The problem is - it feels like we may need to force them, as messed as that sounds, unfortunately. There are a lot of people who do share that mindset opposite of yours out there, to tell the truth.
If the lowest level of authority cannot help, go to the next level. There would be no need for SNAP cards if we recognized just how much food we throw away, how inaccurate expiration dates are, and how obsessed we are with aestetics. If we stopped growing so much corn to feed to livestock and instead used our resouces responsibly to feed people sticken by famine and food insecurity, food stamps eould be obsolete. The US' agricultural policies are killing the family farm by encouraging overproduction, the flooding the market and suppresing prices, which family farms rely on to mantain their way of life. Only massive agricultural firms could turn a profit in this environment.
The Flint water crisis must be our wake up call. We cannot afford to put off updating and maintaining our infrastructure, while burning money to try and build a VTOL jet. The oil price spikes and heating earth is a sign we need to break away from coal and oil and combat climate change at every level, from the individual, to the family, and all the way to the international community. We don't need an oil pipeline that runs through sacred American Indian land! We need wind and tidal turbines, solar pannels, hydrogen fuel cells, possibly even geothermic power. Money needs to go to find a way to build better nuclear reactors, they could be Liquid Floride Thorium reactors or they could use He-3, rare on Earth, but abundant on the Moon. You shouldn't be cutting space exploration, we need to do more. Not just in space, but science in general needs to be encouraged and nutured, while still protecting the natural law. We need to enforce black letter law to break apart the price gouging trusts of healthcare providers and drug companies. Even if only used once, equipment like crutches and unopened suture packets are thrown away wastefully. Another trust that must go is news and media. We should never have allowed them to fall into the hands of a few aristocrats.
We need to bridge the gap between black communities and the police, recognizing actual corruption, excessive force and even institutionalize racism, as well as a culture of violence and resentment where ever it may fester.
Everyone deserves the chance to at productive, honest and justly paid work. Every child deserves an education that builds them up and prepares them for the future, poverty should not be a barrier, not while schools outrace inflation and collude with textboom companies! We must remove the payroll tax cap if we hope to keep Social Security alive and liquid.
My point is that the only way a society can be truely measured by greatness is not its military or wealth. It lays in how its people rally together to help the poorest, the weakest, and the smallest. That all starts at the smallest level, the individual. Not the government, not the richest capitalists, but every man, woman, and child.
