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NUTOPIA
Why Not Do It This Way?
By
Francis D. Reynolds
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As you will see, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Max and Maxine. After all, this is their story: I was just the reporter. Without them this book would never have materialized.
My good friend Dick Scherer provided enthusiasm, solid arguments on why Nutopia had to be written, and gave me many good ideas. Dick helped me with the grammar, syntax, punctuation, and he proofread all of the drafts of the manuscript. Other good friends and relatives provided support and came over and got my computer to talk to me again whenever there was a problem. These people included Dick Eagle, Jim Forbes, Dan Ostrem, Pat Reynolds, Julie Burrage, and my grand children, Emily, Blair, and Kelly Ostrem. My old friends Robert Weltzien and Rob Jenny (who are no longer with us) read the first draft of this book back in the 1990s, and gave me some good advice. Thank you so much, all of you.
I also need to acknowledge how indispensable the computer, printer, Windows and Word, the spell checker, the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, online dictionary, thesaurus, and other modern aids have been to me. I have trouble understanding how earlier writers without all of these wonders could have accomplished what they did.
DEDICATION
To Marianne, my wonderful wife, for assuming more than her fair share of our family and household activities and duties in order to allow me time to write. Marianne also contributed some good ideas that were used in the book, and debated many points with me. She would have made a good Nutopian.
NUTOPIA
EXPANDED CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………….1
DEDICATION………………………………..1
CONTENTS…………………………………..2
PREFACE…………………………………….6
Chapter
1. MY EXTREMELY STRANGE DREAMS...7
2. GOVERNMENT…………………………... 8
American Government functions…………8
Maxine to the Rescue……………………..9
Budgeting…………………………………9
Gray is Important………………………...10
Traditions………………………………...10
Qualifications…………………………….11
Virtue…………………………………….12
One-house Congress……………………..12
Political Parties…………………………..13
Lobbying…………………………………14
Types of Government……………………14
The Electoral System…………………….15
Voting……………………………………15
Referendums and Initiatives……………..16
Wisdom…………………………………..16
Political Campaigns……………………...17
Campaign Financing……………………..17
Be Nice…………………………………..18
States Rights……………………………..18
World Government………………………19
3. TAXES…………….……………………… 20
Federal Taxes…….………………………20
Pork………………………………………20
Money is Power…….…………………….21
The Postal Service………………………. 21
Other Functions…………………………..21
Paying for Schools……………………….22
Taxes and More Taxes…………………...22
Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth….………23
Deductions and Additions………………..23
Unfair Taxes……………………………...24
Highway Taxes…………………………...24
Soak the Rich and Lazy…………………..24
Spare the Rich and Productive…………...24
Tax Evasion……………………………...25
Tax System Jobs…………………………25
4. NUTOPIAN ENTITLEMENTS …………..25
Disaster Relief…………………………...26
The Arts and the Sports………………….26
Subsidies…………………………………27
Social Insecurity…………………………28
The Medicare Mess……………………...30
Welfare States…………………………...31
The Cost of Medical Care……………….32
The Philosophy of Entitlement………….34
Human Rights…………………………...35
Inequality………………………………..37
Entitlements are Wonderful—at First…..38
Faring Well Without Welfare…………...39
5. NATIONAL DEBT……………….………40
Spoiled Adults………………….……….41
Generous to a Fault……………..……….42
The Sweetness of Delusion……..……… 42
Collapse………………………….……....43
Standard of Living………………………43
6. FREEDOM FOR SOME………….………44
Majorities and Minorities……….………44
Abortion………………….…….………..45
The Right to Die……………….………..46
7 CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS….…….48
Fair Play in Nutopia……………….……48
Citizen Rights vs. Criminal Rights……..49
Bail………………………………….…..49
Life Sentences……………………….….50
Capital Punishment……………….….…51
Notions About Emotions…………….….51
Free Room and Board……………….….52
Execution Costs Little……………….….53
At Sunrise
When the Criminal Justice System Fails..55
