Safety Focused Parenting Plan Oregon: Fill & Download for Free

Well, I’ll tell you one person’s “lived experience”—mine. Growing up in what was then small-town Oregon.Cars, bikes, and houses were rarely if ever locked. There was no need. (Exception: if we went on a trip, we locked the house—with one skeleton key—and then put the key on top of the door frame so other adults could get in if they needed.)Fentanyl, meth, heroine problems? Even marijuana? Never heard of them then. Even drinking alcohol was rare in my large extended family, and even then it was just a beer consumed by just one uncle. Stroonnggg black coffee was the favored beverage. (Coffee was considered strong enough if you could stick a knife in it and the knife would not fall over.) By the late 60s in California, that’s when I started hearing about marijuana and LSD.By age 6 I was permitted to go wherever I wanted, unsupervised, alone or with other kids, as long as I followed one rule: be home by dark. I was told not to go into the houses of strangers, though.Halloween? It was fun. Safe, safe, safe. Until some nuts started putting razors and stuff in apples and popcorn balls. Then we were just told to go to houses we knew—unsupervised by adults. The general rule was to not be back too late.Crime? Close to zero as far as major crime went. Pilfering, and juvenile vandalism, yes sometimes. Major crimes, when they occurred, were front page news and were shocking beyond belief. The earliest ones I recall were probably after the 50s. One was a mother who threw her children into a gorge in Oregon. Another was a woman killed in New York, when many neighbors ignored her screams. A third was the Texas university clock tower (or bell tower?) shooter.Guns? Guns everywhere. But only used for target practice and hunting. By around age 5 I knew how to load rifles and shotguns and learned about gun safety. By 13 I was trained thoroughly in hunter safety (you had to do a comprehensive state course and get a “badge” to get a deer license).Family life? When have family’s been perfect? I once saw a cartoon of a big hall with doors to two conference rooms. A single man was peering into an empty room that hosted a conference for “Children of Functional Families.” The next door over had a seemingly endless line. The conference there was “Children of Dysfunctional Families.” Nonetheless, the era of the 50s was one where families could have a good standard of living with one income. Divorce was almost unheard of. Abortion was not even whispered about. Children were generally cherished—the more the better. Extended family outings (fishing, hiking, boating, mushrooming, harvesting berries and nuts, or just huge family picnics) were an occurrence most weekends in the summer.Religion? Christianity was assumed, but in my experience religion was never enforced. Christmas was celebrated primarily as a secular event. Whether you went to church or not didn’t matter—you weren’t shunned if you did not go. What mattered was if you were a good family person, father or mother, friend, etc.—whether you kept your word and performed your duties.Charity? Wow, back then few if any people would have stooped to take government benefits such as welfare or food stamps. That would have been humiliating, and was only accepted in truly urgent situations, such as unemployment due to a disabling accident. But charity was rampant. Even as a kid, I spent many, many hours and days doing things for others along with my parents—comforting a family who had lost their boy, picking and canning fruit for a man who had broken his leg, picking plums for an elderly woman, helping neighbors build things, helping a nearby dairy farm when one of the sons was not available for a while (possibly some token pay there), and on and on.Work ethic! Work, work, work. As a kid you had chores. Things that were part of my childhood: chopping wood and making kindling, starting and tending fires (indoors in stoves and outdoors), milking cows, gathering eggs, feeding animals, plowing fields (by around 10 or so I was driving a huge WWII truck to plow and disk fields—I had to really stretch to reach the pedals, and no power steering so I came close to taking out a fence once), basic veterinary care, planting and harvesting food, slaughtering and skinning and butchering animals, digging ditches, helping weld, building things and fairly advanced carpentry, and on and on. You were expected to work and you were expected to study and do well in school. And to behave (though that did not always get followed!).Food? Yep there were some (but few compared to today) burger places and soda shops. But virtually all of the food we ate was fresh bought, or home grown, and home prepared. That doesn’t mean it was all healthy, though. We managed to offset the quality of freshness with tons of sugar. Kool-Aid was popular and it was considered sweet enough when about an inch of sugar would settle to the bottom of the pitcher.Education? Higher education was very reasonably priced and was blessedly free from heavy ideological indoctrination that took root from the 1970s on.Military? America had been instrumental in the success of the Allies in resoundingly defeating