JUST LIKE A tiny tyke afforded his first-ever lifetime lick of a luscious ice cream cone and then demanded to deliver a verbal verdict: "Ah, but there is so much to tell!"

 

THAT'S EXACTLY how I feel today in my appointed task to share with you all the wondrous blueprint for our bold 2018 Write-In Campaign for Congress: "Ah, but there is so much to tell!" I only pray I don't suffer a brain freeze and you, the reader, don't suffer in any way from my legendary longwindedness.

​

IN FACT, at this judicious juncture (as George H.W. 'Daddy' Bush might say), I am compelled to revisit the churchgoing days of my youth and one fiery fundamentalist preacher who constantly pointed to his own fourfold plan for rather succinct simplistic salvation: Stand Up-Speak Up-Sit Down-Shut Up. :) In that same light, I will at this moment lay forth my just-as-tightly-tailored, baseline Congressional Campaign Plan for the 15th District, likewise fourfold in nature.

​

IN SO DOING, I will certainly seek not to bore from the pulpit or bully from the bully pulpit. My quest and zest is not to stray from the path of progress and planning in lieu of tactical and tantalizing eloquence, but rather stay the course and merely tell the Story of what I dream and what I deem to be the best method and mode to reach it. As dreamers (and travelers) say, "If you're going fast, go alone; if you're going far, then go together." Let us all get there together, as we strive to shift the sands of time throughout the Sunshine State, transforming the beachhead not into a potential battleground but a prescient, prosperous Promised Land, fit for a King and full of a generation of princes and princesses poised to enjoy it. LIVE The DREAM.~

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

TO BE perfectly frank (or "Franco"), if you don't like living and celebrating life among happy, holistic Hispanics, perhaps The Sunshine State is not the perfect place for you anyway. At the present time, Florida is 23 percent Hispanic, with nearly a 30-percent slice of that population pie hailing from Cuba; another 20 percent from Puerto Rico; and, a significant 15 percent from Mexico itself. It would take a special kind of stupid to imagine the beautiful people (men, women and children) depicted above as "aliens," interlopers, strangers in a strange land, or troublemakers of any fashion, style or sort. They are simply citizens -- or, non-citizens -- children of the common dream. There is no need to treat them uncommonly or unkindly.

​

IN REALITY, most sadly, brown has become the new black. A troubling large number of contemporary Hispanic neighbors in Florida are being treated daily with all the slings, arrows and vicissitudes of the Old Civil Rights struggle way back in the Sixties. Yesterday is dead and gone, my friends. Let's lay these ghosts to rest and not simply look for new scapegoats, and new ways to blame the old problems of society on those with the least "seniority" or standing status. Let's stand tall for the dream, not stoop low for the so-called 'solutions.' Florida can be a true, taut, tested Dreamland; let's not make it a mean land.

​

IN A DR. DAVE Johnson Congressional Administration, the very first day I would appoint a trusted senior staffer as Hispanic Outreach Officer, vested with the awesome responsibility of literally reaching out the hand of fellowship to all Hispanics from all sources and fountainheads in the great State of Florida. To be truly great, we must harness the pure power of all people, ignoring not a one, shunning none, and setting the communal conference table of full fellowship for all each and every day.

​

THE ALTERNATIVE is stagnation, distrust and destruction, especially economically speaking. Are you even aware the fields are already experiencing severe labor shortages due to Mr. Trump (& Mr. Obama before him) making it far too easy to remove & deport hardworking migrants? Dovetailed with the negative nexus of how truly difficult it already is to even enter the country, astute observers can surely see the reason (if not the rhyme) in why fertile fields run fallow. Some labor-intensive crops (i.e., asparagus) are currently problematic (or pricey) to obtain, and nationwide consumers will soon notice a lack of choices on their dinner table(s) and salad bars in the heartland if some optimal options are not implemented forthwith. Together, we can do it! No one in Florida has ever been fearful of hard work!! Si se puede; si se puede. YES, WE CAN. :)

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO CALL contemporary community policing a disaster is far too kind a nomenclature; not since Oakland 1968 have our American streets become virtual killing fields for citizens (innocent & not-so-innocent alike) shot down with impunity by those charged with the sacred duty of guarding them. So much for guarding. Not to sound redundant, but who's guarding the guards -- and who's guarding the henhouse? As Brother Malcolm once famously said, "The chickens have truly come home to roost."

​

THERE ARE three bullet-points that stand out in the midst of this maelstrom and fateful fusillade of flying bullets in every furtive street and alleyway:

a) WE (that is, the community as a whole and police employers) must work (much) harder to weed-out the "bad apples" in the first place. They are already ruining the whole barrel.

IN MINNESOTA, a black man is pulled over for a routine traffic stop. When he politely & professionally informs the Officer he is (legally) carrying a handgun, the response is swift & certain (and certainly devilish): BAP!-BAP!-BAP! One dead citizen. Driving While Black, and daring to Carry a Handgun While Black, in America -- a fatal mistake indeed.

