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.
How would that be determined?
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.
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
Fuck, yeah!
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.
You mean those are argue agaisnt gun rights “because of the 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.
I think you are strawmanning here a little bit. There are certain some who act like that but to claim that’s solidly the pro-gun sediment is against welfare and protection of people in incorrect. Labor relations and the ability of workers to defend themselves as a whole agaisnt dictatorships of the bourgeois is a big reason why I would argue that we must oppose so called gun control
I own a gun. I have nothing against guns. I enjoy target shooting. Gun control isn’t about taking away guns. It’s about controlling who gets guns based on how likely a gun in their hands is to cause a bunch of people to die. Even one person dying is not okay. So I think more stringent requirements for who can own a gun are reasonable.
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.
Competency tests before you can appear on a ballot, with a commission that reviews the requirements to prevent the exclusion of minorities.
I can see corruption in this very easily. We already have commissions that review the requirements to prevent the exclusion of minorities when it comes to voter registration but they still fail to actually do their job.
All financial information must be disclosed by anyone with power over others.
All parents must now disclose all financial information.
Somehow replace shares with cooperatives and employee ownership.
I agree with this but it will be hard to keep the economy stood up. How would you encourage people to start a new business and not just become an owner of a megacorp?
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.
If they aren’t elected, then how are they picked? Who sets the requirements for those picked? This is exactly how we end up with all-white police forces, judges, and civil engineers pushing minorities to the inner city.
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.
I can see this going wrong in all sorts of ways. Especially since “power over anyone” includes being a parent to children. You are now taking children away from their parents. Parents who can easily get accused of working against their ethics but in reality never did.
Children must be free of religion until they are 25.
Children must not be mutilated by their parents religion.
This seems the most silly. It turns religion into a banned book. You essentially are doing the exact thing that right-wing school districts are doing to minorities by banning books. The solution isn’t to ban children from knowledge, it’s to give them a fully informed choice. Religion exists for a lot of reasons, some of them good. Although I am not religious, at most I am Taoist and not being able to share the way of Taoist life with my children would be insane.
National healthcare.
Yes, please!
USA focused: each state gets one senator, plus one per 2 million residents.
Hmm, this just turns the Senate into the House.
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.
A lot of those tests have already been done and were used almost exclusively to enforce segregation.
Which why there has to be strict oversight to prevent that from happening.
Your new government, presumably.
Though if you can’t trust it to faithfully enforce its laws, why have it? Or any government, for that matter?
Like, you can take the fear of discrimination to justify not having anything
You cannot trust a government to routinely create arbitrary standards used to regulate that same government.
This is different from a government enforcing your average law because this law applies to the election process itself and allows for significant bias. Where there is room for bias in this process, it will be taken advantage of. Look at gerrymandering.
What problem does your law actually solve? If people are willing to elect a candidate, isn’t that a sufficient measure of competency? At best you’re creating an elitist state controlled by those who set the bar for competency, and at worst you’re creating a one party state.
Then you can’t have any government, or really, any meaningful social interaction.
All democratic governments are built on the assumption they’ll be acted upon in good faith, because without good faith, no cooperation or society is possible. All a society is is a group of people either working together in good faith.
If you want to go off and live by the law of the jungle, then by all means, go ahead. But the rest of us will move on without you.
To be fair, literally anything can, will be or probably has already been used to enforce discrimination or segregation somewhere in the world. We won’t get anywhere living in fear of bigots.
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
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.
rofl
im gonna guess it came from a ‘piss off the religious nuts’ mentality
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”
No such thing as a non democratic workplace
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.
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.
When you pay your taxes, you can select where your money is going
To name a few:
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No official decision may be made without the entire process towards that decision being recorded, documented, and these records be made available to the general public with minimal restrictions. With a specific exception if revealing that information would put more people in danger than concealing it.
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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.
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Resources for the public good are to be taken from each according to their ability, and redistributed to each according to their needs.
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Any supreme office must exist with a hard maximum time an incumbent is allowed to serve.
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It must be possible for any person holding an official position, including any supreme offices, to be held accountable for their actions in power.
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All official decisions must strive to be made to materially benefit the greatest number of individual people.
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It may not be the duty and/or responsibility of government to impose opinions on the general public.
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In an election, any vote must hold the same weight as any other vote to the greater outcome.
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Any income and/or net worth for individuals in excess of approximately 1 Billion EUR-equivalent is to be taxed 100% and redistributed among the public, to each according to their needs.
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Lawmakers are to be compensated an amount directly proportional to the median income of all citizens, and any benefits they receive must be equal to the legal minimum.
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No wage may be paid that is insufficient for a person to afford a decent existence.
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No corporation may exist where the compensation of its highest paid member exceeds 500 times the lowest. Any shortfall will be taxed upon the company at 200% the excess, and redistributed across its staff according to their needs.
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.
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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.
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.
This document will self destruct in fifty years
- sovereignty, and the necessary respect for mutual sovereignty, are the cornerstone of law
- government may have absolute authority over is own services, but may not determine what services a citizen subscribes to
- a decent portion of taxes must be self-directed
- taxes apply equally to all valid legal entities
- all legal entities receive UBI from those taxes
- the only act of compulsion permissible by the government is to reduce compulsion, and may only be applied to the compelling party.
- contribution of time, energy, effort, and attention may not be compelled
- isolation may not be denied
- strict separation of church and state
- strict separation of government and bon-government financial interests
- government pay is proportional to average income
Convert the date format to yyyymmdd on all official government documents.
Why not go with the international on dd.mm.yyyy why make everything special?
Because that date format is inferior. yyyymmdd is the standard date format in IT for a reason, there’s nothing special about it?
Youre right, it is sorted automaticaly.
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.