totalitarian Axis powers. Europe was being rebuilt via the Marshall Plan, and Japan was being restructured—both Germany and Japan would go on to become economic superpowers and strongly democratic countries. Communism had been stopped with the armistice on the Korean peninsula, and a free and prosperous South Korea was emerging. Veterans were treated, very rightly so, with great honor.Okay, perfect era, right? Sadly, no. Some downsides:The Cold War was in full sway. An “Iron Curtain” had fallen across Europe, separating the free West from the Communist/Socialist and totalitarian East. Having seen how the far left/communism was killing millions elsewhere in the world, there was a fear of communism within America itself. McCarthyism was in full sway. TV news clips often focused on a series called “The Big Picture” and there was the very conservative “Dan Smoot Report.”Society was fairly monocultural (though I did start learning Spanish in elementary school and met people of other races and ethnicities through travel). There were almost no ethnic or racial slurs that I heard until the 60s when I moved to California. On the one time I heard the n-word (in the 60s) my grandmother soundly chastised the man who uttered it, and I never heard him say it again.Sexual minorities were not recognized or talked about. In a way, that had a positive aspect in that nothing bad was said either—since pretty much nothing at all was said. The downside is that sexual minorities were effectively invisible and closeted.The role of woman was often that of homemaker and primary person for raising the kids. But … that was not always the case. One of my grandmothers had played in big bands in Detroit before she moved West and had been a draftsperson in WWII. That same grandmother had a career making ads for a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper. Another aunt had worked for Boeing in Washington. Aunts worked in fruit canneries and not just as workers but as supervisors. So while some women were “trapped” in homes, in my experience many were not, and those who preferred to take care of the kids and the house were deeply valued for that work. Being a “mom” was a an incredible thing.Safety standards were much weaker. Kids sometimes played hide and seek and suffocated in abandoned refrigerators (they once could not be opened from the inside back then). No such thing as child-proof medicine bottle caps. Paint and gasoline had lead. A common disinfectant, MercuroChrome, contained mercury. Wheelchair and disabled access had not been established. (Severely disabled people were often invisible in society too.)Medicine and health? Polio was cured (bravo, Salk!) in my early years. There were still scares I recall where public pools were shut down due to a polio warning. One Alfred Hitchcock TV story (I think the series was “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”) that was horrifying was about a man who spent his vulnerable, dependent life in an “iron lung” while his hateful wife plotted to kill him—and many kids suffered that iron lung fate. Smallpox was still a fear. Whooping cough was not uncommon, as were other serious illnesses. Many adults were still skeptical of doctors, dentists, and especially hospitals—hospitals seemed to be seen as places you went when you sick enough to die! So for me to see a doctor as a kid meant I had to be really, really, really sick or at least have an obviously broken bone. (Just pain was never enough!) Some tonsils and adenoids were probably unnecessarily removed. Radiation was used unwisely—from irradiating tonsils in some cases to seeing your foot’s bones using machines in stores so you could buy shoes that fit. You could still get watches with radium on the dials. (I had one as a kid.) Limb reattachment and heart transplants (and similar transplants) were things of the future. Cancer was far more often a death sentence than it is now, and treatment options were fewer and harsher.Religion? As I said, it was not enforced in my experience, but if you were an atheist, you kept quiet about it except when talking with like-minded people. (By atheist I mean someone who is not convinced about the existence of a particular god; not someone who believes there is no good—two different things.) In my Protestant environment, there was one Christian group that was distrusted: Catholics. So when Kennedy ran for president, his religion was a bone of contention. And, meant humorously I suppose, the tail of a cooked chicken was called “the Pope’s nose”!I should add that no one actually hated Catholics, they just wondered if they had that dual loyalty thing that some Jewish pols have been accused of recently.And the brand of Christianity I was exposed to was saturated with valuing all people and all races and all ethnicities around the world. Everyone was equal in the eyes of God, Jesus, and the church in that brand of Christianity. Long before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many people already believed that (to quote part of a children’s religious song) “Red, brown, yellow, black, and white, they are precision in His sight …”TV and radio? Now we are deluged with options. Back then, I recall in the 50s getting our first rabbit-eared TV that occasionally had to have tubes replaced. It picked up one TV channel that signed off around 11 PM. We had one radio station. It played two genres of music. Monday through Saturday, it was Country Western. Yep, I grew up with all the greats (some that come to mind: Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, . Then there was Sunday. 