What I Would Do If I Were President

Don't You All Ask At Once!

As someone considered a “citizen” of a “country” called “the United States of America,” I, like everyone, am in suspense as to what will happen in fifteen days when Donald John Trump is again considered to be “the president” of “the United States of America.” My non-belief in all these abstract concepts aside, it remains an interesting question to ask—amidst the terror before the Terror—what I wish someone would do who was so considered.

When you think about it, the presidency may well be considered to be kind of hemmed in. Some things they make you pass “laws” about, which involves the input of other people. In other ways, executive power is theoretically expansive yet informally kettled by “the security state,” whatever nebulous forces hang out in the secretest shadows and hold all the real cards no one else even knows about.

In this context, someone who is considered “president of the United States of America” should prioritize their ability to play a positively transformative role in history over their own lives, and as such be defiant against entrenched interests when one is convinced they are not behaving in a way conducive to Beloved Community (BC)

Specifically, I would go on to renew the so-called “American School of Economics” by expanding its sense of infrastructure and economic activity to include all the contributions we all make to each other which are not captured by institutional recognition and reward. Helping co-create a social atmosphere in which people are enthusiastic to contribute because the common tasks and community seem so wonderful and an honor to serve; and in which people are free to explore what gives them pleasure in order to understand how they can behave in a way which rains positive externalities while exuding deliciousness and luxury internally.

Based on this, we would pursue wide-ranging efforts to rebuild social fabric while changing institutions to have integrity. This is to see that improving how we all treat each other, and our own habits and so on, must be connected to an open-ended sense of purpose which goes over the top of current challenges. For example, if we want to have “peace on Earth,” we must set goals with regard to space. If we want to have well-educated people who can drive powerful forms of collaboration, then we must also aim to produce people capable of extraordinary nuance and generality. Once we appreciate that the best way to stop someone else from killing you is for them not to want to kill you, then we can start to build up cores of BC across the whole planet, including within whatever nebulous groups might constrain the president. These groups must take it upon themselves to help see the task through. As president, my job is not to do everything, but to inspire and show that people can bear sacrifice in order to do what must be done. When it comes to that, it’s really not even a question, not even a sacrifice. No one is being asked to sacrifice power, but rather to embrace grander powers than they yet enjoy by partaking of entirely different kind of flying companionship altogether.

Finally, I would organize forms of civil service open to all and that accommodate everyone’s ability to serve & preferred modes of doing so while ensuring that dignity and respect are never compromised. This fuses together the idea that people should contribute what they can and receive what they require with the idea that people should contribute what they can as well. No free lunches! I am absolutely with that idea.

Where we have so far to expand our vision is with regard to what constitutes service. We might currently expect people to have some corporation or public office decide that they are worthwhile to their bottom line to have on and treat like an interchangeable cog in the machine. We’re constantly chasing metrics that come from outside, and that’s why so many people don’t like their jobs and resent the necessity of working. There’s actually no reason why it needs to be that way.

With respect to the social fabric, if we open our eyes we can see how much immense value is lost by having a society that few people wholeheartedly believe in. Moral feelings are mainly negative at the moment, and those who are optimistic for example about technology are often neglectful of matters of the soul, not to mention the general welfare of all their fellow citizens and those they depend on, which is everyone.

In view of the inestimable damage done by atomization and distrust—see suicide, wasted resources on vices, lack of effort shown, cycles of violence, etc.—it is easy to see that anything which can supply “good vibes” is very valuable. This value should be rewarded. Note also that value in the sense of your relationships with your friends does something that a music artist can never do for you.

Following up on demands to have housework compensated, we can expand our vision to see that people serve the common good by contributing to a social fabric in countless ways. As president, I will not advocate that specific tasks be designated as valuable and compensated. That’s because you can never make a list of all the ways that we can be good to each other, all the ways that we can serve.