SIMILARLY, IN TULSA (deep in the heartland), a gentleman of color (are we starting to detect a pattern here?) approaches a law officer in supposedly menacing fashion. When she thinks she sees a gun, the result and response is all too predictable (and similar): BAP!-BAP!-BAP!! ... It pains me to type these Bap-Bap-Bap descriptors. This is not a 'Batman' TV script; it is real life, and such malevolent, malicious acts by agents of law enforcement are routinely costing lives -- and ruining them. And, the discordant reprise in this (un)holy melody & modern American anthem is that not a single one of these runaway, run-amok trigger-happy law enforcement agents ever served a single day in jail. They were all acquitted!!

UPDATE: March 2018 -- The litany and de facto assassination list seemingly never ends, at least if you are an African-American young man: Sacramento, Calif.'s Stephon Clark, just 22, was riddled with bullets by police in his grandmother's yard like something out of a bad Batman movie, shot eight times (six in the back). This is no movie. If it were, it would surely be a tragedy of epic American proportion. Riddle me that, Batman.*

​

THE SIMPLEST (and sharpest) tool in our tactical tool box to cease such madness is called psychometric testing, really just a fancy way of saying better psychological screening for incoming Officers initially, and for those already on the force who might present even the slightest hint or trace of a threat to their surrounding community, fellow Officers, or themselves. It is a privilege to serve as a law enforcement officer, not a right. Therefore, we can test them (tried-and-true) at great length, and then test them again. I once sat through an entire day of psychometric testing for employment consideration with a major national security firm ("rent-a-cop"). Doesn't the legacy of life and liberty demand real cops submit to far "worse"? I say it DOES. It is time for a healthy dose of transparency and accountability in the American streets. Death and destruction has already had its day.

​

PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING is today's answer, not tomorrow's future vision. It is ready now. Simply implement a trusted array such as the MMPI [Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory] and in just a few hours, the community will know which officers to trust, and which are "bust." The bad apples would immediately be pruned from the force, so as not to contaminate the rest of the core (and corps). This is no laughing matter, and neither is it science fiction. IT IS THE ANSWER. Test bad cops today.

​

b) JUST AS Psychometric Testing is truly an easy tool to take from the box and implement in short, sharp order, so too is our next salient, succinct Suggestion of community policing -- regularly-scheduled, informative and foundational community forums, in which the community comes together with the leadership (and rank-and-file) of its associated, allied law enforcement agencies, at the state, regional, county, city, town and village strata.

​

FOR THE COST of a box of doughnuts and a gallon of coffee, people can come together as people and live & learn in unison rather than fight & quarrel in the streets and alleyways of America. Is that too much to ask? Any such police agency which cannot schedule and sponsor just such a viable forum at least once a month is not worth its salt nor certainly it is not the salt of the earth. Let us strive for more. Let us work toward communication in community policing all across America and in every town and hamlet scattered throughout the diverse 15th District. Together, we can do it. Divided, we shall never stand (and surely someday fall). We must stand together. First, we must talk; secondly, we must devise a Plan; third, we must put it to work. That's what these suggested Community Forums between police and citizens are all about. Make them a part of your life -- and your community -- today.

​

c) NEVER LET it be said that your Candidate, Dr. Dave Johnson, is not a man of innovative ideas: The third plank in our community policing component is the jolting notion that -- with a little planning -- police officers walking the beat in each precinct could someday be elected by the citizens they serve within each community and specific neighborhood.

​

THE IDEA is, those same citizens then receive (daily) the brand and style of law enforcement they "deserve" (and desire), whether it be tightly-constricted, close to the bridle, or 'open-style,' rough-and-tumble that still gets the job done. How "strict" the individual officers are, and how they choose to enforce the highly malleable street-level tenets of law, would thus (at the ballot box) be up to the community. Is that so radical and unreachable?

​

I SAY we are ready, with a few tweaks and tactical machinations, i.e., every new Officer so elected would (obviously) still be committed to attending (and graduating from) the standard (existing) police academy. Let us make this radical idea routine.

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'SUSTAINABILITY' became quite the buzzword among policy wonks and public servants approximately two decades ago -- but, in reality & the cold, stark light of day, exactly what does it mean? Simply put, it is the standard stool at your kitchen counter, the everyday item which depends upon all three sturdy underpinning legs, lest its occupant be summarily and inconveniently tossed out in the floor in the midst of consuming morning eggs.

​

JUST AS all three legs are vital (& vibrant) on a kitchen stool, so are the three essential components of community sustainability: The so-called three E's. In order for any American community across the heartland or vested in our inner streets to survive or sustain itself, there must -- by definition -- be perpetual, progressive sustainability imbued within every cogent core and prescient precept of: 1) economic elements (where the community presents its citizens a viable opportunity for a decent living and reasonable quality of life); 2) environmental elements (where that same community opts not to rape itself or the surrounding countryside, watershed and overarching eco-system in order to achieve shameful short-term goals); and, 3) lastly, but certainly not least, egalitarian elements of [social] equity, in which all members of the community -- citizens & non-citizens alike -- righteously receive equal opportunity, due process and equal protection under law on a daily basis.