100% Christian music and songs.One could write a book on this, and maybe I will. So I’ll mark this as not for reproduction. In any event, this is one person’s “lived experience” in small town Oregon. (P.S. The reflections above are regarding my own experience growing up in Oregon. Certainly the experience of others will differ.)NOTE: Not for reproduction. Thanks!(Note of March 14, 2019. Wow! I really appreciate all the comments. Even the couple I do not agree with are very important and valuable. And so many of the others have brought many more details to attention and many more back to my own recollection. Of course this all amounts to one slice / type of American experience. If I had grown up say Black under Jim Crow, of course my experience would have been different—but that’s the point. All American experiences are valid and important to understand. The contrasts can actually help us better understand the pain and injustice of parts of our American story. Thanks everyone.)

Factors we consideredYou can learn more about our ranking factors in the section below. If you want to get straight to our list, click here.Laws vary from state to state, and although you may enjoy living in a particular location, we wanted to ensure your rights are protected as well.With this in mind, we gave precedence to safety and equality considerations over community-related factors in our rankings.Hate crime lawsHate crime laws are used to investigate and prosecute crimes motivated by various types of bias. Unfortunately, the defined biases vary from state to state.While some states’ definitions include sexual orientation and gender identity, others do not.Anti-discrimination lawsAs with hate crime laws, anti-discrimination laws protect vulnerable communities from unjust treatment that’s motivated by bias. These laws protect against discrimination in five key categories:EmploymentHousingPublic accommodationsCreditPublic employment (state employees require a separate set of protections since the Employment category only covers employees of privately owned companies)Some states’ laws protect you from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in each of those five areas while other states’ anti-discrimination laws cover only a few or none at all.Adoption lawsAlthough LGBTQ+ individuals can adopt in most states, some states’ statutes vary as to whether or not same-sex couples can adopt jointly.A few states don’t even address LGBTQ+ families in their statues, making the process more difficult for their LGBTQ+ residents.Conversion therapy laws for minorsSome states have laws that prohibit licensed mental health practitioners from subjecting LGBTQ+ minors to conversion therapy, a harmful practice that attempts to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.The vast majority of states have no such law in place, but many individual cities within those states have local conversion therapy bans.LGBTQ+ population densityThe population density of the LGBTQ+ community differs from state to state. A high LGBTQ+ population density can be a good indicator of an area’s resources, social climate, and sense of community.Other supplemental considerationsAlthough we placed the most weight on the factors listed above, other factors played a role as we considered our rankings as well:Overall equality by state (meaning positive laws and policies exist that drive equality for members of the LGBTQ+ community)Number of businesses that made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” listNumber of same-sex couplesNumber of pride centers in each stateExpert Reviews & Helpful Resources for Moving, Storage, & More’s 5 best states to move to start an LGBTQ+ Family#1: CaliforniaPhoto by Joseph Barrientos on UnsplashCalifornia checks all our boxes for raising an LGBTQ+ family. Hate crime laws cover both sexual orientation and gender identity, and anti-discrimination laws protect LGBTQ+ individuals in every category except for credit. Conversion therapy on minors is also banned within the state.Adoption laws allow same-sex couples to adopt, meaning it’s a great area to move if you’re planning to adopt another member into your family someday.The LGBTQ+ population density is quite high in California, too, coming in at 4.9% of the population, with almost 1.5 million LGBT-identifying peopleAdditional factors to consider21 pride centers are located in California.81 businesses in the state made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” list.98,153 same-sex couples reside there, with 16% of them raising children.There are 7.8 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.Median home sale price$478,200Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in CaliforniaLong BeachLos AngelesSacramentoSan FranciscoSan JoseSan Diego#2: IllinoisPhoto by Sawyer Bengtson on