What makes America so hard to believe in for so many people is that people are left out. More and more people are left out until the whole world is on the outside looking in. “I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it.” This problem extends even to the core of “the military establishment,” or whatever you might want to call the circles of arch-decision-makers among the most “powerful” social network branches that administer the machinery that gives rise to the mass impression of “the United States of America” (which may or may not have crucial nodes elsewhere, this apparition having uncertain relevancy among the disputations of the grand).

We see this in the blackmail scandals, in the bickering about “the idea of America.” What is the common task? What is the mission? What is the point of the constitution? Why did people come here from the old world? What was the point? What can we make of it now?

Distrust at the level of frontier martial technology deployers threatens their own security as well. We can never make strictly moral appeals that seek to have people listen to the better angels of their nature for the sake of other people. In America, we square the circle of service to self and others by showing that “the USA” has delivered the world technology which issues us this challenge: engage “peacefully” (non-kinetically, although this framing also remains unresolved), non-coercively, or else everyone is going to die. Apparently some people are also worried AI (which I call Æ) would lead to a fate worse than death, which we can just lump into the same “preferably avoided” category.

As such, we can find a common interest in trying to foster good vibes and a sense of gratitude to be alive. I resonate with Miss America contestants talking about “world peace,” but I think that positivity, joy, and magnanimity are only really operative when we are willing to treat of the bleak, the stark, the horrifying. Diana greeting the AIDS patient, for example. Or, when we think of our Thanksgiving, what we have to be grateful for, we must always remember all the suffering that is bound up in, and that part of what we are grateful for is our continued ability to be in relationship with these things that have happened and to be able to alter their significance by being transformative aspects of all that they made possible.

An anxiety I anticipate with a civil service program is that people don’t trust the government. Therefore, I would create not only public-private partnerships with businesses, but also partnerships among community bedrocks, activists and organizers to drive my initiatives and vision through the country up through the people while going down through the institutions. Obama said that people should hold him accountable by making social movements. I believe that it is the president’s responsibility to stoke the social movements that they want to see, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

My administration will seize on the low-hanging fruit that remains in a culture where people seem to think that there’s nothing left to say. That’s because everything is this cynical, no-future mentality that can’t imagine how anything could go well because of everything it seems like we can never compromise on that will always be in the way.

In my America, we’ll get back to dreaming big. We can have broad institutional change, multiple social movements that elevate the interests and prerogatives of different interest groups, and dynamically assume a world leadership position by obliterating the tired worldviews of those foolish enough to consider themselves our adversaries as well as those of our own which stand in the way of BC-generation and the pursuit of honor.

Artificial intelligence is an important issue in today’s world. We can see how everything is warped around it, from energy usage and infrastructure construction to cognitive-affective coercive measures as in advertising and grey propaganda.

This will continue, but the imperatives of BC must similarly have their way. Without some genuine and authentic belief in mutual investment in “no limits” endeavors, there can be no formidable military, emergency response, or governmental force, and there can be no credible pretense of lawfulness or public order.

We live in an era where the Wild West is everywhere, and everyone knows it’s only a matter of time until things really go sideways unless something unprecedented happens.

As president, my America will be something unprecedented. For the first time, we will have leadership that is willing to full-throatedly advance the interests and causes of common flourishing while actively engaging those segments of the population that would be most skeptical.

Some Americans might think that my proposals sound like socialism, or that it’s wrong to be mindful of a variety of perspectives, and to say that we have to protect the good old ways. To these people, I say that I have no quarrel with the maintenance of any ways where they do not interfere with people’s free exploration of their own pleasures and abilities to help others. Nothing should be denied anyone for the sake of regulating their behavior unless that person wants to harm others.

Of course, in this context the definition of what constitutes harm is political. I understand that I won’t be able to get my way across the board anytime soon, but I think it’s important for us to open this question up. Some advocate for the safety of others from harm, when those others may not appreciate it. Or, if those others certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if they were better informed about what is being done in their name.

It’s here that I would step into American discourse by engaging with Christian narratives and emphasizing the doctrine of universal salvation. America is not a place where people are condemned, but where all can be celebrated. The policies that I support are not based in a divisive conceptualization akin to what we know as socialism or anything else. Instead, they are the fulfillment of the spirit of the law.

