December 31, 2010 My hopes for 2010.Relative health and happiness for myself, family and friends. The ability of us all to afford food, clothing, shelter.We the people of the United States, and our leaders, will focus on forming a more perfect union of our ideas and values by talking to instead of pointing at each other.Terms like diversity, transparency, accountability, citizens, equity, facts, and democracy will become real again.• Diversity is not black or white, homo or hetero sexual, Republican or Democrat. It is all of those and everything in between. Not all conservatives fear gays; not all liberals fear guns. Liberals are not, conservatives are not, the only people voting for candidates labeled as one or the other. Very few of us line up at one extreme or the other on every issue.• We will all fear and focus on correcting the dysfunctions in ourselves and our society that divide us and make us try to control instead of understanding each other.• Referendum will become the norm and representative will mean solutions that serve all citizens. We have the technical and other tools to learn all citizens’ opinions and find what we all agree on, to write short laws and approve what is universal common ground among U.S. citizens.• Democracy, as defined includes social equity without class differentiation and consensus. Dictating and forcing one another’s beliefs is the opposite of democracy. Placing special conditions, whether taxes, fees and penalties or quotas, benefits and subsidies on subsets of us is not democracy.• Instead of trying to find political correctness and one size fits all solutions, we will talk to people, including those we disagree with, respect their opinions, seek to have government treat all of us fairly, rather than trying to get the upper hand on, more power than, each other.• Transparency and accountability in government will mean:o I can learn from the federal government how many U.S. citizens there are;o The U.S. budget and see citizen funded programs benefit U.S. citizens.o Facts, not opinions presented as factso Government rules are easy to understand and consistently applied to all citizens.The U.S. government will focus on why it was established, on what each branch was founded to do.Our government will work for real change to benefit all U.S. citizens.We the people will unite and lead U.S. and state government officials to narrow and lessen negative impacts on U.S. citizens, lowering tax burdens, clarifying where government can and has done a better job than any other sectors of society, and ending government functions where other sectors can improve service to citizens. Government’s role will be to provide us with the best information, the best tools, the best models and policies to help us do so and go forward working to keeping focus on creating a more perfect union that benefits citizens. We will share what we learn with other countries and listen to ideas from them that help achieve our goals and improve our world.We the people of the United States of America will stop denying and eliminating traces of our roots, our heritages. Instead we embrace and share the best of them, and acknowledge and learn from past effects of the negatives. God, by any name, and godliness are by definition based in good, in positive concepts to encourage right action. Human interpretation and actions create perversions such as war and other bad behaviors in the name of a higher power.We might be well served to remember this country was formed by people principally from countries having Christian majorities, many of whom came to escape persecution and mistreatment by government and religions of the time. They came into a land populated by people whose own ways were based in deep respect of their place in this universe, their own social structures, their own knowledge and skills, and in passing them on. The best of each created miracles and progress. Then as now, the worst of each created mayhem and harm. Those who founded this country warned us that human nature often leads us toward power grabs and evil or corrupt action.Thanks for your time. Diane Konrady Calais Vermont
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