UnsplashAnti-discrimination laws in the Land of Lincoln protect LGBTQ+ individuals in all five major categories (employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, and state employment). Hate crime laws are also comprehensive and cover both sexual orientation and gender identity, helping you feel safe in your decision to move there.Conversion therapy for minors is banned within the state, as well.Illinois’s adoption laws cater to same-sex couples petitioning for joint adoption, making adoption easier in Illinois than in other states.If community is high on your priority list, Illinois is a good option. It has the second-highest number of LGBT-identifying residents, with 385,142 individuals making up its LGBTQ+ community.Additional factors to consider5 pride centers are located in Illinois.48 businesses made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” list.23,049 same-sex couples live in Illinois, with 16.6% of them raising children.There are 4.77 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.Median home sale price$201,500Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in IllinoisChicagoAuroraJoliet#3: HawaiiPhoto by Christian Joudrey on UnsplashLiving near clear blue water and white sandy beaches is certainly reason enough to want to move your family to Hawaii, but a host of equality-focused state laws and policies make it a great choice too.Hawaii’s hate crime laws cover both sexual orientation and gender identity, and its anti-discrimination laws address four of the five categories. (Credit-related issues aren’t covered.)Adoption laws in Hawaii are also favorable for LGBTQ+ families since same-sex couples can petition for joint adoption.Hawaii’s LGBTQ+ population density is also one of the highest on our list at 3.8% of the state’s population. This means there are currently 42,581 LGBT-identifying individuals throughout the islands.Additional factors to considerThere are many positive laws and policies in place that help drive equality for LGBT people in Hawaii.1 pride center is located in Hawaii.3,239 same-sex couples live in Hawaii, and 15.8% of them are raising children.There are 5.95 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.Median home listing price$599,950Best counties for LGBTQ+ families in HawaiiHawaiiMauiHonolulu#4: ConnecticutPhoto by Sam Burriss on UnsplashIf New England is calling your name, Connecticut is a great option to lay down your roots.Although it has the lowest LGBTQ+ population density in our top five at 3.5% (98,811 individuals), it scores high marks for safety and equality-related policies.Connecticut’s anti-discrimination laws cover all five major categories, and its hate crime laws address sexual orientation and gender identity. You should feel safe in your new home, and Connecticut’s policies lend themselves to protecting your rights and your family.If you’re looking to adopt in the state of Connecticut, the state has some work to do. Connecticut allows joint parent adoptions for same-sex couples. LGBTQ+ singles, however, may face certain restrictions as the state is not required to place a child with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual individual.Additional factors to considerConversion therapy is banned for minors.1 pride center is located in Connecticut.13 businesses made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” list.7,852 same-sex couples live in Connecticut, and 17% of them are raising children.There are 5.72 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.Median home sale price$251,300Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in ConnecticutStamfordNew HavenHartfordNew Britain#5: MarylandPhoto by Bob Burkhard on UnsplashMaryland rounds out our best five states to move to start an LGBTQ+ family. Like the other states at the top of our list, it has a large LGBTQ+ population and positive policies for all our main ranking factors.Both hate crime and anti-discrimination laws address all of the important considerations we looked for. Hate crime laws cover gender identity and sexual orientation, and anti-discrimination laws protect LGBTQ+ individuals in all five key categories (employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, and public employment).State law also bans conversion therapy for minors.Maryland scored well on its LGBTQ+ family-related laws and policies, as same-sex couples can petition for joint adoption within the state.Additional factors to considerThere is an LGBTQ+ population density of 3.9%, with 182,041 LGBT-identifying individuals.2 pride centers are located in Maryland.9 businesses made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” list.12,538 same-sex couples live in Maryland, and 20.3% of them are raising children.There are 5.81 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.Median home sale price$270,100Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in MarylandBaltimoreFrederickRockvilleCollege ParkHonorable mention: Best cities in the US to move to raise an LGBTQ+ familyAlthough our study focused mostly on what makes each state fit for LGBTQ+ families, a couple of cities stood out too.Washington, D.C.If individual cities qualified for our rankings, our