The revolution was successful! The old government is gone. You get to help write the new Constitution. What do you put into it?
Hey guys! It's ya boi Walter Wiggles comin at you with a brand new constitution. Don't forget to like comment and subscribe. We're doin a new constitution every week, so leave a comment and tell us what freedoms YOU want to see!
I so wanted to downvote you because that legit annoyed me lol.
Shout out to my boy 📢 📢 📢 A-A-ABRACADABRA HAM 📢 📢 📢
Housing should be affordable, and never sold as an investment
Housing is a human right. Along with access to food, nutrition, healthcare and education.
And water + clothing
Companies shall not own Residential Property under any circumstance.
Companies with Vacant Comercial Property beyond a certain time (1 year maybe?) after the last long term Lease (5 years?) have to prove an effort in filling the vacancy or face 20%(?) of the properties value as fine per year of vacancy.
That ought to fix the property market imo. Values debatable but general idea should help fix things.
Good. Housing should never been an investment. HUD or The New Communist HUD that we are writing into the Constitution will own all non-private primary housing stock and will ensure that at least 10% more capacity then is needed exists in every metro area.
I think what OP was getting at was not housing being sold to make money down the line but housing being bought, then sat on until prices rise, then sold for more money. All while the property lays vacant.
Not sure though since I can't read minds.
In any case:
overhead costs of fixing everything that breaks
ah yes the act of renting suddenly makes those costs disappear, you know you'd have even less cost if you bought wherever you are living instead since now you don't have the overhead cost of paying the landlord? Renting being cheaper is a myth because most people rent apartments, not houses (At least where I live). If 10 people owned the apartments in the house they live in and shared the repair costs they would be significantly cheaper off than if those 10 people rented their apartments from a landlord.
Unfortunately, some people think their way is the only way and won't open their minds to people wanting different ways to live (own, rent, etc).
There's nothing wrong with renting but some people demonize it for no reason.
That it gets reworked every seven years.
A pretty good idea from Jefferson that was just maybe a bit of a mistake to leave out.
Every citizen has a right to food, water and adequate shelter.
Anything that makes you a captive market cannot be private or has to have a free public alternative.
Things like healthcare, transport, housing, water, energy, internet etc.
Equal rights.
Anything that makes you a captive market cannot be private or has to have a free public alternative.
If there is a private non-free alternative, it is inevitable that eventually a politician will be corrupted and opt for less public funding hoping to artificially make the private one much better, and then get their share of the profits.
Just the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple:
I empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
V Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
VI People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word. Crest image by Luciana Nedelea.
Crest image by Luciana Nedelea.
Truly inspired words to live by /s
the fuck even is the satanic temple, a philosophy? a religion? what does it even identify as exactly and why pick satan as their mascot
They're basically trolls who put pressure against blue laws. They're genuinely great and are a large reason why things haven't devolved into theocracy. Every time fundamentalists get a huge W passing an abusive law they come in to prove just how easy it is to turn it against them.
"If you think it's OK to merge the state with Christianity, then it is by your definition ok for us to build a satanic temple in the white house"
It’s basically an atheistic philosophy. I’m not sure why they decided to theme around a rather controversial and unpopular semi-deity from a religion.
All software that's paid for by taxpayers must be open-source, or at least source-visible. I know some European countries are heading this direction (or may already enforce this) which is great.
Actually, let's do that for everything that's funded by taxpayers. If I'm paying for something through taxes, I should be able to see more detailed information about where the money is going and the output of it.
You have free reign here why not just make all software have to be open source?
Although I tend to agree with that, there are softwares that should not be open source by nature. For example, an open source antivirus would not be effective.
All income over $10m per year is taxed at 100%. Foreign and domestic put together.
I get where you are going but it would make more sense to be based on a percentage above a living wage or something like that. In 100 years 10 million will be worth a lot less than today.
Okay, I'll start with a basic one. Equal rights for everyone, regardless of beliefs, physical traits, emotional traits, sexuality or financial situation - will probably need amendments since it's hard to come up with every possible circumstance.
regardless of beliefs,
What about Nazis?
They should still have the same rights as everyone else, and that shouldn't be a controversial statement. But of course, as soon as they break the law, they should be punished. If they never break the law, they should have every right to be shitty people in public.
The government choosing what is morally right and what is morally wrong and punishing people for holding morally "wrong" beliefs is exactly what led us to be in the situation we are in right now in the US and China. Not everyone will ever agree on what is right or wrong. Make laws based on actions, not beliefs, and if anyone commits those actions, punish them for that.
I mean I don't cherish the idea of giving a Nazi anything, but I still think they deserve equal rights, but it probably also depend on what you mean by rights. My interpretation would be that this include every service provided by the government. Handling groups like Nazis I think would fall under hate speech if they use their opinions to antagonize or incite violence towards other people.
They exist in countries with coalition governments (e.g. Germany) and yes the Nazi parties are popular, but they do not hold a majority and likely never will, so their power is reined in (just as with other parties).
If the party didn't exist, then those fascists would just join other mainstream parties and sow division within them (see: UK and US politics). Fascist pigs should have a voice, and be represented, like anyone else. Their voice just shouldn't drown out anyone else, and that is the case in a government that has proportional representation as one of its founding tenets.
Equal rights yes but please remove the "lift crazy religious beliefs/rules to a right" thing some people interpret into "freedom of religion", especially as it affects children of those people or the ability of those people to discriminate in direct contradiction to the equal rights clause itself.
