Sustainable Goverment

History has demonstrated, and is demonstrating that human instinct and emotion leads to behavior that is in the short term self interest of the actor, but undermines the long term interests of the broader society, including, often, the actor's descendents.

Over the long view of history we as a species are evolving into more cooperative and productive societies that allow us to all live longer, healthier and happier lives by learning to modify and control selfish and emotion based behaviors.  The concept of democracy was a big step forward toward moving societies away from from zero-sum battles between individuals that produce big winners and big losers toward more cooperative societies that multiply individual efforts to produce a better life for everyone.

But as democracies have evolved they have have developed a nasty tendency toward zero-sum battles between interest groups fighting to shape policies to their advantage.

It appears the next stage of human evolution is to fine tune our constitutional frameworks to develop a counterbalance for our tendency to just project our selfish short term emotions onto our organizational behavior.  But in the short term we have a growing body of data about how our emotions can control our logic.  We need to find a way to make more voters more aware that what feels good isn't necessarily good policy.  That means we have to focus more effort on teaching voters to distinguish between data and emotion, and to understand that their political opinions are usually rooted in emotion rather than deliberative consideration of facts and data.

Whats wrong with this picture

Corporate pension funds are massively underfunded in the United States, the workers for a number of corporations have lost big chunks or all of their pensions in the last decade as Corporations ran through bankruptcy.  On the other hand the Post Office is being put out of business because Congress has required them to stockpile the money to cover 70 years worth of pension obligations in 10 years.  Why is Congress so concerned about the pension obligations of the Post Office and so oblivious to Corporate pension obligations?

Corporate profits are near all time highs, and economic experts say the main reason (besides layoffs) is because the Fed has kept interest rates at essentially zero, so Corporations can borrow to fund their operations at historically low interest rates.  On the other hand student loan debt is at historically high levels, the interest rates on student loans are much higher than in decades past, and Congress is trying to push interest rates up further on many student loans.

Sometimes it seems like in the last decade this country has turned common sense good economics on its head.

IDP - Questions to those who support Government control over abortions

1.  Genesis 2:7 - states that God formed man and breathed in the breath of life and the man became a living soul.  Is there another bible verse that touches on when the soul is imparted?

2.  What words of Jesus support the idea we are delegated to enforce and punish God's law?