I’m a scientist, athlete, parent, and entrepreneur; I “retired” early and am married to a wonderful, smart, technology business owner. We do fun and exciting things, and we love each other and our kids, who are grown up now and doing fine.
I love political discussions, except when people get angry and irrational. Once I was involved in a conversation with an old friend about a range of public policy issues; my friend and I often disagree but we generally agree that our leaders could often do a much better job and that there are some big problems with the divisiveness and disfunction in our political system. “Well”, my friend finally asked, “what are you going to do to fix it?”
“Well, for starters”, I half joked, “we should have a Smart Party”. “Instead of just two parties that try to establish the other as the enemy marching in lock step around a slate of issues, have a leading party that just does what makes sense on every single issue”.
Of course it wouldn’t work, but maybe the idea isn’t totally crazy. I’ve been involved, to an extent, in public policy for a long time. Most people don’t really like smart people, and they often don’t like to listen to smart people. Smart ideas that make sense often don’t end up helping much because most people will still keep doing the same dumb things they’ve been doing, anyway. Even our elected government. Maybe especially our elected government. But, it seems, we have to try.
So I’ve dedicated this site to getting voters to act a little smarter and demand smarter government. What makes sense for us as a nation? I’m committed to the ideal that somehow we can bring people together and start acting smart, or at least try to act smarter.