nation’s capital would be number one. It ranks high for equality based on its inclusion of LGBTQ+ rights in local laws and policies, and it has one of the highest LGBTQ+ population densities in the country at 8.6%.New York City, New YorkThe Big Apple is another great choice for LGBTQ+ families, especially if you’re concerned about your work environment. New York has 114 businesses that made the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Places to Work in 2018” list—that’s over 30 businesses more than in the entirety of California, our number-one state.Expert Reviews & Helpful Resources for Moving, Storage, & More’s 5 worst states to move to start an LGBTQ+ FamilyAlthough the following states scored low on our overall ranking factors, you don’t have to rule them out entirely. Cost of living and other considerations may make them more appealing to you.If your heart is still set on moving to one of these states, each still has a few cities that are good landing spots for LGBTQ+ families.#1: West VirginiaUnlike our top five states, many of West Virginia’s laws and policies do not specifically define protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.Anti-discrimination and hate crime laws make no mention of protections for acts motivated by LGBT-related biases. There is also no law within the state banning conversion therapy for minors.Despite its current lack of equality-focused laws and policies, West Virginia does allow same-sex couples to adopt.Median home sale price$171,400Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in West VirginiaCharlestonHuntington#2: VirginiaVirginia isn’t much different from its western counterpart mentioned above. Neither hate crime laws nor anti-discrimination laws list specific protections for members of the LGBTQ+ community, with the exception of anti-discrimination protections for public employees. Conversion therapy for minors also isn’t banned by law in Virginia.Same-sex couples in the state can petition for joint adoption.Median home sale price$269,400Best places for LGBTQ+ families in VirginiaAlexandriaArlington County#3: WisconsinAmerica’s Dairyland doesn’t fare quite as poorly as the first two states in our bottom five.Although hate crimes in the state don’t cover gender identity, they do cover crimes related to sexual orientation–related biases. Anti-discrimination laws also cover sexual orientation, but only in the categories of employment, public accommodation, and public employment—gender identity, however, isn’t protected in any of the five key categories.Adoption is still difficult in Wisconsin. LGBT singles may petition for adoption within the state, but same-sex couples could face legal restrictions for second-parent adoptions. Keep this in mind if a future adoption is part of your moving decision.Median home sale price$177,700Best cities for LGBTQ+ families in WisconsinMadisonMilwaukeeAppleton#4: South DakotaMoving your family close to Mount Rushmore may make for some historical scenery, but South Dakota scores low in all our ranking factors.The tally of South Dakota’s overall equality policy is negative, meaning its laws don’t do much to protect the LGBTQ+ population, and some even drive equality down.Hate crime and anti-discrimination laws both lack protections for LGBTQ+ citizens, and South Dakota currently has no law banning conversion therapy for minors.As with Wisconsin, adoption in South Dakota is possible for LGBT singles, but same-sex couples may have trouble if they’re hoping to petition for a second-parent adoption through a private agency (depending on the agency, of course).Median home listing price$229,900Best city for LGBTQ+ familiesBrookings#5: North DakotaNorth Dakota isn’t much different from its southern neighbor from an equality perspective. Although you’ll experience wide-open spaces and a sparsely populated state (North Dakota is the third-least populated in the country), LGBTQ+ residents won’t experience the same protections as they would in other parts of the country.Crimes motivated by LGBT-related biases aren’t covered under North Dakota’s hate crime laws, and its anti-discrimination laws don’t address sexual orientation or gender identity in any of the five key categories.You’ll find a similar situation for adoption as you would in North Dakota, as well. While LGBT singles can petition for adoption, same-sex couples might experience legal restrictions for a second-parent adoption.Median home listing price$234,900Best cities for LGBTQ+ familiesFargoThe best states to move to start an LGBTQ+ family, ranked 1–50CaliforniaIllinoisHawaiiConnecticutMarylandNevadaNew MexicoNew JerseyVermontOregonDelawareNew HampshireColoradoRhode IslandMassachusettsFloridaArizonaMinnesotaMissouriMaineLouisianaKentuckyIowaKansasWashingtonNew YorkGeorgiaNebraskaAlabamaAlaskaArkansasIdahoIndianaMichiganTexasNorth CarolinaMississippiTennesseeMontanaOhioPennsylvaniaOklahomaWyomingUtahSouth CarolinaNorth DakotaSouth DakotaWisconsinVirginiaWest Virginia

