As the coordinator of the Online Think Tank, we often ask new applicants what challenges they think are most pressing, what problems they think are paramount to solve, and exactly what concerns they want to alleviate. The other day, one of the applicants wrote a short list of nine items that he thought were things that the Online Think Tank should investigate and that he, too, would want to work on:
- 1.) Drug and gang problems.
- 2.) Local government and law enforcement are inadequate.
- 3.) Border security.
- 4.) Dependence on foreign oil.
- 5.) Radical Islam.
- 6.) War.
- 7.) Political.
- 8.) The North American Security and Prosperity Association
- 9.) Council on Foreign Relations.
He also stated that he considered it selfish not to take action. Yes, this makes sense from his perspective, although perhaps we also need to realize that it would be foolish to take actions that make the problem worse or lead to unintended consequences, which are much greater for the current challenges, right?
Now, on your list we have Drug and Gang problems, which are huge, and we know that the current methods of stopping them are not working. We also know that we are filling our prisons and jails with people and repeaters, many of whom are not even legal citizens. So the first problem you have identified is directly related to the third. And the border problem is also related to free trade, and there are problems with fair trade, which affects number four (which is definitely related to number 5) and fair trade and free trade also have to do with number 8, which in fact affect number 9 as well., leading to a political impasse affecting number 6 and the local police are overwhelmed by all of number 2.
It seems that all your problems are all “ONE” and they are all interrelated and linked, isn’t it? So, in fact, to fix these problems, we should look at them all together instead of doing it in a linear fashion, element by element. First we must get to the root of the problems, what do you say?