The Nutopian Jury System……………...56
Just Jury Selection………………………56
Guilty Your Honor……………………...58
No Trial Necessary……………………..58
Castration……………………………….58
The Advantages of Suicide……………..59
Insanity is not an Advantage……………59
8. MORALITY……………………………...62
Nutopia Teaches Morality……………...62
Morality in the United States…………..62
Morality is Legal……………………….63
Control of Morals is Tough Love………64
The Good Old Days…………………….64
Single Parent Homes…………………...65
Street Gangs……………………………66
9. THE WORLD LOVES GUNS…………. 66
Maintaining Law and Order……………67
The Second Amendment……………….68
The Sport of Hunting………….………..68
The Right to Kill……………….……….69
Sad Statistics………………….………...69
Guns are Neat………………….……….69
Guns are Horrible…………….………...70
10. LIABILITY…………………….………..70
Laughable Liability………….…………70
Liability is all about Money…….……...71
Less Liable to be Liable……….……….72
Tempests in Teapots…………….……..72
Feminine Beauty……………….………73
Warning Labels………………….……..74
In Nutopia
11. RELIGION………………………….…...76
Religions Come in Many Flavors….…...76
Religious Logic……………….………..77
That is Unconstitutional……….……….77
Prayer is Allowed…………………..…..78
The Roots of Religion…………….……79
Religion Isn’t Essential……………….. 80
The African Renaissance?……….……..81
12. EDUCATION…………………………...82
Sports in Schools………………….……83
Grade Inflation………………………....83
Studiousness…………………………....85
Later Ambition………………………....86
Uniformity………………………….…..86
The Students Grade the Teachers……....87
Just the Facts……………………….…..88
Too Little Bang for the Buck……….….89
13. LABOR AND WAGES…………….…...89
Nutopian Labor Unions………….……..89
Solidarity………………………….…....90
Here at Home……………………..…….91
Minimum Wage…………………..…….91
Oversees Starvation Jobs……….….…...92
Maximum Wages……………….….…...91
Price Controls………………….……….94
Equality………………………………....95
14. NUTOPIAN SUNDRY………………….95
Rescue in Nutopia………………………95
Resurrection after Freezing…………….96
Nutopian Loyalty……………………….97
Medicine Bottle Labels…………………99
Ads: Good or Bad?………………….…100
Daylight Saving Time……………….…101
How Much Does a Car Cost?……….…101
The Jeans Mystery……………………..101
Discrimination in Sports…………….…101
Coining Words………………………. .103
15. CONSERVATION……………………..104
Wasting Food………………………….104
Wasting Paper…………………………105
Printed Matter…………………………105
Advertising…………………………….106
Junk Mail……………………………. 106
Personal Solicitation…………………...107
Sales and Specials……………………...108
The Buying Addiction……………… 108
Recycling………………………………109
In Conclusion…………………………..110
POST SCRIPT……………………………...110
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…………………...111
PREFACE
Few persons these days have read Thomas More's 1516 book, UTOPIA, yet most people have heard of the book or at least know the word “utopia”. Religion played a major role in More’s life. He was loyal to his king, Henry the Eighth, but not enough so to openly denounce the Pope, as Henry demanded. In Tudor England there wasn't even freedom of thought, let alone freedom of speech. Thomas More was beheaded in 1535, (and canonized 400 years later).
Because he knew of the extreme danger, More had the characters in his story do all of the traitorous thinking and talking. More himself didn't directly write anything against the king or the system; he was “innocent of any wrong doing” because he personally openly opposed the more inflammatory statements of his characters. Nice try, but it didn’t save him.
Writing about the possibilities of a perfect world, especially if one's present and real world seems far from perfect, is an enticing activity, so it is not surprising that a number of works somewhat similar to Thomas More's UTOPIA have been published over the centuries. Since these different writers came from different cultures, suffered under different governments, and had different personal needs, interests, and beliefs, the prior utopian stories vary greatly from each other. A few of them may be of interest here.
The "Elysian fields" of Homer's ODYSSEY, written in the 8th century BC, was a "land of perfect happiness at the end of the Earth." Among the wonders of Elysium are the constant singing of nightingales, and wine glasses that refilled themselves.
