21st century America is a land which is confronted by a myriad of different issues : Communications, Crime, Energy, Education, Employment, The Water Crisis and Environmental issues to name but a few. Since the birth of the nation, each of the various issues has been treated as if it is a singular problem to be dealt with as if proposals for that one portion of American life did not affect all others. The result is that we now are faced with a hodgepodge of bandaide solutions which change with the winds of political sound bites. In science, we learn that taking one thing out of the environment to study it routinely reveals its interconnectivity with its surrounding environs. Applying this same lesson to America lets look at the various issues and how they are Interconnected. Let us begin with the issue of communications. History has taught us that more wars have been started by a breakdown in communications than any other reason. When we look at our nations connectivity problems, we find there is a reason why the net is slow more often than not : We have no consistent connections between Internet Service Providers. This isn’t an issue of the companies which oversee the maintenance and delivery of these connections...its an issue of the physical lines which connect them. In many parts of the country there are still ancient copper lines which were built long before the Internet or even Computer technology was considered as ever being an important part of our nations telecommunications grid. These lines are tasked with carrying not only voice, but video and digital information at a rate that they simply are not capable of handling efficiently. The result is that one can go to one part of the country and get little more than dialup speeds. In another, you may find 3G/4G connectivity. In Singapore, speeds are routinely rated at about 10 times that. Costs are low because competition between providers is fierce. Physical hookups to high speed access do not take a week or a month... they are routinely done within 24 hours. How do they attain such high speeds? Fiber Optics. This is technology which literally allows communications to move at the speed of light. If we replace all communications with buried graphene shielded fiber optic lines which have regular access points, then we not only secure our nations communications, but also allow communication speeds to reach (because of recent technological innovations) speeds which tripple the rate that is available in Singapore and other countries where technology has become fully integrated with every facet of life. Sending these lines into schools, we create the opportunity to incorporate WiFi in classrooms where convertible laptops can be uses in place of books. The result of such an impact on classrooms would be that students would not only have access to video and software educational tools, but they would also have their math and science skills shoot up...as piano learning software is readily and cheaply available. The study of Music has been proven to improve test scores in math and science. The decision to cut it from school curriculum’s has proven to be a short sighted approach made purely for political reasons. By utilizing convertible laptops, students will be able to continue their educational opportunities outside of the classroom....so that learning does not have to stop simply because they are out and about in nature. The net result of incorporating fiber optics with our institutions of learning, of course, is that we will lower the cost of education via the elimination of the cost of books. If we then offer teachers the incentive of higher pay which is tied to their ability to utilize the new technology in creating or modifying lesson plans, the best teachers will be paid more than those who are not quite so dedicated to their work. We can even help them pay for their studies via part of the savings achieved from the elimination of purchasing text books from schools. By integrating Fiber Optic lines with our roads and bridges, (buried under them) we increase their security. Which brings us to the next aspect of our proposal : Roads and Bridges It is no secret that America’s Road’s and Bridges are falling apart. Most were built in the 1930’s and almost none after the mid 1960’s. None were ever intended to carry the responsibility that the 21st century has placed on them. In today’s world, however, we need more than mere concrete. We need roads and bridges that utilize reflective paint for road dividers. Such a thing will increase visibility of both the edges of roads at night as well as the location of lanes. We need roads which incorporate sensors which detect when a car is drifting our of its lane, to warn the driver in the event that the lane change is dangerous. Roads with temperature sensitive paint which is visible only when temperatures fall to the point where snow or ice is a threat to driving conditions. Roads which incorporate an interactive electrical charging system which is tied in with a smart energy grid...so that electrical cars and trucks can be recharged while driving, while the vehicle itself is “smart” enough to utilize secure billing processes for the energy used via the methodologies of the european “PayThru” system. The roads and bridges we drive on need to incorporate the collection of excess rain water which falls through access grates for filtration through graphene (an amazing substance) while piping filtered sea water through the same filtration system for use as clean , potable water for every part of the nation. But where does the energy for this infrastructure come from? It must come from a smart energy grid which covers the entire nation. An energy grid which not only accepts energy produced by the technologies we know about today, but which will enable us to incorporate discoveries made by our children and grandchildren decades from now. An energy grid which does not care about the source for the energy, because all energy is converted and moved about the country as electricity...to the places and people as needed. Such a grid will empower our nation with the ability to make a gradual shift to renewables, while not forcing us to limit the kind of energy a person uses based on what part of the nation they might happen to live in. Only by creating a grid which can utilize any form of energy as source material can we hope to confront the energy problems of the future. By burying our energy grid lines under or near the roads , we not only reduce the number of power outages which occur as a result of accident, we increase our the possibility of shielding our nation against an EMP attack. Clearly, these are big issues which require a two step approach...an vast increase in labor force and a reduction in crime. Lets take these two issues together : Statistics show that well over 85% of all people currently in prison are there because of a combination of two factors : Substance abuse and a lack of education. To cut crime, we must treat the causes of crime...this means that we need a law. I call it the “Prison Reformation Act”. Under the Prison Reformation act, all prisoners currently behind bars for crimes involving substance abuse are required by law to complete a 2 year substance abuse treatment program, a vocational education program and a GED. Those prisoners who fail to do so will have their sentence increased every year by an additional 5 years until they do so....for the crime of failing to comply with the federal prison reformation act (which can add to the prison sentence of pedophiles, without ever offering any possibility of sentence reduction.) All others who complete the requirements are released immediately. Should they stay clean and free of crime for say, 5 years or so, they should receive a full pardon for past non violent crimes . By This act gets us SOME of the workers we need...but its not enough. We need to reduce the size of our Army and Marines (as per the Cato Institute’s Military reduction proposal). Our military’s sole mission needs to be redefined as being the responsibility to guard our borders. Period. This not only reduces our costs (freeing up the money needed to deal with all of the work mentioned) but it also eliminates the problem of illegal immigration. It is legal for a nation to use its military to guard its borders against invaders. In taking this holistic approach, we reduce the size of government in a gradual, responsible way. At the same time, we supercharge our economy while building a world class approach to all of the major issues which face our nation. As the infrastructure is put in place, we can put in place a maintenance program designed to keep the systems we build working at peak efficiency, while at the same time address the issue of national debt and high taxation. The end result of this holistic approach is one of increasing the strength of our nation in every aspect via increasing the logical, efficient approach to its problems. Dr. Jennifer Warren Heritage Concepts
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 00:34:55 +0000
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