Survey- Proposed Constitutional Amendments

If you could amend the US constitution, what would you change in it? I would make a coupla amendments:

"No action shall be construed as a wrong (civil or criminal) if it does not directly violate the Rights of another Person who does *not* consent to that act.

For the purposes of this Amendment, corporations are not people and do not have rights."

"The United States Senate is hereby abolished. All of its functions will revert on the House."

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:22:25 AM by SavageHeathen

"These United States shall henceforth once again submit to the authority of the British Crown and Parliament completely and irrevocably"

Thank you my friend. I would kmake an ammendment forbidding earmarks in any given bill and requiring every aspect of a bill to be checked against the constitution.

Also no people of title shall be allowed to run for office. This was the original proposed thirteenth ammendment before the war of 1812 struck. This is to prevent lawyers from being in office.

edited 23rd Mar '11 3:46:43 AM by tnu1138

And anybody with a succeful college education. Good job.

I'm not sure, tnu. What about Doctors?

Should anyone with the M.D. initials after his name have to relinquish the ability to practice medicine before holding public office of any sort?

edited 23rd Mar '11 3:58:06 AM by SavageHeathen

ok people of title may be abit harsh just no lawyers or politicians are to be allowed in office.

Seats of the Senate will be determined by income tax bracket rather than state. That is, the lowest income percentile gets to vote for their Senator, and then the second lowest, and so on up until the richest one percent of the country.

I'm not sure how to word this in amendment form, but God damn if it wouldn't be great for the country and funny as hell as the same time. An incentive for people to pay their taxes (as they can't vote in their Senators without it) and a redistribution of the government away from the people who can buy too much influence over it as is.

But people in office are politicians.

Do you mean something like "nobody can hold [an] office for more than a single consecutive term"?

edit: Or just once, ever, I dunno.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:10:34 AM by GreatLich

I've got another.

"Sovereign immunity and any other government privilege is hereby abolished. Any special privileges or statuses before the law conferred to overnment offices, officials, employees or contractors thereof are hereby abolished."

This effectively legalizes making government officials's lives miserable and deprives them of any special protections. I'd try to pass it mostly to troll law enforcement and politicians IRL.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:20:07 AM by SavageHeathen

the politicians part was a joke.

Amendment XXVIII - Private funds of any kind, from any group domestic or international, corporate or individual, may not be appropriated to the use, benefit, or payment of a politician or public servant at any level of the government of the united states, or by proxy a public servant of the government of the united states. The crime for such act shall be considered a federal felony not heard by any court less then the Supreme Court.

Amendment XXVIX - House Committees may no longer bar legislation from entering the floor for discussion. And all house committee members shall be selected at random regardless of time served in office.

Amendment XXX - The president may not issue an order to the military to occupy, with troops, any foreign hostile state without a declaration of war from congress. This amendment does not affect the president's power to use military forces for peacekeeping missions.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:35:29 AM by CommandoDude

"Copyrights and patents will last a maximum of five (5) years, with a possible extension of another 5. The intent of copyrights and patents is to protect authors and inventors from big corporations, not from the public: In no case shall a copyright or patent suit be filed against a private individual."

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:26:24 AM by SavageHeathen

Uh, what is your definition of 'private person'?

Anyone who is not a corporation and is making a not-for-profit redistribution should be exempt from copyrights outright.

It's basically a sneaky as Hell abolition of copyright. It would still protect authors from big corporations ripping their works off without paying royalties and distributing them, but allows the public carte blanche to pirate at will.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:29:03 AM by SavageHeathen

My god I really am losing my edge I feal like a moron these are spectacular! We should actu8ally seek yo hry yhrdr smmrnfmrnyd psddrf.

Not really- They're simple amendments. The tricky part is passing any of'em.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:30:32 AM by SavageHeathen

Sorry to nitpick, Commando Dude, I'm pretty sure the 29th Amendment should be Amendment XXIX.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:31:17 AM by pagad

Amendment XXXI - All citizens of the united states are entitled to a right to privacy. No law shall be admitted into the united states criminal justice system should it abridge the privacy of any individual to freely exercise their personal pursuit of happiness, so long as it does not interfere with the government's duty to enforce the law, a corporation's ability to conduct business, or abridge the rights of another individual.

^ You're right.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:36:34 AM by CommandoDude

Remove the "government's duty to enforce the law" from the amendment and it would be a good one.

If the SCOTUS can find a way to give moar power to law enforcement, they will. Better to make things unambiguous enough so they can't sneak any pro-cop shit in there.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:36:24 AM by SavageHeathen

I think you're kind of missing the point of piracy, Savage Heathen.

Also, where do, say, authors stand in this? An author is not a corporation.

I am not missing the point of piracy at all. I'm actually against copyrights, but abolishing them opens another can of worms: A publisher could just rip off a guy's book and sell it without paying the author a dime.

That's why we should have copyrights, but enforceable on publishers and corporations only. Let the people pirate at will without letting the corporations rip the authors off.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:40:25 AM by SavageHeathen

Why would a publisher do that? I mean, who would he sell the book to? The public? Not so much as they too can freely (by law, no less) copy the work.

No point in "ripping a guy off" if there's no dime to be made. Unless of course in your world all corporations are, what the trope here, Card-Carrying Villain...

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:42:35 AM by GreatLich

Well, let's leave whatever market might remain for legit copies in the exclusive hands of the author.

Before copyrights and patents were widely enforced it was not uncommon for major publishers to put forth unauthorized copies of works for sale at bookstores, and it was not uncommon for industries to adopt inventions without paying the inventor a dime.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:43:53 AM by SavageHeathen

The point is, authors and creators make no money if no one buys their product. If piracy is legal, and anyone can download everything without paying a cent, who is buying the merchandise?

Well, there's always the T-shirts to make money off . Pirating t-shirts is inconvenient.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:45:44 AM by SavageHeathen