In PLATO’S REPUBLIC, written in the fourth century BC, there was to be communal ownership of land and material things, and women were to be owned by everyone (meaning every man, naturally).
In NEW ATLANTIS, written in 1625, Francis Bacon predicted such inventions as submarines, aircraft, telephones, and radio.
THE MAN IN THE MOON, written by Francis Godwin in 1638, is an interesting utopia. Citizens got to the moon from the earth with the help of twenty-five harnessed swans. In the moon society the elimination of crime was accomplished by a simple, effective, and inexpensive method: All criminals were deported to the earth!
LOST HORIZON was written in 1933 by James Hilton. The name of his special place, "Shangri-La", is almost a synonym for the word "utopia", or for "paradise."
The potential practical value of serious utopian stories is that in their unusual and often ridiculous-sounding suggestions may be sparks to ignite useful changes. Thoreau said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it is what you see. Perfect societies will doubtless never exist, but there is certainly plenty of room for improvement over what we have now.
The author’s objective in NUTOPIA is not to try to get the reader to believe as he does (where I have made up my mind what I believes) but to point out inconsistencies and idiocies that seem to have escaped the notice of many, suggest alternatives, and to invite the reader to think about them.
Chapter 1
MY EXTREMELY STRANGE DREAMS
Starting in 1995 I had a long series of weird closely related dreams (one almost every night). In these “dreams” I was asleep, (or was I) but there was something very different about them. They were completely clear and logical, not mixed up and partially irrational like dreams usually are. I could have sworn that I was awake each time. There were always myself and one or both of two other persons present. I didn’t actually see these people, but they were talking to me loud and clear, and they could hear me perfectly. These—what should I call them—interruptions in my sleep, were a lot like telephone conversations, but there was no phone. These—events—were educational, and those two people were sort of like my tutors. Most of the subjects we talked about were serious, involved, and extended over several nights. But were they dreams? I can’t rationally explain them any other way. But what if they were real—somehow?
In the first episode a middle-aged man named Max introduced himself, and then introduced the second person, his daughter, Maxine. With a little probing on my part she reluctantly told me that she is twenty-six, a university graduate, has a professional position, is married and has one child, a girl of three.
But here is where it got even weirder; Max informed me that they live in Nutopia, an unknown country. The more he talked the more evident it became that the citizens of this “Nutopia” consider themselves and their country to be nearly perfect, so they had named it “The New Utopia”, or Nutopia for short. Where is this Nutopia? I don’t know, neither Max nor Maxine ever told me.
Oh, and another important thing: Nutopia has known all about us (“The Outside World” as they call us) all along, but we previously knew nothing about them, or even of their existence. How was that possible? Don’t ask me, I don’t understand it. But apparently they can receive all of our communications, and they also have advanced communication systems for their internal use, that we can’t receive.
This was all so strange—to say the least. Maybe Nutopia decided to get in touch with us because they could see we have many serious problems, felt sorry for us, and wanted to try to help us. I don’t know how Max and Maxine were chosen to contact us, and I don’t know why they selected me, a common citizen, as the person to report the story of Nutopia to the United States and the rest of the world.
Publication of this book won't endanger Nutopia or its citizens, for the simple reason that no terrorists or other malefactors will ever be able to find the place. Likewise Nutopians will never attack the United States or any other country, because they are just not that kind of people. A sweeter bunch of humans you have never met. In fact they are so civilized, so collectively intelligent, and use so much common sense compared to the rest of humanity, that they may be superhuman rather than just human. But human or not, they are a most interesting species, and their life styles, habits, society, government, and things like that are—how shall I say it—“Something else”.
There is little doubt that many readers will love some aspects of Nutopian life with a passion, and hate other aspects with equal passion. Differences of opinion are always with us. As the new saying (I just invented it) goes: “There are usually several ways of believing or doing something: my way and one or more wrong ways.” But the words “right” and “wrong” won’t be used much in this book: You are invited to think about the things, sometimes shocking things, that Max and Maxine told me concerning Nutopia, and come to your own conclusions. If more people did that more often we might have a better world.
