Every principle and goal will have outcomes if implemented, including what kind of society it will produce. If our citizens are more intelligent, it will make our society more intelligent overall, and if our citizens are more compassionate, our overall society will have less internal conflict. You should know what my set of values and policies is likely to produce (and other candidates and parties should tell you what kind of country they will produce).
I would like for all of us to feel more secure and more valuable, and I would like to see our society be more tolerant, more accepting, more cooperative, and more compassionate (care for others more). I believe that this can be achieved if citizens are more knowledgeable about psychological, economic, and political realities and if they feel more responsible for their fellow citizens than they do now. My policies will aim to move society in this direction. If you prefer to keep our current traditions of individualism (taking care only of number one) and fighting others for what you individually want, then you will probably not vote for me, but you should realize that you will then keep all the problems we have in human relations just as they are (crime, greed, corruption, contempt for others). You can’t have it both ways. Realize, too, that if you want the more individually-oriented system, then there will be fewer safety nets for you when you have a problem. (This was glaringly obvious during the coronavirus crisis, where the government had to scramble to find ways to give money to citizens because we have no structure for doing so. We don’t even have a list of all citizens.) Many aspects of developing ourselves as individuals are valuable, but this must include a strong sense of responsibility for ourselves and a compassionate concern for others.
People who vote for me will be those who value honesty and integrity and who want everyone to feel equal and equally valued in our society. They will want government to look out for all citizens and to always seek an acceptable balance of wealth and opportunity between all classes in society, even while encouraging creativity and hard work among all citizens.
I would like to see every citizen feel safe and valued, and I would like to see every citizen be satisfied with feeling safe and valued, without feeling that he/she must or should strive for more. Clearly it is striving to be “better than” others that creates so much of our interpersonal and internal problems. This striving to be “better than” others involves envy, jealousy, and hatred and results in much harm of persons by other persons. So much intrigue, joining together to look down on others, gossip, and nastiness could be reduced if we could be satisfied with feeling safe and valued for being ourselves, not for our position on the status hierarchy.
Be happy with being loved and safe. You don’t have to “be” any more than that. Taking good care of yourself and your loved ones, raising capable and responsible children, and participating in government through voting knowledgeably and communicating with your representatives are more than enough to feel as if you have had a successful life. If feeling safe requires raising the financial level of some of our citizens, then we should get busy figuring out how to do that. As long as some people look down on others, for financial status or anything else, then those who are looked down on will resent it and will strive to equalize the situation or surpass those who looked down on them. The “trickle down” assumption about improving society financially will not work, as long as those higher on the hierarchy look down on anyone else.
I hereby issue a direct challenge to both Democrats and Republicans—if you have a vision of how you would like our society to be, then show us! I don’t think they can do it, because our two largest parties are diverse enough that they won’t be able to settle on a vision, and this fact—that they don’t have a clear vision—is impeding our progress as a society, since they both claim that they should be in charge of that progress!