Solutions

I've been kind of under the weather since late last week, but I think I'm on the mend now because I've come up with some solutions to a few of the country's problems. Well, either I'm getting well or fever delirium has set in.

Let's start with marriage - with same-gender marriage, to be exact. If marriage is going to be legislatively defined as being between one man and one woman (bypassing for now the problems inherent in defining "man" and "woman") based on religious reasoning, then let's go all the way. Let's continue the religious reasoning and say that if you get married, then you're married until you die. Oh, not until your partner dies, until YOU die. Forever. Let's just make divorce illegal for married people. But let's simultaneously implement a non-religious civil structure that allows two people, regardless of their gender, to share their lives, with all the current benefits accruing to the religious structure of marriage. And regardless of what we call that civil arrangement - domestic partnership, civil union, flapdoodle toe-tangling - that setup would allow for the dissolution of the arrangement since it would make allowances for human nature. That way, the religious folks would have marriage - forever - as their way to express their commitment and those prohibited from marriage - same-gendered, unwilling to make a life-long commitment, etc. - would have theirs. I wonder how many people would get married with that system in place.

Moving right along to abortion: let's end the debate. Let's put it up to a national vote. Wait, wait just a minute! This would be a different kind of vote. It would be an open ballot, not a secret one. Everyone in the country over the age of 18 would vote on the single question: "Should abortion be legal?" and everyone's vote would be recorded. If the majority of voters decide that abortion should be legal, then abortion would be allowed for all pregnant women in the country with no questions asked. However, if the majority of voters decide that abortion should not be legal, then everyone in the country over 18 would be placed on a national adoption list. Then everyone who voted for legalizing abortion would be removed from that list unless they specifically requested to stay on it. Note that those who chose not to vote would therefore be on the list, too. Thereafter, abortion would be illegal in all states; pregnant women would be required to deliver their babies. But if a woman did not want her child, a person chosen at random from the adoption list would be required to adopt that child at birth. The choice of keeping or adopting out the child would be made by only the mother before delivery. The issue could even be voted on at intervals, like every 20 years, as new generations mature.

I'm still working on domestic violence, poverty and world hunger.