The entire body of the state, be it executive, legislative, or judiciary should have a youth quota.
Like say at least 60% of members must be 40 or under.
People over 50 are fundamentally incapable of comprehending the modern world and because they won't have to live in the world they are building -- They are more than willing to sacrifice us all to guarantee their own.
Full disenfranchisement of the old would be reckless, but a quota? Yea.
Had shit to do. Had to stop short. Now that I'm back, a few additions:
While I'm in board with the sentiment, I think there would be a lot of implementation problems with this. Just off the top of my head:
As for the wealth tax thing, I don't care if it has implementation issues lol
Aren't a lot of professionals who build this world 50-somethings?
Broadly because of gerontocracy and the idea that oldness = competency.
It is also why the world is slowly dying and the people in charge don't give two shits: They'll be dead by the time it gets TRULY shitty so they don't have any incentive to care.
And as far as like, work is concerned, gerontocracy is fine.
Not so for politics. Hence, youth quota.
Too many too old politians. But how to slim the fat. Quota is a neat idea. How about senility test, based on current known conditions and the avg age they occur. The test needs to occur more frequently on people of older ages due to increase odds.
I feel a quota alone would sometimes screen out perfectly fine older people, while keeping the ones who shouldn't be there .
Also 40...damn. I think 20 and 30 year olds can, but rarely have enough life experience for something like this. 35-65 is probably prime age for politicians IMO.
Also a pretty interesting idea, a sort of per-election test to see if they are both fully sane and up to date on current events.
... Although the senility test might end up as a tool of disenfranchisement anyway. Just remember Literacy Tests in the American Slave States during Jim Crow.
🤔🤔🤔
Okay, so I have put a LOT of thought into this question, and after reading everyone else's opinions on the matter, I thought I'd share mine. You guys have a lot of good ideas, some of which I didn't think about before. I hope my ideas can inspire similar contemplation.
Okay, here goes:
IN THE NAME OF liberty, truth, justice, cupcakes, porn, and all that is good in this life, We The People of The Motherfucking Galactic Republic hereby establish and ordain this new Constitution, with blackjack and hookers.
Based on the millennia of suffering of ourselves and our ancestors, We The People hereby establish and remind the reader that ALL PEOPLE HAVE BASIC NATURAL RIGHTS that either the government or any organization of people cannot violate, or must enable and adhere to, respectively. We lay out this Constitution to provide a Framework from which the government, organizations and the people can sort out what and how that should be done, and what ways most benefit the people.
We also hereby establish in the name of harmony, justice, truth and goodness that along with RESPECTING AND ENABLING NATURAL RIGHTS, government, organizations and the people must also adhere to certain responsibilities to ensure the best and most positive outcome for the people and to protect the natural rights of everyone involved.
NATURAL RIGHTS
We the People hereby establish this list of Natural Rights we recognize from the start.
We first stress that this list is not exhaustive, and that Natural Rights are not limited to only the contents of the list. As the future plays out, the people will experience situations new to humanity and therefore the Natural Rights of which the people expect the government and organizations to enforce and protect will, by its nature, expand. New amendments to this list shall be done in accordance with the instructions of this here Constitution.
RIGHT #1: THE RIGHT TO HAVE ONE'S PHYSICAL NEEDS MET
The most basic of all Natural Rights is the right to have one's physical needs met by the government and organizations. These rights include, but not limited to:
No organization and no government can receive or require payment for the fulfillment of any of these aspects of the right to have one's needs met.
RIGHT #2: THE RIGHT TO SAFETY
We The People assert that we live in an objective reality with a natural world filled not only with wonders, but with many dangers, and therefore the government and organizations are mandated to protect, enforce and safeguard the very real need the people have to maintain and protect themselves, each other, their communities, nation and species.
These rights include, but not limited to:
Weapons are defined as:
Ordnance is defined as:
FOR THE safety, protection, provision, and betterment of the people of The Motherfucking Galactic Republic, the government is mandated to have and operate A SPACE PROGRAM, to be given no less than 10% of the federal government's gross earnings (whether they be taxes, direct revenue, however the hypothetical government makes money).
This space program must do, bare minimum:
And that's as far as I've got. The Motherfucking Galactic Republic is obviously just a filler name; I don't know if any of these ideas would ever be implemented but they could be used for any new nation, so...
All laws must be beneficial to all the children of the next 9 generations.
All laws that aren't part of the constitution, or charter have a 20 year sunset date.
I agree in principle, but this is practically unenforceable. How do we determine as a society what will be beneficial in 9 generations, and agree?
You build a timemachine. You set a date for the future. If the machine says that it cannot generate a portal at that date, you edit the policy until it does.
How would that be determined?
Fuck, yeah!
What will benefit the children born in 200 years?
Long term space colonization
Stopping climate collapse
Complete restructuring of our social and legal systems
A few little things here and there, really
I tend to agree with pinkdrunkenelephants
Law sunset time is interesting.
Jefferson proposed the idea, didn't get the Continental Congress to agree
"Don't be a dick."
That would already be violated during the writing of said constitution.
Political parties are outlawed. Every MP should represent their own view, not tow a party line dreamt up by a PR agency.
Your vote affects others (like driving, owning a gun etc put others at risk). To vote you must pass a test; to pass the test we offer free education. To enable you to attend this education, we offer you a universal basic income. The test must not discriminate based on gender, age, sexual orientation, income etc etc.
