Several Common Sense Solutions
Three Changes Our Government Can Do Now to Make Citizens’ Lives Better and Safer
Since Covid-19 has rolled across our land, causing death, sickness, and loss of every kind, voting by mail seems so February, 2020. But currently, it’s our safest option, and, along with early in-person (masked and socially distant) voting, was used by over 88 million people nationwide.
Fast forward to November, 2022, and living here in the New Now (where we don’t know what the near future will bring), voting by mobile phone would be a safe, logical solution for the upcoming mid-term elections.
To all of the brainy tech wizards living in the United States, willing and able to change history for the better: Get to work making it safe and secure to vote mobile in the next election, only two years away. This is your moment to shine.
You have a window of opportunity — just under two years to create, develop, and build an app that can be street legal for the November, 2020 mid-term elections. Mobile-ready, safe, unhackable by subversive groups and individuals in our country, and/or Russian/Chinese/Iranian hackers. There you go. Have at it.
This is the ideal safe voting solution geared for the New Now, and not just another reason for politicians to let down the American people. Political leaders step up and have at it. Make this your issue, besides ensuring that as many lives as possible are saved, and that the American people are receiving money on a weekly or monthly basis to pay for food and shelter, without a ton of red tape involved.
Along with the technology, security, and ease connected with voting by phone, there must be a complete shift in thinking about the eligible age for voting.
During the Vietnam War era, the argument was often put forth that if one could fight and die for our country, one should have the right to vote at the age of 18. And so the voting age was lowered. Now, we’re living in an age of a global pandemic and climate crisis with no regard for age, race, wealth, or status, that has only one aim…killing you if it can.
Since younger people (much younger than 14) have already stepped up and shown they possess the courage and knowledge to add to the global conversation by coming up with workable solutions to the climate crisis, they deserve to choose the current leaders of our country. And they are in fact the ones who are deciding their future. While it’s a matter of life and death. The voting age should be lowered to 14 years of age.
By lowering the voting age to 14, a greater number of young people will have a voice in the political conversation, and completely change our political system for generations to come. Naturally, the pure outrage of youth will help to end voter suppression and every other form of unfair voting practices.
Another smart and brave choice that would affect millions of lives right now is to lower the age when people can receive early Social Security to the age of 55, instead of 62. That’s seven years difference, and immediate monetary help which is a necessity for so many citizens whose lives have been upended by this pandemic.
Until politicians can step up in this FDR moment, and create a bill that includes ongoing monetary assistance to help every American citizen, we are living in a chaotic society that has offered a pittance for assistance, and can and must do better. Let the government work for All, for a change.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935, he was creating a financial and cultural safety net for that time and for future generations. We’ve all met someone who has benefited from this plan, and it’s time for visionary political leaders to step forward and protect — and yes — expand this national governmental program.
If this historical pandemic moment isn’t the time for another massive cultural, social, and political shift, then what will it take? This is America’s next New Deal Moment. Lives are at stake, the same way they were back in the 1930s and 1940s. The citizens of the United States are living in a crisis moment, and they deserve help now. Their eyes are open, and they’ve seen what smart, engaged leaders who want to actually help create solutions look like.
When will enough be enough, and what else will it take?
