I have no argument with your particular way of dealing with political and social action, Ebbie...nor with yours, Don...because they are the ways that suit each of you as individuals, they suit your personal nature, therefore they are appropriate to you.

I am likewise doing what suits me and is appropriate to my personal nature. I have no wish that we should all act the same, want to do the same things or decide to do the same things. I like the fact that we're all different in various ways. It makes life richer than if we were all the same.

The list of options I suggested was just that: a list of some possible options and choices. I don't necessarily go by all of them. I am by no means suggesting that EVERYONE should follow that list according to my desires, yours, or anyone else's. My only concern is that people should think independently for themselves rather than becoming obedient little sheep who merely follow cultural trends without ever questioning them.

I regard the old Republican/Democratic partyline system in the USA to be a popular trend (a tradition) that is being followed by sheep...and it leads them off to the slaughterhouse eventually...but that's just my own personal view of it. I wouldn't necessarily expect you to have the same view of it, and I don't particularly mind if you don't. If you honestly believe in one or another of those parties, then by all means, get out there and take part in the partisan process, because that is what suits your nature and I certainly wouldn't stand in your way.

None of the things I listed are necessary parts of civilized society, in my opinion...they are options.

What is a necessary part of a truly civilized society is this sort of thing:

1. No member of the community should ever be deniend needed medical treatment for lack of money! Said medical treatment should be given at no charge to the afflicted person. That is universal and equally free health care for all citizens, funded through common taxes (as long as one still has a money system in place).

2. No member of the society should ever be forced to participate in or support any war which he or she does not believe in.

3. All should receive equal protection under the law.

4. No one should be arrested or imprisoned without being informed of the legal charges and being given fair trial and legal counsel.

5. No one should have to live in dire poverty below a certain level of basic human dignity. By that I mean that everyone should be guaranteed at least a decent place to live in, enough food and other basic necessities to survive, access to a good education, and other basic necessities at a simple level. Beyond that level, they should be free to prosper and go higher strictly by their own efforts, and most of them would do so in such circumstances, because most people want to go higher when they have a chance to.

6. And anyone who wants paying work should have it...as a constitutional right.

7. And everyone should be guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.

You won't get a good deal of the above from either the Republicans or the Democrats, because it is radical socialism (considered virtually equivalent to Satanism in the USA political dialogue).

You can't achieve the above when people are enslaved by their singular devotion to money above all else in life. Can you deny that money presently rules our society? And that it overrides morality and sanity? That has to end for people to establish a genuinely civilized society. You could achieve it if money were done away with entirely and society instead did things because they are both needed and desirable for everyone, not because they are merely profitable for a select few.

What I envision is revolutionary! But not a revolution achieved by guns and violence. It would be a revolution achieved through conscience.

People at every level of society would have to be willing to treat everyone else the way they wish others would treat them!

That's the Golden Rule.

Compared to that, your present money-corrupted political process is just mucking about with mudpies and slightly rearranging the deck furniture on the leaky Ship of State. The moneylenders must be thrown out of the temple, in other words.