​

THEN, AND ONLY THEN, can any American community (and the 15th Congressional District) dare call itself a bold bastion and fiery fortress of sustainability. Threefold, this is the American Way, the American Dream, and the very heart & soul of this Congressional Campaign. Join us and work together for these lofty goals which are truly achievable in unity and unison. Holistic harmony is the most beautiful song of all, and sustainability can be -- with a little work -- its most enduring verse.~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CUTTING-EDGE, on-the-cusp social theorist Michael Lipsky said it best way back in the Eighties: "Most citizens encounter government (if they encounter it at all) not through letters to their Congressman or even regular attendance at school board meetings, but rather through their children's teachers and the policeman on the corner or in his cruiser. Each encounter of this kind represents an instance of policy delivery." In other words, good government (that governs best) is not so much the least government, but that which rises strategically (and in plateaus) from the ground up -- true participatory democracy and grassroots governance. Some might even say cultivating same is the be-all and end-all of the ever-fertile American Dream.

​

IT MOST certainly impacts how we interact with government at all levels, and how we -- as citizens (and non-citizens) can most effectively, efficiently and in workable egalitarian fashion loosen the perpetual bureaucratic red tape and facilitate the functioning and smooth-running cogs of the intricate eternal government machine. After all, to curse it is one thing -- to 'cure' it, yet another. Many modern-day Americans fall victim to the "Iron Horse" model of government from the colorful days of The Old West -- i.e., "Ugh, Iron Horse bad. It ruin land, bring bad people." While some elements of this accusatory evaluation may well be true, it fails to stand the resonant test of time as an enduring maxim. The railroad -- while not directly sponsored by, nor an arm of, the government -- still vastly improved the lives and liberty of those who were served by it. It would thus be just as pointless as cursing into the wind, or every whit and vestige of American government (in the mold of radical Ronald Reagan: "Government is not the solution to our problem -- government is the problem"). These thoughts and tenets are wholly, wholeheartedly not endorsed nor embraced by this Campaign. We readily acknowledge the perpetual potential, proud promise and continual caveat of knowing, deep-down, that often in the short-term, government can provide the grassroots solution, regardless of the propensity or temptation to blame it for every available ill. It is far healthier, the Dr. Dave Johnson Campaign contends, to work together than to engage in silly platitudes or sanguine sloganeering decrying the available and axiomatic redemption of good government across the American heartland.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AS IN MOST Dr. Dave Johnson-related conversations & dedicated dialogues, there soon enters a "bonus" element or array of additional information, debate and cogent commentary. :) Here is no different; we are happy to offer a fifth "bonus" plank to our four-pronged platform propping up the enthusiastic, enlightening Campaign: That is, the Flavor of Florida.

​

FLORIDA IS A state -- and state of mind -- like no other. People come here from "everywhere else" in order to achieve every available component and pleasurable spark of The American Dream. With such promise comes awesome responsibility. We who are here first must take some bold, bright measures to illuminate this horizon of hope and Land of Dreams; otherwise, our newcomers and visitors may determine the whole palm-lined façade is all an illusion, an overarching, all-enveloping House of Disney which holds nothing beyond imagination and creativity.

​

WE ARE, collectively, so much more than that. We -- the beautiful, pristine State of Florida -- are the closest thing to heaven one will ever find all around this revolving third rock from the sun. One must immerse into its waters not just tentatively, toe-first, but all-out, splashing and cavorting in The Sunshine State's welcoming rainbow of wonderment. We are truly a Land of Dreams, working hard to harvest and refine these shared dreams into an impressive multi-cultural, many-faceted tapestry of inclusion not delusion, extrusion not exclusion, and redemption not exemptions. We are all in this together, and we must never be blinded by the benevolent, beneficent Light of the Land of Florida. Since the days of the Seminole wind -- and long before -- this boldly beautiful majestic land has offered freely an enchantment and flavor which defies description across the palate of all citizens and their holy-held spectrum of expectations and achievements.

​

KNOWING ALL this, we can further expand our pure probabilities for success and sacrosanct sharing and, in the midst of it all, even more so improve the seemingly already perfect place we call home, a stone's throw from heaven and a single grain of sand from the Land of Dreams. Let us now join together to make this dream a reality. That -- and that alone -- is our quintessential quest and clarion call in this cohesive, cogent Congressional Campaign. Join us.~

​

                                               ***************************************************************

​

SO, THERE YOU HAVE IT: The specific, precise five-plank platform of the Dr. Dave Johnson for Congress Campaign. Located conveniently elsewhere at this site, you will find other just as helpful, just as targeted and spot-on information to assist you in coming to know Dr. Dave both as a candidate and a person. For example, look to the Experience Tab (at the top of the page) for virtually any component you need relating to background; likewise, simply click on the Platform Tab for Dr. Dave's exact stance on every hot-button issue under the sun. It's all there, just waiting for your review, at your convenience. There's no excuse for anyone to say, "I don't know who Dr. Dave Johnson is!" DON'T WRITE ME OFF. WRITE ME IN !!~ Dr. Dave Johnson for Congress, subject to the November 6th, 2018, general election, your Independent/Write-In candidate.****

​

                                                         *****************************************************

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​