Citizen Well-Being

As I look at the 200 countries inhabiting the planet, I like to report each countries’ population, land mass, GDP and other data to see how they are doing. We all need to use our natural resources to develop a strategy to survive.  We all need food, clean water and shelter and I try to get some idea of how well citizens of each country are doing to fulfill their basic needs.

The governments of all countries have a responsibility to encourage their citizens to be self-supporting and aim their efforts to support this goal. In the best of countries, citizens are allowed to own property and can plant gardens and raise animals to provide for their own needs. Families who increase their production of food should be able to sell the excess to have money to buy equipment to help them produce more.

80% of all land on the planet is owned by government. Some of these governments grant citizens the right to use the land as “communal land”, but they are not permitted to buy it and own it individually.  They are denied the right of families to invest in land and own the profits from its improved value.  Therefore, these citizen land squatters have no incentive to take care of the land. Consequently, most of the citizens on the planet remain poor. Humans are created to work and provide for themselves and their families. Feudal land practices do not allow them to do this. The more land citizens are allowed to own, the wealthier their families will be.

Governments’ first responsibility to its citizens is to ensure that they have clean drinking water and some method of providing sanitation. Next, they should arrange for citizens to have some means of providing their own food supply by farming, raising livestock or hunting and gathering. Next, governments need to ensure that citizens have some methods to prevent preventable diseases or at least treat them. Malaria was once under control using DDT and something needs to be done to eradicate malaria.  Governments with poor areas need to work with charities to provide basic medical rescue and repair functions as well as education for villages. Finally, ensuring that government is not corrupt and can keep crime to a minimum falls to the government and the people.

Most countries are host to two different populations. One is urban and wealthier and the other is rural and impoverished. Governments usually attend to the wealthy urban areas and ignore the impoverished rural areas. These governments would do well to pay more attention to the rural problems.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader