How about going on an adventure to Whatiflund, a place where you could let your imagine run wild?What about going there with lots of money, enough to indulge your fantasy while there? What would you do with an almost limitless supply of money? You might find that you would do more practical things than you think you might, like creating a place that's unlike anything you can find here in the U.S. Enter Hiram E. Butts, billionaire industrialist and the creator of Whatiflund, a real place and not just a wonderland. Hiram had enough money to build anything that struck his fancy, and he knew the people who could get it done. Everyone has toyed with ideas of what they would do with big money at their disposal. I've dreamed of living in expensive houses, driving high dollar cars, traveling to places around the world, and living a high life . . . but I no longer want any of that. If I had millions of dollars, I'd still drive a car like I own now, and I'd live in a house much like the one I have now, and I most certainly wouldn't travel the world. But would I build a village where life is different than anywhere else? Damn right, and I'd do it with lots of imagination. And as a writer, I can build anything . . . even without the money to do it. I'm going to build it in Whatiflund.
Once upon a time I studied to be a manager, took up the study of public administration, thinking I might end up being a city or country manager somewhere. I scraped that idea in favor of a career in teaching, but I know some things about how government should be managed. Almost any real student of public administration looks at the American system as a disaster zone, a place where politics takes precedence over practical management. And we have to train people in this country to adapt to that style of management. If you look beyond the confines of that, you'll find places and people who do it much better than we do . . . not just a little better, but a great deal better. The U.S. is dregs of good management, almost top to bottom, and we all pay a big price for that. In short, as a citizen of this country, you've been screwed by inefficiency.
What if government did function more efficiently? What would life be like without all the oppressive demands from government on its citizenry? Forget the oppression of income tax; it's not that bad. It's bad enough, but it's nothing compared to the other levies we're forced to pay. You get doubled dipped every time government gets a chance. Federalism is a fraud, this duplication of function idiocy we've created that only loosed more tax assessment and collection on our society. And what do you get back for all that money? Uh, would that be freedom? Bullshit. That's just bullshit to keep you paying out the ass. If you check it out, you'll find free people living all over the world without all the tax pressure, or if they do pay higher taxes, they're actually getting something back . . . like decent health care coverage, or good educations, or an infrastructure that's maintained - the things you're not getting. I'm pushing hard to get out of here and be free somewhere else, but in the meantime, I'll keep writing stories about places like Whatiflund. I know these places don't exist in real life, but if we lose vision of what could be possible, we've lost everything. And we're getting there. We need to stop looking at the world around us from the top down, or the bottom up, and work toward finding something in the middle. And we can't do that very well when we're neck deep in all the refuge our current system dumps on us. We can still look up, and maybe that's where the answers are found. I don't know anywhere else to look.
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