10-08-2018, 04:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2018, 05:02 PM by Eric the Green.)
(10-08-2018, 08:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(10-08-2018, 04:40 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yes. I'm the enemy and I'm glad to see that you're beginning to see things my way and sense the change of attitude towards those referred to as the blues. I'm on the right side, what side are you on? I'm on the American side, what side are you on? If you play nice, you loose. If you play fair, you loose. If you play dirty, you loose. If you leave it up to democracy, you loose. If you leave it up to the laws of the land to determine, you loose. If you start a fight with America and start attacking US citizens, you loose. You're in a tough spot. Fight or flight position, as you say. Of the two, flight would be viewed as the easier and less painful option that blues would choose for themselves.
Win one election with a distinct minority, and you start thinking you can impose the past indefinitely?
The electoral college, the Senate giving small rural states out of proportion power, gerrymandering... There were many promises made to originally bring the slave states into the United States. Our constitution reeks of it. The reds exploit it. It won't last forever.
I still would like to see another constitutional convention. I would strip the old slavery compromises out. I would give the People a direct networked veto over the representative Congress with its support for elites. I would enumerate rights, strip off the legislation from the Supreme Court bench, make the powers of Congress enumerated again, make the states sovereign again, and do a little more.
But we are not ready for it yet. We are too disunited right now. It is not yet time.
Not time yet. But it could be time soon, at least to an extent. 4Ts are the time! Especially at the end of 4Ts. The constitution was written at such a time, and Lincoln got the 13th amendment passed at such a time. We joined the new United Nations at such a time. Parliamentary rule came to Britain at such a time. And it may extend into the early 1T, depending on how you draw the line. It took 3 more years to get the 14th amendment done.
What I would do will not be what happens. But it's fun to dream. I would strip those slavery compromises out. These outdated provisions are also the legacy of the time when only old rich white men were considered capable of governing. Abolish the electoral college for a start. Gerrymandering is not in the constitution of course, but it must go; that could be added. Provide that states must use independent commissions to draw legislative boundaries. The senate's construction needs to change. That would be more difficult, but perhaps it should just be a smaller version of the House. That's how it's done in the California legislature. Our senate districts are just two assembly districts cobbled together, so the body is half the size, and a senator has a term twice as long.
Our current system favors entrenched party duopoly. Suggestions have been made to add at large districts represented by political parties who get a certain portion of the vote (proportional representation). Most democracies have this, and it works. A change to a parliamentary system, in which the leader is not the president but the majority party leader in the legislative branch, would update our system to what most democracies have, and which we ourselves set up in a country we conquered: Iraq. Our system of an elected king with huge powers gives too much power to the president to start wars, and locks in an unpopular president who is not doing his job to the satisfaction of the people. Ranked choice voting has been added in some local CA districts. It might be cumbersome on a national level. But if we want more representation by more than one party, in order to not be locked in by the Establishments of the two parties, such measures like these will be needed.
The whole second amendment issue might come up, but it might not; we are probably not ready for that one in this 4T. The first question is whether we can add a couple of justices, and impose term limits. If so, then perhaps the Heller interpretation could be overturned, and we go back to seeing gun rights as belonging only to members of well-trained militias, which in our time means the national guard and the cops, and end the interpretation that provides individual gun rights. That would be fine with me. It depends on how people will feel 10 years from now about the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence unleashed by today's permissive laws. There's nothing constitutional that can be done about justices legislating from the bench that I can see. The constitution already defines their job, and they must mediate and adjudicate what the law means and apply the constitution and precedent to it and to today's needs in specific cases, rather than imposing strict literalism.
As of now I see no need to further enumerate rights or the powers of congress in the constitution. How could we guarantee the right of citizens not to be unfairly shot by police, for example? Or the right to be represented by a union at work? Or fair wages, or equal pay for equal work? Or a constitutional limit on spending and debt? Probably legislation can handle these things. Talk of term limits for congress might come up. But a more direct democracy might be a good idea. Not sure about that one though. We still have representative government, and most people don't have the time or knowledge to conduct the state's business. However, some states do have citizen initiative, referendum and recall thanks to the progressive movement. That could be nationalized. Whether such initiatives could be done by computer is a thorny issue; hacking is a problem.
However, the issue of money in politics remains a huge one which would affect this process, if put into effect. Spending doesn't always determine outcome. Citizens can sometimes see through the flim flam. But citizens would be better served with information rather than propaganda, which we in CA are flooded with in every election and its citizen initiatives, which have been taken over by paid operatives. This should not be allowed on a national level; citizens alone should gather petition signatures. Whether it's in the constitution or not, the full change we need is to take money out of politics and have public taxpayer funding of campaigns, with media requirements to put out the information and allow candidates and advocates to speak and debate. A new supreme court will be needed to enact all this in this 4T. The Kavanaugh Court will not do it.
Other suggestions have been made. Should business charters require corporations to serve public needs? Could this be in the constitution? Should requirements be made about how democratic boards of directors must be, and who can serve on them? Something like this has already been passed in CA.