This is Max and Maxine’s story: They did most of the talking. Those special dreams extended from 1995 until late 2009. I’m sure I won’t be able to remember all of the exact words in the dreams, so I will largely dispense with quotation marks. But just so you will understand who is talking, from here on I will use normal type for their lectures, and show my own questions, responses and comments in italics. Forexample: Max said, Nutopia is better than your country. But I don’t always agree with that statement.
Chapter 2
GOVERNMENT
(The reader is reminded that the author will type his own remarks in italics, while Nutopian contributions will be in normal type).
Max said, Nutopia is a Democratic Capitalistic Republic. It is superficially like the United States Government, but with significant and important differences. We Nutopians have correctly observed that the U.S. and many other large older developed countries now have far too much government. Your governments grow, bureaucracies expand, efficiency drops, the time it takes to get anything done multiplies exponentially (and some things never seem to get done), polarization gets worse, corruption increases, and the cost of government goes up, up, and up; so taxes, the deficit, and the national debt increase frighteningly. But sometimes, contrary to common sense, the greater the deficit the more your leaders lowertaxes and grant tax reliefs! Knowing of these usual problems, we Nutopians avoided them by a modified form of government. Although we didn't quite achieve perfection, we did come up with a system that greatly reduces many of the problems we had earlier and you still have.
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS
Max continued: Nutopians observe that your government is for outlawing “controlled substances”, distributing free needles for illegally injecting these controlled substances; outlawing gambling, collecting taxes on gambling, punishing those who provide illegal gambling, providing state lotteries, providing treatment for those addicted to gambling, supporting gambler’s destitute families; feeding people who live on the streets, persuading some who live on the streets to go to other streets or other cities to live on the streets; requiring drug bottle caps which children can open but which the elderly can't; giving murderers multiple lifetime sentences then freeing them to murder again, sentencing people to death for capital crimes then giving them free room and board for decades while the lawyers earn more money by appealing the sentences; protecting endangered species, debating whether certain species are endangered, putting loggers out of work and letting timber degrade because of endangered species laws; building dams, studying why the dams interfere with salmon spawning, tearing down dams so the salmon will return, spending millions to figure out why the salmon didn't return, raising taxes, lowering taxes, unbalancing the budget, trying to rebalance the budget, paying interest on the national debt, going deeper into debt, worrying about the debt, explaining why you don't need to worry about the debt; and many other important things too numerous to list. Very funny, Max.
He continued: Those are things the politicians do for you, or do to you, or say they will do for you in order to get your votes. Whatever is wrong, or whatever is needed in your country, seems to be considered the responsibility of government: city, county, state, or federal, and sometimes all four. I can imagine the tremendous waste, in money and time, resulting from one branch of government fighting other branches of your Federal, State, County, and City governments. Your system is not working well for you in many areas. Therefore you have collectively lost, and continue to lose, a lot of faith in your governments. Many of your people have understandably become disgusted and cynical over the mess. I understand that your WW II soldiers used to use the acronyms “SNAFU”, meaning “Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”, and “FUBAR” or “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition”. (When talking among themselves the troops substituted a different word for “fouled”.)
MAXINE TO THE RESCUE
Dad should apologize for that outrageous outburst. I have to admit that there is a lot of truth in what he said, but Nutopia shouldn’t lord it over the U.S. or any other country just because our country is superior. However, I am sure that your founding fathers would be appalled by what has been informally added to the functions of your government since they wrote the United States Constitution over 200 years ago. In my opinion a great many additional functions assumed gradually over the years should not be the responsibility of government at all.
Your government has done very well on most of the things provided for in your excellent constitution, but it is now guilty of serious overkill. All too often different parts of your government are doing opposite and counterproductive things. And the part of your Preamble about "The Blessings of Liberty" is in trouble. Your now-huge government, which is supposed to secure liberty for you, is in fact infringing upon your liberties in many ways, and jeopardizing the liberties of your posterity.