Who would design and oversee this test?
I get the subtext of that question and I can understand this concern.
But what I’m proposing is that in a new constitution to properties of the test is guaranteed and then you’d put a cross-population group of experts together to formulate a test that lives up to those constraints. No doubt you’d end up in a courtroom every now and again to settle whether a specific question was constitutionally sound or not.
I think we could work it out. We can for driving tests.
I'll go the opposite. Political parties should be anonymous. We shouldn't associate a party with any single person.
This has caused people not to vote for a party because they don't like who is running it, but they agree with almost everything else.
If the parties became faceless entities, and a list of policies, then you can make a more informed and less prejudicial vote.
No human has any rights that they would deny to others.
Is 8 really not relevant? Considering our 45th president?
So I agree with all of these, but someone has to ask so it'll be me:
Why abolish the senate? It was established to be opposite the house as a system where every state is represented equally. The concept of the senate guarantees a form of equality between Rhode Island and California, where in the house a vote that massively benefits California will inevitably drag lesser states with it by sheer population difference.
The reality is that the states are mostly independent entities with their own constitutions and governments. What's good for California may not be good for Rhode Island, and it's not very fair that you'd have to get the whole east coast on board to vote down an initiative championed by California alone.
I understand that the metaphor between California and Rhode Island isn't a perfect one, its sole purpose is to illustrate the point.
Although not as important as population representation, locational representation still makes a ton of sense for a country as geographically big as the united states.
A purely population based government without locational representation on a federal level would likely tip the power of law to the 5% of US land mass occupied by cities, and end up having the other 95% eventually forced to follow laws that don't make sense from a rural or suburban perspective.
So the senate does serve a purpose in that regard.
Now, on the other hand, I do think certain US territories should have seats in the house and senate.
I dont think that all the states should be equal precisely because they have vastly different populations. People talk about how unfair it is for California or Texas to drag other states kicking and screaming wherever they feel like but the opposite side of that coin isnt really any more fair.
I do agree that large and small states may need to be governed differently but thats something that needs to be addressed in a more direct way not by tipping the scales in favor of states with more grain silos and cows than people. i.e ground rules need to be set about how and why laws are constructed. i.e the real issue that the senate doesnt actually solve, is that laws aren't being rationally designed in a way that makes sense for the states that are subject to them. As long as that underlying issue isnt being directly addressed, the senate wont really fix things. And I would strongly argue that history proves that the senate is being used more as a political baseball bat than it is a tool of low population states to defend themselves.
Should we care about the states or the people in the states? There are less people in Rhode Island than California. Are those people so much more important that they get more representation, proportionally speaking?
People have locational representation in their local governments. Let them rule over themselves if you want, but don't give them disproportionate authority over the rest of us.
Smaller states should have less of a say. I'm not sure how that seems unreasonable. The people should decide. It doesn't matter what state they live in. It might have made sense 200 years ago but now I can't believe people seriously support it.
Funnily enough, I had this exact scenario assigned as a project in my political science class in college.
What I came up with is a lottery-based council government. The system is designed with none of the "gentleman's agreements" that the US systems seems to be based on, and assumes that if it's possible to abuse the system, then the system WILL BE abused. So it's designed to minimize the ability for the system to be abused.
You want to get rid of career politicians? Make it so they don't even have the option of running for office in the first place.
The way my system worked is that all governmental tasks are performed by a council created for a specific purpose. Every council is made up of an odd number of members, with a minimum of 5. Councils can be created to manage a geographical area, such as a state, county, or city, or for a topical purpose, for example, medical oversight. Each council has the ability to create lower councils that report to it, but only within the purview of the parent council. For example, a State Council can create a Municipal Council for a city within the state.
Sitting at the top of the entire structure is the Prime Council, which always consists of exactly 11 members. Decisions of the Prime Council are final except in the case of a supermajority overrule as detailed below.
Lower councils are subject to the decisions of higher councils with one exception - a parent council's ruling can be overturned and vacated if a supermajority* of child councils that existed at the time of the ruling vote to overturn it. For example, if a State Council outlaws gambling, but 75% of Municipal Councils vote to vacate the ruling, it is overturned. But, for example, if a Municipal Council votes to allow prostitution, the state or national council can overturn that ruling on its own. Again, however, this overturning can be overridden by a supermajority of child councils. However, the chain ends there. A parent council CANNOT vacate a supermajority vote passed by the collected child councils. Child councils must have a reason for existing can cannot be created simply to stack a supermajority vote.
A singular case can only be tackled by ONE council at a time and cannot be interfered with during the proceedings by any other council at any other level. For example, if a Municipal Traffic Council is considering a motion to raise a speed limit on a road, no other council (Municipal, State, or even the Prime Council) can interfere in that case or tell the lower council how to rule on it. However, once the case is complete and the ruling announced, THEN a higher council may take up the issue and/or vacate the lower council's ruling.
Decisions of lower councils can be appealed, but a parent council has no obligation to take up the issue and can simply deny the appeal.
Courts, as we understand them, do not exist in this system, per se. Civil and criminal cases are handled in the same way; there is no separation between the case types. Likewise, there is no differentiation between the natures of the decisions that can be handed down. Every court case is presided over by a council created especially for the purpose of hearing this single case. All the other rules surrounding how councils work detailed the Councils section still apply.
