Who Are You Trying to Help?

Listen to them.

Question asked then answered. Short blog today. 

Okay, kidding. I'll expand.

I have been thinking about a local problem lately and how our government is going about not fixing it. And then saw something today in a friend's timeline about an issue in Australia that dovetails into it. And there have been a few other stories that are in the same vein that have been making their way around lately. 

The Australia issue (this is high level gloss, from someone FIRMLY not aware of all of the issues) seems to be that native Australians want to make sure they always have representation in decisions made about Native Australians. Now this seems like it makes total sense and of course they would so clearly this should already be the case, but you only think that if you have no experience with government and people. 

Money and programs have been put towards that community without ever asking people in that community if that's what they need. And then when the government changes hands and you get people in power who don't care about Native Australians then the money and programs stop, if they are working or not. 

What they are asking for (again, from my understanding) is a to always have people from the Native communities involved in those decisions. To put it in the Constitution of Australia so it can't be added and subtracted due to who won the last election. They are literally calling it a Voice. They just want to have a voice in the matters that pertain to them. Seems really logical. 

Listening to a story on NPR this morning about schools in our country and how they have inadequate HVAC systems. They were talking to an English teacher in Pennsylvania whose classroom is on the 4th floor and has no AC. Last year the school invested in these smart pads that read the temperature and humidity in each classroom. He said he knew they were really expensive and would have rather they spent the money on actually putting in air, but that nobody asked him. 

It reminded me of a story I saw a few weeks ago from a science teacher showing the "upgrades" they did to her lab classroom over the summer. They took out the power outlets from the lab tables and suspended them from free swinging drop downs in the ceiling. She was like, "Oh sure, a classroom full of freshman isn't going to just use these to swing at people's heads...right. But nobody asked me what would actually be beneficial in my classroom."

And here locally the Mayor of Portland is putting together a commission to address our houseless problem. And he has put zero members on it who actually are advocates for the houseless population. It's all business people who are now going to make decisions that are beneficial to their businesses without ever considering the people who are going to be affected the most. 

And of course we see it all the time with abortion decisions being made by men who will never have to contemplate what being pregnant means. And trans health care being decided by people who are not only not trans but don't even know anyone who is trans. And books being banned by people who I have to assume don't even read. 

We legislate things all the damn time without ever consulting those that would be affected the most. And I get it, sometimes there are conflicts. One solution might be a problem for another group. Or there are huge unintended consequences. But if all groups affected are involved in the decision making you get a lot fewer surprise oops moments. 

Imagine the problems that could be solved if we all just got in the habit of asking the people involved what would actually help. And not just asking, involving. Instead of sitting of panels of people just like us working to fix the problems of people like them, if we had committee made up of all of us. The We part of We the People and we all worked toward solutions that did the most benefit for the most people. 

First do no harm. 
Second do the most possible good. 

Can you imagine if we approached all of the problems in the world with that mindset? 

How much better would it be than:

First find the profit center
Second maximize that profit over everything else

Who are you trying to help? 
Stop answering that question with myself and see how the world changes.