Survey- Proposed Constitutional Amendments

Tnu, in response to your point about coercion: Fine, except for a few things. If it's for the general upkeep of society, it's really not fair to have it be 'opt-in' (or opt-out); even if it works and enough money is given to charities, society will inevitably be riding on the backs of relatively few altrusitic souls, with a lot of people taking but not giving. Secondly, in hard times just when it's needed most, people would have far less discretionary income to give, making it even more difficult for the charities to supply enough demand when needed.

She of Short Stature & Impeccable Logic My Skating Liveblog

New States Amendment :

any Region of any states in the United States which 1. consists of one or more county that Contiguous 2. have population larger than average state population of the USA 3. have population less than 50% of the state population shall have right to arrange a referendum for establishment of a new state. This right shall not be impeded by the State Legislature nor US Congress.

Divorce Amendment :

any states in the United States shall have rights to separate itself into two or more states provided that none of the new states have any population smaller than average state population of the USA.

Amendment 29: Used Car Salesmen must allow people to comprehensively inspect the car of choice. They also cannot talk fast.

Amendment 30: there shall be a sanity check for all entering politicians. Failure results in recall.

Already exists. The exception is that the president can deploy an entire Marine Corps task force for up to 90 days without consent from the house or senate. The purpose of this is to render emergency aid in peaceful and hostile areas at a moments notice while the machine of government churns out an official response. That is the reason Marine large scale fleet units are structured the way they are.

In many cases we have this stuff covered we just need to enforce it.

Phil: That would be a bad can of worms to open. It would only further complicate any existing issues we have and make areas subject the whims of a demographic.

edited 24th Mar '11 9:29:29 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Term limits on Senators and Representatives. How many, I'm not sure, but something shorter than FOREVER.

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

• Congress shall pass no legislation which is not read aloud in its entirety in all houses of legislature or made available to the general public not less than 30 days before it is signed into law.
• Congress shall not pass any spending bill which shall cause the expenditures of the federal government to exceed its income during any calendar year, unless the president declares a state of national financial emergency, and has the approval of 2/3 of all houses.
• A third house of congress which is like a European parliament. Parties that send candidates to the third house may not nominate candidates for any other federal position.

Now I'm curious as to how one would amend this idea into the constitution by official language.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

1. Ixnay on the no national debt thing. Debt in limited amounts is good. It effectively multiplies economic power by recirculating wealth and also supports investment (U.S. bonds are among the most stable forms of investment known). I would support a cap on the ratio of debt to GDP, but not a wholesale elimination of it.

2. Why in the name of the gods do we need a third house of Congress to bog down the legislative process even further?

I'm not at all sure how your idea would function, as it completely overthrows the notion of open voting for all candidates. Anyway, do you mean the candidate must belong to the given percentile, or the people are segregated by percentile in terms of which candidates they vote for? Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen ways to abuse this system.

Going back a bit...

Nice strawman. Governments set economic and fiscal policy because they look at the big picture in a way that individual corporations cannot. A strong regulatory environment is necessary to curb the excesses of business that are a matter of historical record. Ignoring them does not do you any credit.

edited 25th Mar '11 6:49:44 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

^^^ A tricameral Congress would be even more ineffective than our current bicameral Congress.

Parliamentarian systems are not the way to go. Bandwagoning onto all of Europe is not the answer especially since the Parliaments of Europe rarely seem to get anything done or have a respect for the political minority. (Face it, in a parliamentary system, if you have majority of seats you have absolute rule.)

edited 25th Mar '11 6:33:16 AM by MajorTom

Well, that might be the point; in a government that can't do anything half the time, the stuff it can do must have pretty clear support.

That said I don't support the third house; we've got plenty of deliberation with the two we have.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

A new amendment mandating English as the country's official language, and requiring all citizen applicants to learn it.

My other signature is a Gundam.

Any entity consisting of more than two persons shall not be considered a person for purposes of this document.

To my mind, the idea of just saying corporations are not persons can be undermined by a simple name change. Call a corporation anything else and that no longer applies.

My troper wall

Sure, sure. Keep thinking that. It'll put you right where we want you when the Empire strikes back.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

So will the queen lop off Obama's hand?

Back on topic.

An addition to protection of groups.

1. Any member of any military organization shall be protected by the same laws that govern discrimination in other cases.
2. This extended to all peoples regardless of Race, Color, Creed, Religion, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Political Orientation, National Origin (this applies to citizens and legal immigrants only), Levels of education, or nature of employment or lack there of.

Who watches the watchmen?

^ Does that mean there would be female infantry?

If they can keep up.

Who watches the watchmen?

Works for me. I'm not opposed to a fully integrated military in all roles combat and not. Just as long as the standards are held equal across sexes. (You know as well as I do, enemy fire on the battlefield doesn't discriminate between man and woman.)

What is with the "corporations aren't people" stuff?

^ Seeing as corporate personhood can be abused, such as with lobbying efforts, some people, including myself would rather get rid of it.

My troper wall

I would agree on the removal of said "person hood"

Who watches the watchmen?

Suggested modification-one person. I do not see why groups of two people-including couples-should be considered a person if larger groups are not considered a person.

Also, would this leave organizations with less rights than normal people? Like, freedom of speech/religion/expression/arms/privacy, etc.

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

Yep. But then again I hold the freedoms of the individuals higher then any group.

Who watches the watchmen?

Yes, organizations should definitely have less rights than people. With that I categorically agree.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I would say adjust for actual activist groups but never for businesses or business organizations of any sort.

Who watches the watchmen?

But in the end that always turns into "allow organizations I like but not organizations I don't like".

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...