Council members are selected by lottery from all eligible citizens. Each lottery is specific to the seat being filled. To be considered eligible for a given lottery, a citizen:
All citizens of legal age are automatically in the lottery pool by default, and the lottery operates on on opt-out basis.
If a citizen is chosen for a council, they have the option of declining the position. In which case, another eligible citizen is selected.
Additionally, a citizen can elect to be removed from the lottery pool for any or no reason for one year at a time. This election can be renewed indefinitely, but it must be renewed UNLESS a medical professional declares that they are unfit for service. An unfit-for-service declaration can be made for a specific amount of time or on a permanent basis.
Any council member can resign their position on a council at any time before their term is over. In addition, a council member may enact the right of "Antagonistic Resignation" whereby they remove both themself and ONE other member of the council. There is no veto or override process allowed. To clarify, any council member can remove any other member from the same council by also removing themself at the same time. The replacement council member(s) will be chosen via the lottery.
A council member MAY NOT vote on or interfere with the vote on any issue the results of which they may directly benefit from. That is to say that if a council member could personally benefit from a decision on a matter, they are REQUIRED to recuse themself from the case and may not interfere with the case in any way, including but not limited to public discussion or press releases related to the matter.
A council member with a conflicting interest in a single case must either resign from the council or recuse themself from the case. As with Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member chooses ONE other council member that must also recuse themself from the case to preserve the odd number of council seats. Again, there is no veto or override process allowed. However, unlike Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member MUST choose one other member for recusement - they do not get the option to decline. If the number of active seats on the council would drop below five for this single issue, interim seats will be created and filled by lottery for this specific case only, after which the additional seats will be removed from the council and the interim council members' terms will be considered complete.
Serving on a council is a full-time job and may require taking a sabbatical from work. While an individual citizen has the ability to decline a council seat, NO other entity, individual, or organization may punish or otherwise act against a citizen for choosing to accept the responsibility of service. Therefore, it is considered unconstitutional for any entity to retaliate against a citizen for accepting a council seat, punishable by a fine of not less than 50% of that entity's yearly income. It is understood that this is a harsh penalty, and the severity and calamitous nature of it is intentional and intended to avoid even the outward appearance of impropriety or retaliation. If a citizen CHOOSES of their own accord to decline a council seat out of a sense of duty to an organization, that's allowed, but it is absolutely not acceptable for an organization to demand, tell, ask, or even imply that a seat should be declined.
It is required by law that an employee (and this shall be construed loosely, to include any person who is in any way a member of an organization) of an organization be reinstated at the end of their council service to their same position, pay, benefits, and tenure as though no sabbatical had been taken at all. This is inclusive of any required "re-onboarding" time.
Council members shall be paid the greater of 125% of their reported yearly income or 200% of the average salary of the relevant lottery eligibility pool. This shall be to incentivize citizens to fulfill their duty and serve on a council.
At any time, the citizens may petition a geographical council (Prime, State, County, Municipal, etc) for a status of Councilar No-Confidence. This petition shall require the signatures of 55% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented. Upon submission of a completed petition, the council will be dissolved, and a new council will be chosen by lottery according to all the requirements for the council being replaced. This action is automatic and cannot be vetoed or overruled.
If instead, the No-Confidence petition contains the signatures of 75% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented, the council and ALL LOWER COUNCILS created by it, directly or indirectly, are dissolved and replaced as above. This is akin to pruning a branch from a tree - every branch and leaf connected to the branch is also removed. Note that this applies to EVERY level of the system, so a No-Confidence petition signed by 75% of the citizens of the entire country and submitted to the Prime Council results in the entire system being wiped away and reset.
It went a lot deeper than that, but I've already typed a LOT and think this mostly gets the gist of it.
This is great thanks for posting.
How do you deal with apathy? Like in current political climate in which many people (all?) would decline the lottery?
People could also have lots of reasons to decline. Personal, professional, etc. What were the incentives to accept?
Well, it's multiple things.
And tbh, if somebody declines, it's really not that big a deal. Eligibility pools would be big enough that a nontrivial number of people could decline the position and we'd still have plenty of eligible citizens. Worst case scenario is come kind of coordinated general strike against serving on councils, but to be fair, if the population is pissed off enough to enact a general strike in a meaningful way like that, they would have enacted a Branch No-Confidence movement long ago.
It might be better to make participation mandatory to prevent a ruling class from demoralizing everyone else they way they did here with voting.
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You know, that's not a bad idea
Note: I used Community of Earth in case we discover other species, but I'd suggest changing the name according to the interplanetary travel and expeditions
I'm not an expert, but I propose the following:
I mean, the basics and, you know, Marx propositions lol
i haven't decided yet, but the Norwegian proposition sounds good and, with all basics needs met, it may not be necessary to be so strict. But there are still other things to be clear and I already spent too much time writing this
And i don't know, I'm a Free Software advocate so that too has to be considered. Any way, I have more ideas, but not the time
Throw in health care coverage and I’m onboard!
No such thing as a non democratic workplace
Don't be assholes to your fellow citizens.
The definition of asshole is a variable that can be abused based on who is in power.
As I pointed out to another guy in the thread, we can arbitrarily dispute the meaning of any word, but at the end of the day, those meanings don't change. We all know what an asshole is, and the context in which he is saying. Humans are hardwired to know that. If we weren't, no society would be possible.
