(Re)Writing a New Constitution

[Mempho]

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18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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Why? Why would you need to circumvent the deregulated, antimonopolistic free market system?

[MiloMinderbinder]

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18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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Why? Why would you need to circumvent the deregulated, antimonopolistic free market system?

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I guess not completely deregulated if circumvention is punishable by death. And I guess not completely anti-monopolistic if your govt has a monopoly on murder. And I guess not free if you make the rules and kill anyone who doesn't comply. I guess it is a system though.

[Mempho]

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18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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Why? Why would you need to circumvent the deregulated, antimonopolistic free market system?

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I guess not completely deregulated if circumvention is punishable by death. And I guess not completely anti-monopolistic if your govt has a monopoly on murder.

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Fair enough. I understand the anti-Capital Punishment crowd as, in actuality, I am one.

If we were to understand "treason" as an attempt to manipulate the document written above and were to understand it to be punishable by long imprisonment, would you be against it?

I think that an enforceable document along my general lines of thinking would limit the ability for socialism, facism, and totalitarianism in general.

My general line of thought is that some combination of talent, hard work, education, and, yes, luck, generally win out. Granted, it can't guarantee anything as that is virtually impossible.

[MiloMinderbinder]

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If we were to understand "treason" as an attempt to manipulate the document written above and were to understand it to be punishable by long imprisonment, would you be against it?

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Wtf does "manipulate the document" even mean? In practice, it will mean whatever you can convince a jury of 12 people you want it to mean. So, no, of course I'm still against it.

[AlexM]

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*sigh*

Yes, they're constitutional. There are only two possible legal challenges to the constitutionality of SS. One is the reserve clause which was struck down because the constitution allows the federal govt. to tax in the interest of the general public good.

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With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison, the man who freakin wrote the Constitution.

Yes, the Supreme Court has "struck that down" by completely ignoring the obvious and very clearly stated original intent. The Justices who made this "ruling" were blatantly legislating from the bench and are traitors to this country and everything it stands for.

[Phil153]

Many of your point are wrong or ineffectual:

1) I would keep the current Constitution in its present form for the most part except that I would add to it additional protections.
The current constitution is very likely a cause of political corruption. Parliamentary systems are inherently less corrupt that presidential ones.

3) I would end the income tax in favor of strictly business-related taxes. The payroll tax would also be gone.
So you give money to the buyer of non capital goods and take it away from the buyer of capital goods and innovators. Doesn't seem like good policy to me.

4) No Social Security, Medicare, or entitlements
So people either live on the street, or are entirely reliant on charity? What does the state do with the millions of mentally ill? What about older people who've worked and paid large amounts of taxes all their lives under the assumption that social security will be around? Do you just cut off their benefits? Some states just don't have the money to pay these kinds of schemes.

5) The only departments in the federal government would be those that relate to the military (and intelligence) (defense), diplomacy (state), taxation (treasury), law enforcement (only those crimes which are interstate), elections, and other oversight entities made necessary by this list. That’s it.
Other government departments apart for the ones you list take up a very tiny fraction of government resources, and many do very good work.

8) Believing that a non-transparent government is a larger threat to democracy than any external threat, the need for transparency would win out over intelligence gathering in cases where the two conflicted
Who decides, and how is that system of decision making different from now? Are you saying that all intelligence data should be publicly published? If not, who decides?

9) I would write in explicit protections for the electoral system
Great idea

10) Money would largely be removed from politics. Business entities could not contribute at all to campaigns. Only people could contribute and only to an inflation-adjusted amount of say, $5,000. There would be no loopholes allowed at all. No $10K-a-plate fundraisers, no PACs, no organizations like the Sierra Club, the NRA, or unions.
So you'd do away with freedom of association? lol @ no loopholes. Businesses would just get employees to donate on their behalf - this happens already to some extent.

12) Business practices that favor larger businesses over smaller ones would be explicitly illegal. Volume discounts, for instance, in business would be completely illegal.
Good luck policing that. Add another government bureau to your list.

13) Antitrust legislation would remain intact and be more strictly enforced.
Again, good luck enforcing that. +1 for another government bureau

15) Supreme Court decisions would be made by randomly-selected jurors and not by justices.
Worst idea ever. You destabilize the authority and precedence of Supreme Court decisions and let the popular opinions of 12 randomly selected individuals, with no knowledge of law and the broader issues at play, decide extremely important issues. How are 12 layman going to rule on the constitutionality of abortion? Decisions will lack expert reasoning, the creation of tests and rules, and some issues where popular opinion is split (i.e. abortion) will come down to the luck of the draw.

17) Bribery or extortion of a public official for the means of manipulating the system is akin to treason, punishable by death if convicted.
There are already hefty prison terms for this stuff.

18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.
Why not cut off their hands instead? The reality is that no one wants to live in such a country as you describe. People generally only support the death penalty for the taking of life.

[AlexM]

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18) Attempts by politicians or judges to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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There, I fixed it for you.

[Mempho]

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18) Attempts by politicians or judges to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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There, I fixed it for you.

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Thank you. I hate it when a general idea gets nitpicked because it's got a few warts.

[MiloMinderbinder]

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18) Attempts by politicians or judges to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels.

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I'm joining the insurgency if this gets ratified.

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There, I fixed it for you.

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Murder based on a group of twelve's p4ersonal definition of "manipulation"? Not for me.

[AlexM]

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Many of your point are wrong or ineffectual:

1) I would keep the current Constitution in its present form for the most part except that I would add to it additional protections.
The current constitution is very likely a cause of political corruption. Parliamentary systems are inherently less corrupt that presidential ones.

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It was mostly fine before the 17th Amendment. By having the state legislatures appoint Senators, we had that whole "set a thief to catch a thief" thing working for us. The people elected the crooks to the House who made the laws, but then the laws had to make it past the Senate, whose members were appointed by different crooks with directly competing interests. Same thing with judge appointments.

It wasn't until the 17th Amendment was pushed through by the Progressive movement that the system of checks and balances was completely destroyed, and since then the federal government bloated completely out of control because of it. Personally, I consider the 17th Amendment to be the single worst thing to ever happen to this country.