In this question, it’s unclear what “small government” and “large government” are. How small is small and how big is big? For example, is a small government what we have now, or is an anarchy small? Likewise, is a large government what we have, or is Communism large?It’s vague and subjective. There is no set line on the borders between small, medium, and large governments. So the best way to answer is to try to define what is generally understood to be ideal for most American conservatives.Governance should exist. Most conservatives believe that people are generally not better off if left completely to their own devices with no forms of authority to guide and develop them. But where and how matters.Think of American government in four ways: Federal, State, Local, and Traditional Institutional.Federal GovernmentThe federal government is that which unifies and exists above the states. It oversees all the states in matters truly too big to resolve individually, or which state solutions make no sense. The military is the best example on this. For a time, our military was composed of a confederate style arrangement where different states mustered their own forces to combat whatever enemies might arise. This model produced troops that lacked a certain level of predictable ability, supplies, or discipline, command lines were difficult to negotiate, and lacked the ability to wage war overseas effectively. Simply put, a Federal military was necessary for the combined United States to be a world power. Likewise, it is generally good for the United States to have one representative in matters globally, say for peace treaties or international trade deals. Having a federal government is a great thing to have, but can cause massive problems if it grows too powerful.For example, regulating the affairs of Americans should be something done extremely rarely by the federal government. The American people are the most diverse collection of people in the world. Each state has a different combination of demographic, geographic, and resource concerns, as well as different values born from very different histories and cultures. For that reason, one-size-fits all solutions cooked up by a government beaurocrat appointed from one of the country’s two main political parties in an office in Washington thousands of miles away from most of the Americans his policies will affect probably isn’t going to be very good for very many people. For the vast majority of regulations on people’s lives and businesses, federal regulations are overkill or even destructive. Those policies need to be left to the states. Even things that literally everyone agrees with, policies like “Murder is bad” should be left to the states to write into their own constitutions as the way that each state deals with it’s murderers may not be the way other states would want to deal with the problem.Most conservatives view that the Federal government has grown far too powerful, particularly the office of the presidency. This is true going back all the way to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Since that time, numerous Presidents, even Republicans, sought to grow the roles of the Federal government by the creation of oversight ABC agencies that make policing and policy decisions for Americans in ways that are opaque and which are led by people appointed, not elected. This particularly affects the power of the Executive branch, but other means have also grown the power of the Legislative branch of Congress, like the creation on a myriad of committees overseeing aspects of American life and often use those as policy creation vehicle to subvert state interests at the Federal federal. Even the Judiciary has taken steps to grow beyond its mandate by way of “judicial reviews” where a court stacked in favor of one party’s agenda can review past policy and “legislate from the bench”. Most conservatives want for the Federal government to stay out of the process of dictating how Americans live their lives, what beliefs they should have on what topics, and if there is a need for that, it should happen at the state level.State GovernmentState Government is where most conservatives want to see more power gravitate to from the federal government. In some ways, it already is. If you google the Constitution of the United States, it may take you one sitting to read the whole thing. Understanding all its implications is quite a different matter, but you can read it in very little time. Google your state’s constitution and you’ll have a very different experience. Most laws that govern us day-to-day come from the state, and most states have thousands of laws on the books from everything like punishments for murder, to how taxes should be levied, and also that cursing in the presence of women might get you arrested (amen!). These laws are specific to the state, and do a much, much better job of accounting for the specific needs and values of the people of that state. They evolve to account for the resources of that state, whether that be mineral, technological, or human resources. They are about maximizing the potential of that state, while also accounting for each specific values that run common to that particular state.It is also best that radical policy happen at the state level. For example, many people like Medicare-for-All. Others feel it is a disaster waiting to happen. Possibly, both are right. It’s possible