Like I get that you want to prevent abuse but preventing people from using terms based on context isn't going to stop it. Evil people will abuse anything to have power over others. We can't let that stop us from using our own language.
👇Exhibit A right down there. Do you see what I mean? People will dispute absolutely anything to get what they want, and sometimes, they'll even treat the act of dispute as self-reinforcing. That's why we don't listen to them and go on about our business as usual. We have new nations to build; we can't let ourselves be hampered by meaningless disputes the other side will never allow to be resolved. So don't worry about it.
@Crabhands Exactly. And that's most of them.
@wildcardology argues that "all the definitions are in the dictionary".
True. But then it comes down to "who writes the dictionary", so it's just kicking the can down the road.
Taco Tuesday
First No elected official is allowed to take money or goods in excess of 50% of the median salary for all workers in the country in total for the entirety of their time in office from any organization or unrelated individual nor sit on the board of any company following office. Any payments to said official totalling over 50% median salary in the 5 years prior to their election and 20 years after leaving office from a single entity must be declared. The state will provide a generous pension to ensure future employment is not a financial necessity.
These measures are intended to allow elected officials to be free from influence.
Second Any change in leadership of a political party immediately triggers a general election. Change in leadership generally means a failure of the manifesto and/or a change in the policies which were presented to the public when the leadership was elected.
Third No advisory referendum shall be conducted without the intention to act upon the outcome and therefore any referenda should only be acted upon with a super majority of 66%. Prior to action following a referendum, the winning side must demonstrate how the result will be acted upon and where negotiation with outside interests is necessary, since the outcome cannot be known at the time of the first referendum the public should be offered a second referendum to decide whether to accept the outcome.
Fourth Politicians shall be held to account for any lies or dishonesty. Burden of proof lies with the politician accused of misconduct to provide evidence for their claims which are in dispute. Therefore evidence provision at the time of any claims is encouraged and can be published to a publicly accessible repository. Punishments can range from fines to removal from office depending on the severity and frequency of misinformation.
Fifth Proportional representation she'll be enacted to eliminate tactical voting. In addition any changes to the electoral district are subject to scrutiny by a randomly selected jury of 1000 residents in each of the affected areas. Voting by, and identity if the jurors shall be anonymous. The public may request redistricting at any time with a 2 year cool off via a petition meeting a minimum number of 100,000 signatures.
To name a few:
I wanted to include something that makes the government responsible for some standard of public transit, but I can't seem to get the words right...
I like your ideas, but have you considered that this one:
All natural resources, be it harvested (e.g. ores, oil) or otherwise (e.g. land, air), are property of everyone. If any individual is to monopolise and/or utilise some of these resources, they are to compensate everyone else for doing so.
Effectively makes literally everything free? Not that this would be a bad thing. It just makes so many of the other things irrelevant.
I was actually hoping to use that clause to incorporate a land value tax.
This document will self destruct in fifty years
I actually started writing up a a new constitution a while ago as a sort of thought experiment. It's not finished yet but some of the highlights thus far include:
@fcSolar These are good additions to the existing constitution.
One thing I would like to add in terms of IP and Patent law is that you are free to reproduce Patented and otherwise protected physical items to any end, provided you make no profit in doing so.
This, coupled with 3D printing and future manufacturing tech, creates the foundation for a library/sharing/anarchic economy
@pinkdrunkenelephants
Right, patents are a whole separate thing. I added a clarification above that the 15 years/life is for copyright. The way I did patents is that corporations are ineligible for patents, and individuals get them for 5 years.
As long as labor is necessary, some form of market economy is likely to crop up, and as long as there's some form of market economy I'm hesitant to limit the ability for individual creators to make a living in said market economy, so I'm not sure I'd personally go for such a large carve-out from patent protections.
free to reproduce Patented and otherwise protected physical items to any end, provided you make no profit in doing so.
How would you prevent a company with gains from other means coming in and destroying a competitor only to start charging for their version after the other company goes under?
I'd be down with that
The voting system will be the Tideman method
While Ranked Pairs sound good in theory, how would you actually sell this method to normal people? Transparency is one of the basic requirements for the acceptability of a vote, and this method will be beyond maybe 70-80% of the American public, if not more.
I don't think using ignorant Americans as a policy standard is going to achieve anything.
There are voting methods hard to explain, this one is quite easy: "the winner must win against most of the other candidates on a 1x1 comparison"
And to avoid making n² voting rounds, we rank our preferences, the first beats all, the second beats all but the first...
Any ranked choice voting system is subject to Arrow's theorem; range/score/approval voting would be more effective.
"more effective" depends on which criteria you value for your voting system to have.
I value the Condorcet Winner, majority and independence of clones criteria.
Rule 1: No billionaires. Upon being assessed at having a net worth of 1 billion dollars, regardless of where your wealth is or how it's invested, the entirety of its ownership will be transferred to a public trust, and all liquid assets will be equally distributed to the poorest 1%. This rule is to never be ever re-defined due to inflation.
The wealthiest 10% of people must donate at least 5% of their yearly earnings to a general fund for public welfare, including free food, shelter and medical aid. Business assets domestic and international are included in this calculation. Anyone who attempts to hide assets to avoid donating, even within the confines of the law, can be tried for the manslaughter of everyone who died from poverty that fiscal year.
Essentially, if you have the financial means to help people, you are legally required to.
