Progress Defined

We will know we will have progressed when:

We all live more like the Dalai Lama, who, upon being asked to comment on Tiger Woods’ scandal, said that he didn’t know who Tiger Woods is.

Ethics and religious studies are taught at all levels of public schools, not as a doctrinal belief system, but as an important part of history and values education.
Two important misconceptions are debunked: that in life there are only “winners” and “losers” and that celebrity itself is success.

The measure of success in life is not the amount of money one makes, but how much one betters the world. Our tax system should reflect this more so than it does today. Thus, after an individual or family has earned more than an annual income of $200,000 to $300,000, the tax rate should be progressive enough to reflect the value of giving.

Ideas, and those who create, advance, debate and teach them are more highly valued then material wealth and those who seek it.

In politics there is an honest competition over ideas, not money.

Politicians believe it is shameful and indignant to look out for themselves or their own constituents when the national or communal interest is at odds with their own.
The search for, and belief in, principle is advanced over political maneuvering and self-advantage. Public service means serving others not oneself.

Both people on Wall Street and on Main Street believe that they have a fiduciary responsibility to each other, even if it is not dictated by law. Everyone, not just Goldman Sachs and Wall Street traders, come to believe they have a responsibility to one another and to the truth.

We end the purchasing of politicians’ votes by changing campaign finance laws so that wealthier people and interest groups cannot, so easily, dominate public policy.
Unions (especially public unions) stop getting incredible benefit and wage packages and the protection of seniority systems, because they donate money and work for the election of Democratic Party politicians’.

Day care, pre-school education and educational instruction are recognized as being more important to our people and nation’s economic development than school buildings. When human capital is valued higher than physical capital, we will have progressed.

Patriotism is seen not as rooting for the USA, as if our country were a football team. Knowing thyself, and evaluating where self-improvement is needed, is just as important for countries as individuals. Accountability is a much more honest measure than jingoism.

The shows on Fox News (or MSNBC), which openly aspire to commercial success over objective analysis, are shunned as unworthy of influence during serious public policy debate.

We adopt a Value Added Tax (VAT), ending our emphasis on consumerism and materialism, and, instead, advancing our savings rate and societal values.
Gay people are granted all the civil rights protections granted darker skinned people by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Corporations are stopped from taking business deductions for taxpayer supported expensive restaurant, hotels, and corporate boxes. Businesses are prevented from avoiding U.S. taxes by paying much lower taxes overseas in tax shelters like the Bahamas and the Cayman islands.

There are no more tax credits for oil exploration and export business.
Small businesses are more favored, as 60 percent of new U.S. jobs during the past decade were created by small businesses. In Massachusetts, 90 percent of our state’s businesses employ 100 people or less; 80 percent employ 50 people or less. We need to concentrate on micro loans and expertise training for these businesses to grow even if they do not have an expensive lobbyist advocating for them.

In tough economic times, government assistance is provided to companies to assist them in keeping employees at work instead of the government paying unemployment compensation after someone is laid off.

We create, another class of intellectual property recognition, under which artistic creations merit the same type of recognition as that of mass-marketing, basic entertainment oriented offerings. Each county should decide on its own, by the creation of a panel of evaluators, which creations are worthy of extra protection because they are not primarily commercial in nature. Those elements of film, books, art, theatre, architecture and, perhaps eventually, music, that are designated as sufficiently creative as to be artistic, should be given extra copyright protection. Perhaps, with such a system, we will have more people aspiring to pursue the qualities of intellectual and artistic integrity, instead of the financial reward of mass market appeal.

Transportation funding is spent on mass transit: buses, subways, bullet trains and smart grids, not highways and the associated safety barriers and tree clearing. Funding for road work should be first doled out to those urban census tracks whose income is the lowest, as those working class and working poor people can least afford the pounding their cars take and they are the most neglected as they lack political power and connections to get their streets “taken care of.”
Gun ownership becomes much more regulated, like it is in England.

We allow more immigrants to enter the U.S., especially, though not exclusively, in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and agricultural fields. More than 25% of the jobs provided by new businesses were started by immigrants. This includes those born abroad, such company co-founders such as: Russian Sergey Brin of Google, Tiawanese Jerry Yans of Yahoo, Frenchman Pierre Omidar of e-bay, Hungarian Andre Gorve of Intel, German Andres, Bechtolisheim and Indian Vinod Khusha of Sun Microsystems. Furthermore, 35% of recent patent applications at Microsoft came from immigrants working there. Immigrants have co-founded more than a quarter of the biotechnology companies in Massachusetts.

Legal Permanent Residents “green card” holders can vote in elections as they are legal taxpayers, permanently living in the US and, through their contributions and commitments, have the same vested interest in the United States as U.S. citizens.
Anti-trust laws are enforced much more if those of businesses do not face true national or international competition.

We search for and create valve by using computer modeling and analytics to measure how well a child is learning, how well a teacher is teaching, how well source providers are delivering electricity and energy usage, how efficiently the government, or other enterprises, provide services, and how well our health care system is delivering affrications and cost effective care.

The world has fewer children who are better fed, educated, and self-sufficient.
Recognition that some things happen for no-reason or, at least, no-reason we human beings can figure out.

The people think we have no individual right, or authority, to judge others or even ourselves, that only God, or the spiritual world is, or should be, able to judge conclude that the essence of life is to judge and to judge well.