I started to hang out in the various New York City and Staten Island subreddits. I long to find people with similar political beliefs here. Now that I’ve seen the power of one firsthand, I’m immensely curious on the power of many.

So I spotted this right after I said I last said I was going to take a writing break.

I even read the article a little.

I responded, but I feel this one deserves a “permanent” place somewhere on the internet. Staten Island is deeply conservative. But conservatives suffer from the same problems libertarians, liberals, progressives, and more do. Nobody can be apprised of everything. We must constantly act on incomplete information. And politicians take advantage of our blind spots — including the blind spots of our various news media — to get themselves elected.

So I wonder if throwing this pebble into the lake might one day cause a ripple that people remember. If not, what’s it matter? My life is headed in the same direction as everyone alive today, everyone that has ever lived, and probably everyone that will ever live. I’ve taken the position that we might as well use our time to make the world better. “A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.”

You want the next Bezos to be born in your state and bring lots of money to your local economy? Create a system that gives the most kids the most opportunity to succeed. Humans are really, really good at destroying our enemies. There’s no animal on the planet we couldn’t hunt to extinction if we so chose. Why don’t we make our enemy human suffering? Teach our children that the next big frontier is ending suffering in our communities. Kind of like the oxygen mask on the plane. You help yourself first, because you’re no good to anyone dead. Then you make sure the people next to you are okay. And then you can worry about the rest of the plane.

I mean, on a political level, we’re not even really taking care of ourselves. When I was a kid, it was all about respecting the armed forces that defend our freedom. When I was an adult I learned that we don’t really take care of our veterans and never really have. They commit suicide at higher rates than the general population and have roadblocks to care and reintegration in society that should be top priorities for society.

They’re not. Add that to the list of probably millions of things that should be getting addressed at any one moment and you start to realize that this stuff is way too complex to expect a legislative body of 12,500 people to keep up with it, let alone the measly 535 voting members of Congress. It’s painfully obvious they can’t keep up. They devolve into mudslinging any chance they get.

Maybe I’m romanticizing lawmakers of the past, but it seems like in the past there was actually some attempt at bettering society. Gangs were brutalizing gay people so there were laws enacted to enhance sentences for crimes against people for their sexual orientation, race, sex, religion, etc. But when people started targeting cops and homeless people? Nada. It wouldn’t even be hard to cover, just grab something like our NYS hate crime law and modify it to cover people’s employment, employment status, or housing status. I wrote to State Senator Andrew Lanza about that. Guess we’ll see if it ever goes anywhere.

Anyway, my response on social media to the immigrants thing:

Sometimes I wonder if I am alone.

///

A loving memory of a veteran I knew, gone too soon. Would that I could have taken away the pain.

A deep respect for a family I knew.

You are all the blood of this country.

Addendum:

Filed under: Things that are classy when you’re rich but horrifying when you’re a regular dude with a 9 to 5.

1/8/24 update:

Shortly after this posted, several readers remarked that Italians were treated like poison when they were first immigrating. This emphasizes my point some.

Another reader remarked that “democracy” is credited as having originated in Greece, meaning “people power.” Having a father from Greece and a mother from Cuba, perhaps the irony will not be entirely lost on Nicole Malliotakis.