Punish those who work hard. Reward those who don't contribute to society. Let's see how that helps!
The richest person can not be X times richer than poorest person.
Choose the X value wisely. Mine is 1000.
Very hard to define this rule. Money in the bank? Collective value of possessions? Value of those possessions set by whom and to what standard? What about rich people not owning much but having everything in their company, non profit, etc.
That's why writing laws is hard. But you get the intention: limit wealth inequality.
If they can spend the money on something not necessary for the company it should be counted as their money I think
Companies get their own money separate from an individual but after a certain bracket they have to be audited by an impartial third party to make sure the money isn't just being used for personal stuff
What about rich people not owning much but having everything in their company, non profit, etc.
Why do we collectively call people like that rich?
Most of the rich, including billionaires, don't have any actual wealth. Even the stocks they take loans out against aren't really a guaranteed source of funds; the stock market could crash over any little old thing, wiping the books.
I believe most rich people are just scammers who tricked everyone else into giving them special privileges, and most of America's wealth is not real. I think the real wealth, i.e. the gold and such, were stolen decades ago.
🙄 Top 1% and Bottom 1% then
How about both minimum wage and mandatory cost of living pay raises are inextricably tied to BOTH the GDP and the highest net worth, to be determined by an independent commission that keeps track of the assets of the wealthy?
At the point when wealthy individuals' vast resources cause the pay rate to rise in a way that threatens economic stability, that would trigger policies to divest said resources into public trusts aimed at the most at-risk parts of the population. Instead of a trickle down model, you have more of a circular model, where fabulous wealth always funnels directly to the bottom. This creates a cycle of uplift, rather than simply an accumulation at the high end.
Competency tests before you can appear on a ballot, with a commission that reviews the requirements to prevent the exclusion of minorities.
All financial information must be disclosed by anyone with power over others.
Somehow replace shares with cooperatives and employee ownership.
No elected judges, with stringent training and yearly bias testing. Like a postdoc in judicial impartiality.
Same with sheriffs. No elected police. Police should be a career, like a civil engineer. To be promoted, people must pass ever more strict ethics courses.
Any person who is a position of trust and power who then acts contrary to the ethics of their role can never be elected. Or have power over anyone again.
Children must be free of religion until they are 25.
Children must not be mutilated by their parents religion.
National healthcare.
USA focused: each state gets one senator, plus one per 2 million residents.
A lot of those tests have already been done and were used almost exclusively to enforce segregation.
Most of what you've described would inevitably lead to the establishment of a single party totalitarian state.
Competency tests before you can appear on a ballot, with a commission that reviews the requirements to prevent the exclusion of minorities.
Don't like the opposing party? Just make it part of the test. Today, one party could exclude the other by including questions that agree or disagree with critical race theory, voter fraud, etc.
No elected judges, with stringent training and yearly bias testing. Like a postdoc in judicial impartiality.
Same issue. Who determines impartiality? The party in power? Single party state.
Any person who is a position of trust and power who then acts contrary to the ethics of their role can never be elected. Or have power over anyone again.
Who determines "ethics"? Single party state.
Children must be free of religion until they are 25.
What is religion? You're definitely banning several books, and possibly banning a lot more. Many books can be turned into a religion or contain religious aspects. The party in power decides what's a religion and what gets banned.
USA focused: each state gets one senator, plus one per 2 million residents.
At that point, why have a separate Senate and House? The point of a two-chambered Congress is to balance state and federal power.
Those "competency" tests will be used to discriminate.
government policy will be primarily set by a peer validated group of experts in their fields. funding will be dictated by a multidisciplinary team that assesses need through funding requests by the expert bodies with accompanying impact assessments. that will dictate taxes and so on.
elections will be performative and meaningless as you lot have absolutely shown you can't be trusted but also need to feel heard or you'll break things you don't understand.
peer validate group of expert in their fields
With the restriction that there should be no financial interest in the policy being passed for a committee member.
good call. just well paid, expert professionals without a vested interest doing a job they are qualified to do, and being reviewed by people qualified to understand their performance.
so similar to current, except for the 'expert' part
currently governments fund and slash funding to all sorts of things according to political convenience.. I just want to see all those decisions validated entirely on merit by someone who understands it.
if it's popular with the mob but it's not true or doesn't work, well, we don't do it. president isn't an expert and can't say shit, and especially can't do stupid things so he can sound tough in a media release. we can't afford to keep dicking around with whatever sounds good to win popular support with the lowest common denominator while the world goes to shit.
the world is far beyond the level of complexity where any one person could understand enough to make off the cuff, meaningful decisions about big issues. people need to stop thinking they can vote sensibly on policy or policy performance on almost any issue, let alone all the issues.
Marriage as a union of two or more consenting adults
Honestly, I would just ban it entirely at this point. I'd rather see the abolition of marriage entirely than have the government dictate who can and cannot participate (outside of consent issues, obviously).
I mean, go forth. Be fruitful. Multiply.
Eat, drink, be merry with each other.
Just leave the government out of it.
open carry of a more interesting drug that isnt so toxic maybe lol
Using "think of the children" type arguments in political debate should be punishable by loss of passive voting rights (the right to be elected) for life. And the same for "If you have nothing to hide" type arguments.
Essentially the whole climate change debate centers around the wellbeing of future generations aka "the children". How is this not valid?
