Society
Here at Everything Progressive one of our primary objectives is to identify the nature of optimal societies, and to make as clear as possible what must be done in order for American society to more closely approximate to the ideal. This objective has become ever more important as the US has lagged farther and farther behind its peers.
Criteria for Identifying Leading Societies
The initial question in addressing a question of this kind is: what is it that makes for an optimal society? If we don't know that, we can hardly identify good societal models, and still less undertake to improve American society. We will also find it hard to steer clear of the terribly false and misleading idea that America is already the greatest nation in the world. We can see this with crystal clarity when we come to consider, for example, the American health care "system", which Americans have been especially misled about. It's hard to find anything that isn't confusing and misleading concerning American health care in the nominally "main stream" media, but the bottom line is this: every other advanced nation is ahead of the US in this regard. The story isn't much different when it comes to most other metrics of societal success.
The Two Most Basic Measures of Success
For our purposes the two most basic measures of success are happiness and longevity. Readers will discover how the US measures up against its peers at this link: The World's Leading Societies.
Achieving Societal Success
Understanding how the world's most advanced society is achieving its many successes is explained in Anu Partanen's book The Nordic Theory of Everything. We consider this to be one of the most essential books anyone can read, which why we have included in among our canon of critical reading.
Establishing Priorities
The single greatest welfare queen in the United States is the Department of "Defense", which has never even been fully audited. (The FBI budget is also grossly bloated, as are the budges of the 17 separate US "intelligence" agencies.) The quote marks have been placed around the word "defense" because the US has never fought a truly defensive war. The closest approximation was World War II, when the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. But there was never any prospect of invasion. And the Soviet threat during the Cold War was always greatly exaggerated, just as the threat of "terrorism" is now.) Americans spend more money on the military and weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined. The military budget could be cut in half with little real loss of capability, and that money could then be spent on education, social security, health care, and building an infrastructure for renewable energy. We should also add that there is never any question about how we will fund a war, despite the fact that even a relatively minor discretionary war like the one in Iraq cost about $3 trillion dollars.) Our examination of all of these issues can be found in the global priorities section.
Being a Good Citizen
Being a good citizen entails, among other things, understanding the nature of American politics, how money corrupts the entire process, and knowing where that money comes from. Keeping abreast of things like ballot initiatives, and knowing the positions of candidates for office, as well as knowing how to run for office oneself are all part of responsible citizenship. These issues are all covered in our Citizenship Console.