that a state like California could afford it, but the same program would be detrimental to the economy of smaller states, leaving them far worse off. There may be a crucial point where such a generous program simply can’t work, but above that point, the positives do outweigh the negatives. Is forcing a national plan and saying, “screw you” to the people who have valid reasons why it won’t work for them at least, the best option? We have to acknowledge that each state is different and if Oklahoma says, “If you do that, we’ll lose tens of thousands of jobs just to help a few people,” you might want to listen.But, what if California tried it out? Smaller nations outside the United States have tried, so why not? Why not a “CalCare” program for free medicare for all Californians? Oregon and New York could also try their luck. More power to them.If they did, they would either do one of two things:a) they would prove the conservatives right, which honestly sucks because everybody likes nice things for good people if they can work. Or…b) they discover new ways of solving problems in implementing their own system that might work. In doing so, the California system will be different from the New York or Oregon System. All three will be tailored just for their state and its needs. But many new ideas in trying to solve for that will come out of the process. Problems that conservatives foresaw may happen, and then in time be addressed.Then… Texas might look at what the others created, copy the best and adapt it to Texas needs, and create a fourth model. Then Illinois, then Tennessee, and so on. Eventually, states will experiment in creating so many programs, that other states get to borrow from, experiment with, and adapt. Oklahoma may eventually get a program that’s great by copying the states that had the luxury of making themselves guinea pigs. Also, maybe California’s original program sucked because it was based mostly on ideals and policies from other countries that don’t work in the United States. But maybe after a few other states tried new things, they adapted to what does work in America and over the course of a decade or so, come up with something really great.I’m not really a fan of universal healthcare, as it stands, but if it were to happen, I wouldn’t mind it come from the states. The states should be like a policy creation lab, where we have 50 different experiments constantly running on many different variables. Other states want to grow prosperous for their people, so they should be free to copy the best of what is working from other similar states in the aspects that matter. Federal one-size-fits-all solutions, again, benefit a few people, namely those from states’ whose party is currently in power at the moment, at the cost of monumental damage to other parts of the country.Local GovernmentLocal governments are the town and district you’re in. They’re your neighbors and the people who you went to school with. At the local level, people know where resources need to be distributed even better than the state. With more freedom to move and allocate resources from the state and local taxes, towns and cities can tailor their community’s growth to what they value. Perhaps a community wants to stay small, so they focus just on maintaining, while others want as much economic growth as they can get, so they focus on business. State solutions won’t fix that, and federal, certainly not.These policies affect your life far more than you realize, considering how little attention they receive. It’s hard to make a compelling news story about some town you don’t live in chooses to lay a new pipe to channel rainwater or redistricting underdeveloped parts of the town for new business. But, ten years from now, those decisions will affect the value of your home, the local job prospects, the education your kids receive, the crime rate, or the availability of goods and services much more than conversations about which bathroom transgenders use or Black Lives Matter.Traditional InstitutionsOne aspect that most people completely overlook in governance are traditional institutions. Traditional institutions are those institutions that weren’t invented or created with signing of a piece of paper like a town charter. No one intentionally directed their evolution, at all. They are collections of values and behaviors that have evolved over time to work for many people in a variety of places across many years.Examples include the Church and marriage. While an individual marriage may begin the day you get a marriage license, marriage itself evolved over thousands of years into a common set of expectations and behaviors between a man and a woman for the purposes of raising and nurturing the next generation to carry on and prosper. The same with the Church. A church may be chartered, but The Church is an institution that has evolved over thousands of years, even drawing from even more ancient religious practices since the dawn of human civilization.These institutions also only prosper when they better the people in them. A family (another traditional institution) is hurt by the failure of one of its members and made better by each family member’s prosperity. So