Silverstein's Society

Oh boy--this post is going to be painful for a select few, but I’m going to let the words flow and fly without any consideration for the bashing I could receive from my readers.  In this post I will attempt to construct my “picture perfect” utopian society.  I’ll be guiding you through my ideal government setup, my population’s personal values, and their attainable goals (if you will) within my fantastic society.  [Note that this is an environmental blog, so when I do speak of each of these topics within my utopian society they will be directly connected to the environment].

I’ll take a top down approach to the construct of my society, so let’s begin by discussing the backbone of my utopia: the government.  For me, a government should maintain an authoritative stature within a society.  Government is there for the sole purpose of protecting its citizens from physical harm.  They are to defend it’s population within times of war and they are to interfere when people’s well being is in jeopardy (mass sickness and crime).   People are going to say, “It’s impossible for American’s in this day and age to govern themselves without a set of rules.”  To that I say, my utopian society will take the constitution we have in place and directly abide by it.  Each and every amendment will be upheld and followed.  Pretty simple, right? 

As far as the environment is concerned, government is to stay out of almost all environmental affairs.   Citizens of my utopian society are allowed to use ALL natural resources permitting they own the land they want to use and in doing so they do not directly affect the physical well being of the current population.  Let me give you an example in case I’ve been a little unclear:  Let’s say that I’m a citizen of Silverstein’s Society and I own a factory that produces colored spray paint.  Factors of productions force me to pollute an immense amount of aerosol in order to produce my colored spray paint.  For five years, my business has flourished and the people living around the factory have maintained primo health until one day a resident of the neighborhood comes down with a fatal illness due to the aerosol in the air.  Because this pollution is directly affecting the health of people within my society, government would intervene and appropriate measures would be taken to shut down the factory until a “healthy” amount of pollution (assessed by government scientists) could be produced without harming the population. 

My population will model their feelings toward the environment very close to how a modern day cornucopian views the environment.  Unconcerned with the diminishing natural resource supply, people of my utopian society will use what their momma (Earth) gave them.  Each and every resource will be utilized.  Because their will be no limit to the amount of resources that can be used business will boom and industry will flourish.  Profits will be maximized and the “land of opportunity” will be taken to the next level.  I know that this ideology is on the extreme side, but this my time to be radical so leave me alone…at least for the length of this post.   

“Come and consume” will be the motto of my society.  We as American’s are obsessed with more of anything.  My society will be no different.  I think that sometimes we forget that it’s in a human’s nature to always want more.  Talk to any self-made millionaire—they’re never satisfied.  It’s that hunger that makes the world spin and allows for America to remain so prosperous.  

Based on the sole premise of economic prosperity, my population would not care about the well being other humans, so long as they haven’t broken any of the laws laid out by my government.   

I could go forever but I think you get where I'm going with this...

Quick recap: Government=constitution, flourishing industry, and profit maximization.  Sound good to you?

My work is done here.  I think I’m going to spend a night in the haystack…