NEW YORKERS SPEAK OUT AT AN IMAGINARY SYMPOSIUM EXPLORING AMERICAN SOCIETY'S MOST ALARMING OR GLARING WEAKNESSES

---"If we're the only major country in the world that fails to acknowledge the Global Warming Effect, what prevents us from getting perceived as an enemy to the foreign countries that do acknowledge that global environmental crisis and public-health crisis?"

---"If the rest of the world were to learn that two-thirds of the Global Warming Effect has been caused by Americans and American society, that could endanger our national security in this country in ways that President Trump never acknowledges. It's appalling to me that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security apparently hasn't identified the Global Warming Effect as a threat to our national security."

---"The contempt for mutual-consent platonic relationships that plagues American society these days is very outrageous to me. Whenever I tell someone about a female friend of mine whom I adore, the first thing I hear is, 'I don't believe in platonic relationships. Why don't you just admit that you're obviously having sex with her on a frequent basis?"

---"Whenever I take my 8-year-old son to Mass with me, I make sure that I watch him closely whenever the priest interacts with him. I'm so concerned about my son's safety inside our church that I plan to insist on random drug-testing and random alcohol-testing of our priest on a year-round basis. My belief is that my son is always safest whenever our priest's blood alcohol level is zero and Father Dylan also passes a drug test."

---"I don't know whether the Bishop of our diocese would agree to establish a mandatory random drug-testing and random alcohol-testing program for all of our priests in which results from those tests are made available to the general public by our diocese here in New York."

---"I did check the list of priests who have been credibly accused of impropriety with minors, and our priest is not on that list. Maybe we should hold a party to honor our priest for NOT being on that infamous list of allegedly pederastic priests! I would have to make it an alcohol-free party, though, in order to protect the safety of the children attending the event. As a parent, I strive to eliminate as many temptations as possible for our priest, since I look upon him as someone who needs protection from any scenario developing in which he might end up on that infamous credibly accused priests list."

---"Nine of every 10 homeless New Yorkers is someone who has an addiction to drugs or alcohol or tobacco. People sometimes forget that smokers spend so much money on tobacco that it drives them out of their home. Smokers also have to spend more for renter's insurance and health insurance, which plays a role in their going broke."

---"I think the stress of New York life makes it a year-round herculean challenge if you're trying to avoid developing a dangerous addiction. Friends will invite you to go gambling on weekends, and they insist that it will help to relieve your stress. Instead, you lose $10,000 from gambling and you are all the more stressed out from trying to figure out how you're going to pay rent on your apartment seven days later."

---"If you lined up 10 New Yorkers and asked them to identify their core values they each believe in, you would get 50 different replies. Some of them would cite 'getting high' as their core value. Others would cite 'getting drunk on weekends' as their leading core value. Then some would cite other core values that offend the rest of the group as being way too idealistic."

---"The percentage of Americans who are capable of physical violence is so high these days that I wish I could pull out a stun gun whenever I interact with a fellow New Yorker and he threatens to kill me or rape me or rob me. If they start to actually get violent toward me, I could threaten to use my stun gun on them. But I just now remember that it's not legal to own or use a stun gun here. Maybe I should petition our Mayor for legalization of stun guns. Otherwise, maybe I should use mace in a situation like that. I need to consult my attorney to make sure it's always legal for me to spray mace at a stranger here who threatens to kill me, rob me, or rape me."

---"I personally feel that the 'Mace for Men' market has not been exploited enough here. New York would make a fine proving ground for what I feel sure will be an increasing demand by the men in our city to keep mace on their person at all times."

---"My idea of philanthropy is donating money toward research on how to reduce the risk that if you use a stun gun to prevent a stranger from violently attacking you, the stun gun would cause an unexpected injury or fatality to the individual shot by the stun gun. If the risk of injury were reduced, this might help to persuade our city government to legalize stun guns here."

--"After stun guns get legalized here, maybe we could have a New York Stun Gun Owners Association that offers members a 24-hour-a-day hotline they can call if they have questions about issues that come up for them when they are carrying or using a stun gun in New York. Legal liability issues would be among the leading topics that callers could get advice on from staff members at that hotline service."

---"My concern is that if stun guns were legal here, the resulting stun gun mania could cause flagrant over-use of stun guns by New Yorkers at nighttime. They'll panic and immediately pull out their stun gun in order to fire it at someone who, it's later revealed, was completely innocent and completely lacking in any criminal intent toward them."

---"The best way to reduce the unwanted pregnancy rate for our city's teenage girls is to require them and all of the boys of their school to watch a factual documentary film inside their school auditorium that explores all the harmful repercussions from an unwanted pregnancy. The film could also offer 10 or 20 tips or suggestions on how to avoid getting pregnant and how to avoid impregnating a teenage girl."