a good family will nurture, groom, and discipline their own. A sports team could also be another example, where someone who doesn’t come to practice and skips matches gets disciplined by the team, and a well disciplined team that shares with one another the best tips to play the game wins championships. Everyone wins together; everyone loses together. Elected governments don’t do that very well. Elected governments are about taking care of their constituents by allocating resources in a way that keeps them winning elections. For that reason, anyone disrupting the normal flow of operations is a liability. That includes enemies and it also includes criminals. In fact, most people are really liabilities in some way, as a government with more power over fewer people is secure… if you are the government. Government’s natural first response would be to lock up or in extreme examples, execute deviants. To a government, deviance is to be put down, and “reeducation” violates many civil rights. But in a traditional institution, each member has a vital role in the prosperity and legacy of the whole. So they sacrifice for their members, but also promote them, promoting the long term benefit of everyone involved symbiotically. This institutionalization and indoctrination process, for many institutions starts at birth.Traditional institutions also grow together. In the way that traditional marriage is both related to religion and the family, all work together to benefit each other. Put all that together, and you get strong communities built on a strong social fabric of interlocking traditional institutions. They produce the collective norms and values of a society, and in strong communities, enforce them better than laws. Children are simply raised differently where some things are not okay, and never will be. They were indoctrinated from a very early age on “right” behavior by their community and the institutions within it. Because they view themselves as part of something bigger than themselves, they don’t harm the whole and seek to think in terms of what is best for them while also being best for others. This is compared to people who only do what is right to avoid the punishment of laws by government.Lastly, the strong social safety nets that big government policy makers want… they should come from these places. But as more and more policy is written to legislate this morality, less overall is given in total towards those who need it. That fact is demonstrated rather well by economist Arthur C. Brooks in Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.Traditional institutions, to be clear, aren’t really classified as government. You can’t elect them. You can’t really choose them. They simply exist because for eons, they worked. But they do the job of government in the way that most people think of government today. They manage people’s behavior, promote good attributes that contribute back to the community, discipline their members, and provide social safety nets. But they don’t view people as problems to be solved in the way that government does. They exist because they are built on systems that further their own existence because they work and always have. That is a strength that people should rely on more, and work to promote, rather than saying, “Somebody should do something,” and handing over the power they once had to a government, power that is very difficult to get back.Conservatives want all four levels of “government”. They don’t think that people should just be absolutely free to do whatever they want because many people weren’t raised right and some of those would do a great deal of harm to a great many people. Likewise, we don’t want to be under the thumb of an oppressive government we are powerless to affect and which doesn’t represent us.So we want there to remain those four levels, distinct and with their own individual purposes. Most of our morals and values should come from traditional institutions that raise us according to the best of what worked for our parents, grandparents, religious leaders, and others in our community who shape us collectively as individuals. Most of the business policy should come from our local communities, dividing and maximizing resources in ways that match our community’s values to a vision that we have the most power to influence. The state should provide a baseline of what is the minimum that we can get away with and what happens if we cross that line, as well as planning for strategies to maximize prosperity based on the specific needs and resources of each state. The Federal government should intervene in the lives and choices of the American people almost never, provide very little directly to Americans in the form of government aid programs, nor take much away in the form of taxes. They are there to deal with outsiders, both our allies and our enemies, as well as provide the bare minimum in negotiating interstate dealings to ensure the maximum prosperity for all Americans.Conservatives who argue against big government feel that as the power to influence our lives rises higher up that chain, the worse off we will all be. We need all of them, but power should be lower down the chain.