It has to be seen that we can extend the erstwhile benefits of our common behavior while improving conditions across the board by enabling genuine social investment by having leadership that speaks to the issues of the day at the appropriate logical type. I would also ensure that my message reach all Americans in their specificity, so that everyone knows that those in high places can see everyone as a person.

And in general, when it comes to great transformation, you can always be sure of accusations of tyranny of all kinds, including fascism. My spirit of America is fundamentally not driven by the idea of a nation, one ethnicity of set of ethnicities, one specific religious conception, or any other universally decreed value that then everyone has to live up to or Not Be Good Enough.

No!

Everyone in my America is good enough. We will cultivate patience and experience in working with the despirited and demoralized, quickly getting through to people and helping us all believe in what we’re doing here. This will be the focus of my presidency, and it can be measured with metrics like the suicide rate. While we have votes and elections in the USA, I’m more interested in everyone globally that kills themselves. This is basically a vote that says life isn’t worth living.

That’s a blemish on the record of anyone who feels empowered enough to take responsibility for national and world affairs. Anyone who feels that way should seek to get as many people as possible to feel similarly. It must also be seen that no one is actually incapable of individually changing things. But no one should be judged for their learned helplessness, as this only reinforces the issue of not following raptly enough one’s own guiding light of magnanimity.

As president, I will encourage hostile factions to see that their acrimony will destroy themselves. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and our house by this point encompasses the world entire.

To do this, it is necessary to tread the path where no one goes. This is actually easy if you simply invite people together and give all the ability to speak to open ended discussions of their concerns without the ability for anyone to interrupt or impose some supposedly authoritative but simply one-sided duckspeak-tier bloviation.

So that’s what we’ll do, have discussions and bring in officials and hold them to the fire to be honest. If not about specifics then specifics of their emotional dynamics. We must move toward transparency not only in the government but with each other. Sanctimonious people who criticize others and don’t live up to their own standards pollute the social environment by exposing everyone to negative externalities. Similarly, no one within government should ever speak morally or especially speak down to anyone without first thoroughly explaining all they do to honorably transform these intransigent and atrociously incontinent institutions.

We will know how it’s going by our fruits. Mine will be a presidency of Good Vibes. Again: good vibes requires that we go to the bottom of difficult issues. Leaving things half-explored is very bad vibes, as it shows a lack of seriousness in the intention to grapple with the issues. Therefore we must come to a screeching halt, even as we keep going to make sure that there is no disruption.

Accordingly, preparations will be made for basic survival and healthcare in the case of economic disruption. Anything inessential will be made expendable so that we can focus on the necessities of life while we build up a social fabric through what these basics mean to us.

Additionally, as many new BCs as possible will be founded directly and indirectly, and made aware of their license to operate to override misguided norms.

Citizens may experience all this as unwanted change. Unfortunately, it is not always up to us how much will change. Times have been stormy before, and that was nothing compared to this.

As Americans, we can choose how we confront this change.

As president, I would do so steadfastly, because for me serving my purpose and those I care for is all I care about. I would gladly sacrifice personal safety in order to play a special role in the turning of the American tide toward the genuine expression and exuding of the good-will which has always been promised.

We can square all the circles that exist of disputes over custom and the like, by insisting on the inviolability of new individuals while finding acceptable interpretations of the core objective functions implied by the relevant cultural artifacts. Everyone can feel heard and valued, everyone can succeed on their own terms.

What’s beautiful about America is that it’s a vehicle. You chase it because it seems to be the way to get what you want, but in the end the experience changes you, and you are called to a new frontier outside yourself. Even if you hate America and resent all its trappings, you have been touched by it.

I will preside over the end of dishonorable America, because we have now reached the point where gregarious, magnanimity, and good humor are matters of national security. We will hold a transcontinental congress, super-planetary synod for all religious and spiritual leaders, and hold mega-concerts around the world to drive a new spirit to decisively catalyze events toward the poetic resolution of what now seem to be our ineluctably bitter feuds and uncertainties.