage license is kind of funny since you don't need to take a test to become a good marital partner and the government expects you to pay the government to get an official marriage license. Then you have to pay the DMV to get your driver's license updated. These fines plus the high costs of weddings may discourage people from getting married then you have all these people saying young people are living together out of wedlock, well many young people don't have the means to spend money on a wedding and marriage license not to mention have the money to fly their parents and relatives up for their wedding. Family support systems aren't the same as they used to be, and people in families live far from eachother often today instead of nearby eachother. These are real issues of time, energy, and money in getting married. I think many issues would crop up around parents having to get parenting licenses also. I think that the focus ought to be on educating people better about parenting and families, which brings me back to, let's fund our schools better and include more realistic parenting courses for kids, teaching kids what it's really like to have lots of kids, take care of them, work, and go to school, so people can be better prepared and responsible as adults about creating a family of lots of kids.
The government could provide more free, grant, government funded parenting classes for the community, for kids and adults alike. The government and communities do come up with and implement good cost effective efficient programs sometimes which can last and improve. I'm all for supporting these good government programs, I'm all for respecting our current government for the best it is and helping it improve and reform for the better in necessary areas. I think the government systems and structures involve a lot of excessive red tape,politics, bearaucracy etc. that waste time, money, and resources, misappropriated funds, etc. which need to be improved upon, but I'm thankful for the good of our government today, to be sure.
Also, I think our communities ought to work harder to come together and form community cooperatives to support people and educate people on becoming responsible parents and realistically planning their lives well for marriage and kids.
As for making drugs legal, I think that it may work but then I think the government, parmacueticals, the AMA, etc. would just get so much richer that I'm not sure. This would just be pushing drugs legally, which is almost as bad as pushing drugs illegally, but the drugs would have a better chance of being safer in the hands of pharmacists than in the hands of street pushers. I think that making the sale of illegal drugs legal would become such a big business, more than it is now and this might become more corrupt and out of control. And who would be policing the government to be honest in their drug business?
I think too that the druggies need to be treated with more education and therapies, even tough love therapy/rehabilitation programs rather than just being put in jail and funding prison big business and costing taxpayers more money.
I've heard that 80% of criminals are non-violent criminals. This stat tells me that their definitely needs to be more education/ prevention and therapy/rehabilitation/recovery programs for druggies instead of prison.
Finally, I'll remark that I've heard that news programs and many t.v. programs and commercials etc. are made for an audience with a third grade education, because supposedly a bulk of the population understands info. at a third grade educational level. This certainly tells me that our country on the whole needs to be better educated. I say, let's cut out some of the politics involved in funding schools, not the important Math, Reading/Writing, Art, Science, P.E., Health & Parenting programs etc.
Some I think are trying to be responsible, make a good difference and stay true to their ideals truly, as they are able and then some. I guess politicians like Peter Defazio etc. have the reputation for trying to do this. Maybe some good reforms can be made in government by politicians like this and through initiative petitioning too? I hope so.
Thanks, Shaunasi