I am not talking about arguments about future generations, I am talking about "we need to watch everything you do because some bad people do bad things to children" type arguments. Or, for that matter, the arguments from conservative and religious people who claim we can't talk about LGBTQ+ people existing because it might scar children to see two guys kissing.
Basically using children as an argument to further your political goals that you had anyway, regardless of any children because nobody wants to be seen arguing against the well-being of children.
To be fair it’s not just children. There are plenty of mass shootings at concerts, movie premiers, random gas stations. It’s just that the us has 288 school shootings from 2009-2018. The next highest would be Mexico. At 8 in the same time frame.
So it’s not so much “think of the children” as it is “hey guys, so many people get shot, and it’s worse in America than anywhere else. What can we do to make it not so bad? Maybe make it harder for idiots or unstable folk to get guns? And since most people who advocate for less gun CONTROL (not banning, just controlling who can go get an AR-15 off the shelf) tend to be the same folk saying “but we can’t let LGBTQ people exist! Think of the children!” But then children get shot at school and the cops are like “I’m not going in there. I’ll get shot!” Or “yeah you have to give birth because “think of the baby!” But the moment that child is born we don’t give a fuck about them. Let’s slash welfare because poor people don’t WANT to work!” But also those children we were thinking of? Let’s slash their welfare too. Damn poor babies. I bet their parents are drug addicts!
Nobody arguing against gun rights use “because of the children” as their main argument. The US does have way too many school shootings though, and we should probably address that somehow.
Everybody gets to vote within 35 minutes or less, maybe I should rephrase that too on average in a voting area that people vote in 35 minutes or less. Make it unconstitutional stand in line for eight hours to vote just as an example.
All voting areas are drawn and simple squares are rectangles and it is done via a mathematical algorithm.
Abortion is a constitutional right, no limits, it is always between the person who is pregnant and their doctor.
In the United States we called the fairness doctrine, I would put that into the constitution.
A gross income tax if you are above a certain income you get taxed before you get to do any deductions or write off or anything. That same gross income tax would apply to trust funds it would also apply to businesses.
Dark money in terms of politics would be bound by the constitution. Businesses would not be allowed to run ads or donate money. Money going to campaigns has to come from an individual and the maximum be US$5000 per year.
The Constitution isn't the appropriate place for legalizing abortion. This should be done in the next Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen
This one mystified me a bit. Why should we only get 35 minutes in which to vote? Then I realised you meant usually the queue was hours long in your country. Still seems pretty bizarre.
We have compulsory voting here (rich people can afford the fine, but if you're less rich like me, it isn't worth it to not vote) and so everyone votes, pretty much, but the two weeks they give you to get a vote in at a before-the-cutoff seem pretty normal to me, and there's always postal votes if you aren't able to go in for two weeks and can't afford the fine. Why not just open up the voting to a longer amount of time? Then you could go in after work one day to prevote in the two designated weeks like we do.
FPTP voting is banned everywhere.
Full financial transparency for all elected officials. If Matt Gaetz buys a dildo, everyone knows about it. Serving in Congress is a service, not something you should want to do for life.
Wyoming Rule.
Gerrymandering is treason. Straight to gitmo.
Bribery is treason. Straight to gitmo. In cases of corporate bribery, the board is held responsible.
Money is not speech.
Corporations are not people.
Not quite sure how to codify it in law, but something to force anti-trust action (since existing laws just aren't enforced). Maybe every year, the top 5 companies by market cap are forcibly broken up into at least 3 entities?
(since existing laws just aren’t enforced)
🤔🤔🤔
I've been thinking about this a lot since making the thread and I've realized that one of the root causes of our problems as Americans is that we haven't enforced the laws we've had on the books for a very long time, and we haven't because we allowed ourselves to be manipulated by evil people. I am not sure if it's possible to build a system that can protect people against having the very same debate system we evolved with turned against us to convince us to do or accept things we otherwise wouldn't.
We need to change, not just the law.
This needs to be encoded in the system we build - that it is not possible to build the perfect system of law, but rather any system we build will, over time, come to reflect the character and viability of our principles.
Very true.
I think that's why the majority of my suggestions relate to democracy itself -- if we can get away from "two parties pooping back and forth forever", we increase the odds of good people getting into power. Hopefully.
Words are cheap. I would suggest that citizens sing a song together at noon, to celebrate their joined opportunities.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/JOkQJm_UGM4?si=HaxHNKwYl7at_Tir
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Guns don't kill people.
Retail employees may legally put hands on the customer
And every person working in a call centre gets one free orbital laser shot per shift.
Any form of political corruption should be severly punished.
Any political office should have a limit of two terms.
How to do voting even is a big question. The really representative systems tend to end up with razor thin coalitions full of smallish parties that play brinkmanship. There's got to be a way to discourage that, but I don't know what it is yet.
More controversially, it should probably address economic inequality in some way.
If the old government is gone why would i want to replace it with another one?
Social libertarian gang represent
To stop your neighbour from hiring a bunch of goons to come take your house because he likes your water feature. Unless, you desire to be that neighbour?
If a bunch of goons come to take your house and you fight them off, you are defending yourself. If the government decides to expropriate your house and you fight them off you are a criminal.
Blackjack and hookers for all
It doesn't actually matter. Policies are policies and rights are rights regardless of country.
I speak with an American bias and assume everyone is speaking with bias from their home countries. That can't be helped.
