Sometimes we have the best intentions but our approach is flawed. If we don't make changes to the approach, then no matter how good our intentions are... they will be received poorly or hurt people.
For example... One Saturday morning... I went to a local McDonald's for a quick bite. There was a tall burly man with long black hair next to me just receiving his order. He appeared to be by himself. When his order arrived, I noticed he had ordered 5 large fries and one hamburger. I said to the man, "You really like fries." He responded in a quick and angered tone, "What do you mean by that?" My intentions were to spark a conversation. My approach could have been better so not to imply any possible negativity or hurt to others.
We can learn from these moments... that all the good intentions in the world means nothing without a well-thought-out approach of how to ensure a positive response.
In business, our intentions are to implement changes to processes and systems for the betterment of the business. How we ensure that we are implementing what was intended is by testing it first in the development and quality-assurance environments. This is a sound business approach.
In politics, we do not typically have a development or quality assurance environment to test ideologies or new legislation. Sometimes, legislators will use specific states to test a new ideology to see how it may impact the rest of the country. The state of Colorado a couple of years ago... legalized marijuana to test the economic and social impacts in their community. The federal government allowed this to happen as a test. This test is still going on and metrics is being gathered daily to understand its impact. Some may not agree with this approach, but government needed a test environment.
Sometimes government doesn't do a controlled test and an ideology and legislation is implemented that the public doesn't fully understand. As a result, some unforeseen negative impacts may affect its people, businesses, our communities and our economy.
A perfect example of this was the 20+ trade deals since NAFTA, the Middle East War and the Patriot Act. I am sure that the government had some of the greatest minds trying to position America to succeed in the global economy. However, the approach and impact on many in America had a devastating impact. Loss of jobs, cuts in salary, a disparity in wealth, invasion of privacy and an increase spiritual intrusion in our lives... to mention a few. Their intentions were honorable, but they failed to understand that people do not want to be controlled; they want a respectable living wage and to learn from making their own choices in life. There approach was flawed and they did not change their approach when it had negative affects on the good law-abiding citizens.
If one of the goals is to provide a global economic balance between all countries, then this is truly honorable. However, the approach was not always sound and many people felt the impact while others prospered. If we learned from the religious bias, greediness, that no one has a right over another person's body, their choices, their lifestyle and truly looked at equality for all, then that is truly honorable.
This stated... Have we learned from our past mistakes, flaws and previous approach so we can design fair-trade deals? If so... then we should revisit approving new trade deals to continue with the global economic balance.
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Was the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) been removed or addressed in trade deals, so Americans cannot be negatively affected by lawsuit fees and EPA regulatory workarounds? If not... it needs to be corrected.
Do you think we have learned from our previous flawed approach so we can move forward for the benefit of everyone globally?
If so... contact your political leaders and share your thoughts.
If not...contact your Political Leaders and share with them what still needs to be fixed so we can move forward for the benefit of all.
Let your politicians know. www.usa.gov/elected-officials
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