New day - new way

​The Constitution of the United States and its addendums (amendments) are between 243 years (the original version) and 26 years old (the last amendment in 1992).

The original was written by men, mostly younger men, during a time when there were still such things as witch trials and slavery. There were debtors prisons that, for a multitude of reasons, were a failure. These are a couple of examples of the world they lived in.

In the 18th century, daughters literally belonged to their father or a woman to her husband. The "laws of coverture" prohibited a married woman from owning property, even if it was hers before the marriage.

Dating wasn't really a thing then. Marriages were a business between two men, their bargaining chips being their sons' inheritance and their daughters' dowries.

Nevertheless, and given the beliefs and practices of the time, the authors and signers of the Constitution did a remarkable job of authoring a document that would guide the United States to a position of being the most successful social endeavor in history. Still, the 27 amendments to that document suggest that it isn't perfect.

I am by no way suggesting we tear up the Constitution and begin again; that would be preposterous. I am, however, suggesting that in light of the 21st century, the information age, technology, and monumental challenges like climate change, we need a very new and perhaps radical approach to how we manage and govern our society. The old ideas from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries just don't fit the challenges of today.

As I write this in early 2019, there are new voices in our government that are challenging the old guard and the old ways. These voices that are proposing radical and big ideas like the New Green Deal that lay out some bold goals for the future. True, the details of how to get there are fuzzy as yet, and the consensus of how much and how fast we should embark on this journey are however to be defined, but it demonstrates a change in leadership that is sorely needed.

In addition to renewable energy and learning to live on a planet with 7 billion people and snowballing to 9 billion, we face a variety of social and technical challenges for our country.

We have a crumbling infrastructure that will soon fail us if it isn't repaired or replaced. The challenge there, using freeways and bridges as an example, is to create for the future. Will we be driving cars as we know them today or will we be riding in bullet trains or in small and compact air vehicles? What is the future of aviation and ground transportation? I would submit to you that it is unlikely that a bunch of septuagenarians, as loyal and patriotic as they have been, may not be the people to provide that vision.

The Internet, DNA, genetic engineering, replacement organs that are grown in a lab, conception, and birth outside the human body, and many other advances await us. Some of these we can't yet recognize, and some are yet to be imagined. All these will change our world dramatically, and we need the leadership that has grown up with and understands these issues to guide us through this social engineering maze.

I'm suggesting that since this new future will belong to the younger generation who will live through all this that the old silverbacks are not only incapable of designing that future, they have no stake in it because they won't share it with the people who are 40 and 50 years younger than they are.

That is why I say it is a new day and we need a new way lead by new people.