How Politics Would Come To Change

If we scaled down our consumption, how would Politics change? Solving Problems Locally As we become better people, we would become more capable, both in our abilities and in our resources, to solve ourselves the many problems which presently exist in our community and throughout the world. Problems we presently have higher scaled attempted solutions to that we fund with taxes. Many in the world of politics believe the solution to the many problems we face as communities is taxing those with what they see as excess resources and using the tax money to fund things to help those in need. If those who don’t share this opinion can lay down their emotions for a moment, this is a fair idea, and it’s not hard to see where they’re coming from. -There are people with a tremendous amount of wealth, and there are people who are, to put it in a clear way, unhappy. There is no reason to believe these unhappy people will become happy if nothing is done, so something must be done. Let’s take a little bit of the money from those who have great quantities, and give it to those with little or none.- At least it is a solution, right? And at least we are both united in the identification of a problem, because we all see people who are unhappy as a problem, right? Reducing Wealth Inequality Through Local Consumption There are many positive effects to the exclusive consumption of local. Any of them would be worthy to be the single motivator to consume locally, but I suspect this one will be the greatest for many. If we were to begin to consume exclusively local, wouldn’t this both make the rich less rich to begin with, and would it not give those who lack happiness, happiness again? The answer is yes to both. If there is a problem with the rich being rich, rather than tax them, why not stop supporting them and making them rich to begin with? And if we were to stop, would not those who lack happiness because of the lack of excess resources throughout the members of a community not find themselves with more opportunity, money and happiness once again? We do not need the rich to pay more in taxes to help those in need. We ought do what’s necessary so we can ourselves. We used to do it ourselves, and when that was the case we did it better than how it’s done now. We have not only outsourced our responsibility in work, we have outsourced our responsibilities in helping those in need. And in both cases, what we have now is less. With full hierarchies belonging to our community, new opportunities would appear for those at the bottom. Would this solve the issues of every person in need? Maybe not, but with the new system, we would be better able with our resources and our abilities, and in our sense of duty to take care of those who still needed the care. And once we've helped all who need the help in our own communities, we could look to communities around us and help them should they want it and need it. Wealth, Trust, and Fairness In the system which comes about with all consuming exclusively locally, there will still be people with more than others. But even if that’s the case, that can still be right. That doesn’t mean there’s evil to be fixed. We can still live in a community where truth is present, where there's no lies, no deception, and some people still get more than others. If you don’t agree, isn’t a tremendous scaling down of the inequality still a good place to start? Those with the most money will be those who really deserve it, and everyone will agree, because more than ever, it will be each individual responsible for their wealth. Will we come to have greater trust in our surroundings and realities, trusting people are getting what they deserve, and for all to deserve something good. We will be able to lay this long divisive issue to the side. Mark it off on the to do list. We will find ourselves a little more able to lay down our wills and just live and have nature happen to us rather than us happen to nature. There will be bad guys who attempt to go further than what’s right, people who try to use their will over others, and that will require our will to put them down, but we will prevail. We will have rediscovered an old American truth- that generosity, compassion, sympathy, and love can not just exist, but it can flourish in freedom. Better Leaders from Better Communities It’s strange to realize elected officials come from communities. Some from large communities and some from communities not our own, but communities nonetheless. It’s already been discussed how if we were to scale down our consumption, we would become a better people. Taking this further, we would get better leaders. Leaders worthy of being looked up to and admired. Leaders that would be a better example for both our kids, and for ourselves than the ones which presently exist. And these leaders would become the clear choice to represent us in the government. Politics has devolved into a game. A game that bad people are best at playing. How do we fix it? Consume locally, reduce the hierarchies of power and responsibility entirely back to localities, see who the good people are with their new opportunity, and after they’ve proven themselves to do the right thing here, send them to the next level, where they will have an opportunity they deserve to continue doing right. No more politicking and calculation. No picking and choosing based on who we think will beat who. No deceiving. No hate. No electing people who say they care, yet spend billions getting into those positions. Simpler, quieter. It would return to the back of our minds because we’d all come to see the truth whose lack has caused our present division. The conflict which surrounds us would disappear. There would be no more lawsuits. Not because you couldn’t file one, but because you’d never need to. Simple handshakes and people’s words would take the place of legal contracts.