---"I think the stress level here could be reduced by 50 percent if all New Yorkers had an emergency back-up plan in anticipation of a worst-case scenario in which King Kong strikes or some other natural disaster or man-made disaster occurs here. If every New Yorker had an emergency 'Escape from New York' plan that they could immediately implement in the event of a citywide disaster, this would reduce their anxiety levels quite a bit. You very quickly put your pre-selected items-to-salvage into a suitcase and take a bus to a pre-selected safe-home town an hour of two away. For instance, Buffalo might make a nice safe-home town for New Yorkers forced to abandon Manhattan in the event of a natural or man-made disaster here."

--"I think every New Yorker who's conscientious yearns for a strategy for reducing the number of plastic products they use in their everyday life. This is the least we can do to protect the environment. My problem with paper bags, though, is that they collapse on me whenever I try to use them to carry my groceries home from the supermarket. So maybe the issue here is that burlap bags should get promoted more here, as an alternative to plastic bags or paper bags."

---"I would welcome the opportunity to attend a Peace in the Middle East Brainstorming Session here in which the best ideas would then be submitted in writing to the United Nations, the Israeli government and to the Palestinian leadership. With all the brainpower we have here in Manhattan, the least we can do is to harness that brainpower into fostering a lasting peace throughout and between the Jewish-controlled and Palestinian-controlled sections of Israel."

---"I am one New Yorker who would love to see Israel become as financially independent as possible. The current system only spawns resentment from both Americans and from the Israelis, since the Israelis rely heavily on the United States for financial assistance. A lot of Americans refer to Israel as a welfare client of the United States, which I feel is very disrespectful."

---"Maybe if the Israeli flag were re-designed to include symbols for Palestinians in that flag, this might help to promote harmony between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis."

--"I agree with you that treating Palestinians as non-entities or pariahs is one of the most tragic mistakes that the Jewish people in Israel have made. After all, look how harmoniously Jewish people in the United States get along with Palestinian Americans. I have never heard of any fistfights breaking out between Palestinian Americans and Jewish Americans. But I have to admit that I haven't ever met a New Yorker who told me he was Palestinian in ancestry. The Palestinian-Americans are so tiny in number that it's hard to demonstrate the harmony between them and Jewish Americans in a way that would help to encourage Israelis to do something similar in their own country."

---"Maybe if we publicly promoted Palestinian-Americans who are honorable, this would help to encourage Israel to honor Palestinians there who are admirable. If we Americans set a good example for Israel, this might well help to usher in peace in the Middle East."

---"For me, overconsumption is one of America's most glaring weaknesses that we need to address ASAP. It's as if our entire nation were on the verge of contracting the gout, through our outrageously gluttonous lifestyles. People all over the world are understandably alienated by the wasteful over-consumption of natural resources and foods and beverages that Americans are flagrantly guilty of."

---"I don't blame those who say that over-consumption by Americans is inherent in our nation's approach to capitalism. Maybe what we need is a new and innovative economist who will develop a theory that overconsumption is actually HARMFUL TO OUR NATION'S ECONOMY in the long run. This might help to convince Wall Street to adjust its outlook accordingly."

---"I admire those few companies that manufacture products without there being any hidden message that declares, 'Obsolescence of this Product Was Planned in Advance by this Manufacturer.'"

--"I wish New Yorkers had more of an anti-litter ethos. I blame the kindergarten teachers here, since they don't do enough to teach five-year-olds why they should never, ever, litter, under any circumstances!"

--"To me, noise pollution is one of the biggest weaknesses of American society today. Everyone wants to be a good listener, and we're all urged to practice that habit, but it's impossible to listen well to another person if you're at risk of going deaf from noise pollution."

---"Personally, I wish New York would do more to reward companies that are willing to forego short-term profits in order to pursue a long-term goal that is socially responsible but initially costly to that company. For instance, I feel that our state government in Albany should offer tax discounts to each employer that offers paid time off to each of their employees for getting a series of diagnostic medical exams that they have a certified need for."

---"When we talk about the suicide rate here in New York, we have to include the thousands of New Yorkers who refused to change their dietary lifestyle in order to live longer. So they ended up having a heart attack and dying young. This is a form of abandonment of their spouse and children, if you ask me--it's a flagrant form of child abuse, in fact, if you die young from being irresponsible in your eating habits!"

---"To me, the failure of American society to make a quick conversion to the Metric System ranks among our most glaring weaknesses. If our entire nation were to make a full and speedy conversion to the metric system, this would help to conserve energy, through reliance on a more precise system of measurement. The full conversion to the Metric System in the USA would also promulgate the message to the entire world that America is devoted to being a full and proud participant in the 21st Century---and a trading partner for other nations that communicates effectively using the "same language", the Metric System, in communicating with businesses in foreign nations."