I and many others have taken to writing out our ideas under the assumption that this takes place in a hypothetical future, or at least will apply in the future, when space travel is a thing.
I'd put 1 and 2 right back in. It ain't broke
What do you have against the 3rd amendment?
Ok, and that one.
Land value tax, election by sortition for the legislative branch, bodily autonomy
Does everyone have to like it or do I just get to pick one and everyone has to live with it? If the latter, I might give technocracy a try…
I don't think it's possible to make a decision absolutely everyone will like
Let the robots be in charge. They can't do any worse.
Depends who they were trained by
"OpenAI's GovernGPT 11 gets better economic results than Meta's 'LincolnBot', more at eleven"
copy the old one verbatim (it is flawless)
/s ←←
Remember, no English
There are lots of good ideas out there, I'll just add some that are pretty niche:
Our Constitution as it is is pretty good, so wisdom would be to tread lightly. I think the only change I would make is to prohibit primary elections. That would be considered a right, as in, no person or group may deny a candidate with sufficient signatures the right to appear on the ballot. I would also mandate some sort of ranked choice voting or instant runoff election. These two changes would be to fix the problem of having to vote against a bad guy rather than voting for a good guy. It far too often ends with the second worst candidate who goes into the primary, coming out victorious. We should be electing the best, not the second worst.
Whose constitution is "ours"?
Sorry, I forget that while Reddit had a largely American userbase especially in political posts, Lemmy does not. I refer to the United States Constitution, which I think is damn near perfect, but has been screwed up by multiple generations of voters who pay little or no attention to their government's mismanagement and just keep re-electing the same incumbents despite having shit approval ratings for Congress, because they don't bother to actually do any research of their own or read what the candidates write other than just a few sound bytes on TV.
Didn't Iceland do this a few years ago, after their economy crashed?
I have no idea.
Iceland tried partially crowd-sourcing their constitution. https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/iceland-crowdsources-its-constituti-12-11-15/
However, that failed in the parliamentary process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932013_Icelandic_constitutional_reform
Actual human rights
I am the president for life.
The book Socialist Reconstruction came out last year and puts forth some interesting ideas. Specifically ch 2
I thought ch3 was pretty good, but a pale comparison to ch1:
This is a quote from a book that may or may not exist due to lax linking of topics, contributing nothing to free discourse or discussion.
You gotta get some Judeo-Christian values in there, amirite guise?
A universal right to purchase, own, sell and (if applicable) conceal carry any weapon that is allowed to be used by the nation's military, without any kind of permit or registration. Also, explicitly prohibit military conscription and legally equate it to slavery.
I have to vastly disagree with this. The argument hat a gun is a necessity is disingenuous at best.
I love my guns, but too many fuckwads treat it like a toy or some sort of social justice equalizer. It has been proven to me time and again that we cant trust people with unfettered access to fire arms.
Y'all can't even have political discourse without being violent. So nope, you don't deserve to have the right to bear arms. (I mean "you" collectively and include myself in this hypothetical).
You are not supposed to operate a car without a license but somehow, trying to regulate guns is big brother trying to take away muh freedoms.
It just doesn't stand up to actual critical thought.
Y'all can't even have political discourse without being violent. take away muh freedoms
I understand why my message might suggest that I am American, but I am, in fact, not. I won't go into details to avoid doxxing myself, but I live in a country with strict gun laws, and, in long term, the lack of civilian firearm ownership has proven to have much worse consequences than the opposite.
To add to my original comment, I believe that "without any kind of permit or registration" should be explicitly stated in every article that guarantees some kind of right, as the lack of such statement often leads to slow erosion of the right, starting with the requirement of declaration, and then permission, which then gets more and more difficult to obtain (example: the right to public protest in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine)
lol. You have the chance to change something and your idea is: "Hey we need more shootings. Not enough children and other people get shot. Let's increase the number"
Addendum: With a lottery allocation of ammunition. Each year, one lucky citizen recieves 1 bullet in the mail and can decide to whatever they want with it!
Give the land back to its rightful owners and that's it. Nothing else. EDIT: and compensate for what was lost through genuine restorative justice.
It's not up to genociders to decide what gets done with their land.
You realize this hypothetical new country can exist in space.
@Sprite @pinkdrunkenelephants Whoa, what an overbearing fuck.
I'm here to hear other people's opinions, not judge them, even if I don't agree with them. A lot of the things I've put in my own fantasy Constitution are ideas a lot of people don't like. A lot of ideas you have are ones other people disagree with or would find authoritarian in their own way.
It just is what it is. It's politics. In a hypothetical situation where Americans are finally free again, people would band together based on political ideology and likemindedness anyway, so talks like this are vitally important so we know who is compatible with us and who is not.
So tl;dr don't sweat it. Have a friendly debate but don't worry about it other than that.
I live in a rural area, far from population centres and public transport. Why can't I have a car?
Gender equality, education, access to medical care, etc. basically a slightly modified version of FDR’s proposed bill of rights.
I think you see the impact of that in a country like Sweden. One of the lowest income inequalities in the world, but also one of the highest wealth inequalities in the world.
Just get rid of the concept of corporations, funds, foundations, etc all the ways rich people have sheltered their assets from the state. Wealth may only be held by individuals plus a 100% death tax on wealth above some level. Maybe 10million, whatever.
How do you put education into the constitution?
Since they're talking about a bill of rights they likely mean the right to education. Probably includes not having paywalled higher education institutes?