The failed experiment

The America Mr Jefferson envisioned hasn't come about. The country is in a right mess, in fact. How to remedy it? That is the question, for those of us who'd like to be proud of the country. Here are some proposals, not that I'm necessarily recommending any of them. Some are more starry-eyed than others.
* Return rule to Great Britain, name the country New England, and convince EU leadership that Britain, when combined with New England, won't ruin the economy of Europe. Adopt British ways in all parts of New England, needless to say.
* Dissolve all state boundaries, rename the resulting country New York, and encourage the New Yorkers to make the entire country as much like its new capital, New York, as is possible. Then slowly modify the capital until it is more like Paris, Rome, or Dublin than it is. Keep the skyscrapers. Skyscrapers are cool.
* Bulldoze, one by one, every American town and start afresh. Put ugly factories and warehouses outside the new towns' boundaries, disallow the construction of shopping centres sure, might as well adopt British spelling, while reforming prohibit cars in the towns' centres, fund the finest of public transportation systems each community can afford, make gun ownership illegal and let hunters rent weapons when hunting on preserves far removed from the population, and require that every town with a population of more than 40,000 have at least one concert hall, theatre devoted to plays, museum, and opera house. Some might argue the need the for the last facility, but it wouldn't be me.
* Convene a Constitutional Congress to rewrite the document with the driving factors being to force economic good sense by the Congress and the president, to eliminate any role for God or religion in cases where the government has an impact, to criminalize gun ownership, and to explicitly disallow the president to engage the military against sovereign nations without a two-thirds majority approval from Congress. Have Congress review the situation quarterly. Force tax reform, with a simple sliding scale for everyone and no other provisions and eliminate the Electoral College. Then get down to considering the other things that need changing.

Charles Riggs
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