NOTE: New items since the last update are in BOLD. Lots of new updates.
This is a public tab to offer our ongoing ideas about what kind of country WE THE PEOPLE want. I’m calling for a New Constitution.
This represents ideas multiple people have contributed to encourage Americans to dream big and demand a true democracy where ALL PEOPLE are equal.
CONSTITUTION
A new Constitution with fundamental rights spelled out in the document, not an attached Bill of Rights. It specifically states that ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL and spells out that this country will no longer give preference to rich, white, Christian men. Make equal rights for ALL POPULATIONS part of the Constitution.
Make abortion and bodily autonomy for women and the LGBTQIA+/trans communities Constitutional rights.
Make marriage equality a Constitutional right.
Build equal rights for women into the Constitution. Given this country’s history, it won’t be enough to say ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL. We must spell out what we mean.
State that Peoples of Color ARE EQUAL PEOPLE. Spell out what that means. And commit to a dollar amount of reparations for slavery of Black people and robbery of Indigenous people.
Universal Healthcare is a basic human right.
A home is a basic human right.
Food is a basic human right.
Water is a basic human right.
Define separation of church and state as NO RELIGION BELONGS IN GOVERNMENT.
**This includes all public entities (like schools) funded by taxpayer monies.**PERIOD.
ELECTIONS
Citizenship means voting is mandatory. No more registering to vote. You’re a citizen; you’re required to vote. (For those who question this, please read more about how it works in Australia
HERE.)Abolish the Electoral College.
Outlaw gerrymandering.
Put upper age limits on who can serve in political office.
Election days are national holidays to enable everyone to vote without missing work.
**Abolish political parties and force candidates to run on issues, not appearance, charisma, ability to fundraise, speaking ability, connections, family names, pedigree, and similar.****Establish a nationwide system of ranked-choice voting.****Allow citizens to vote on issues that directly impact their lives using Switzerland’s model of direct democracy.**Create a process whereby citizens can fire elected officials before their terms end if they do not honor the policies and positions they campaigned on, if they are caught violating ethics rules, or if they are provably lying to their constituents.
CAMPAIGNS
Scrap our entire campaign system.
Outlaw Citizens United and get money out of politics.
Fund elections with taxpayer dollars. Each candidate receives the same campaign allotment to spend on a defined list of items. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Limit election seasons to a few weeks before each election. The rest of the time, our elected officials sit their butts in their offices and work for their constituents instead of spending their time raising money.
LEGISLATURE
Increase the number of representatives to match our current population. This could be accomplished by creating a UNICAMERAL legislature. (Unicameral = one body; it would abolish the House and Senate and create a new legislative structure.)
Term limit every elected office. Legislative branch = 4 years. Executive branch = 4 years. Maximum = 8 years. (Meaning a legislator could run for president and serve a maximum of 8 years. Term limits are aggregated.)
Outlaw elected officials investing in markets, gambling on our futures, or profiting from their offices in any manner.
Elected representatives get the same things normal citizens have: Same healthcare; same retirement; same line at the airport; same ancillary benefits; same everything.
Scrap the two existing political parties. Take their money to seed a new system (
see Elections above.) (This includes every campaign war chest for every incumbent, every PAC, and every SUPER PAC. If those funds exceed the required amount, return the excess to the Treasury to fund programs for WE THE PEOPLE.)Reform the legislature into a
collectivegovernment, whereelected officialsmust work together togovern.Abolish lobbying as a profession.
JUDICIARY
Reform the judiciary with term limits and ethics rules that apply to all levels. No judge should be appointed to a lifetime term at any level, and no judge should be exempt from ethics rules. Federal and appellate court judges = two 4-year terms. Supreme Court justices = one 8-year term.
No Supreme Court justice could run for elected office. No elected official who has met their term limits could be elevated to Supreme Court justice.
Impeach and remove the six conservative Supreme Court justices for ethics violations and complicity in a coup.
Expand the Supreme Court and underlying circuit courts to mirror the population.
Examine and possibly scrap the current judicial appointment system in favor of electing judges.
EXECUTIVE
Clearly and unequivocally state that no person is above the law, including the Executive.
Remove the Executive’s pardon power, especially when it would be applied to someone in their orbit. Pardons are not currency. They are not leverage. They are not advance cover to do unspeakable things.
Presidential campaigns are not popularity contests. We seek the most qualified person to lead what was once a great country. Candidates should have an actual slate of qualifications that can then be used to interview, vet, and hire that Executive for a set term.
The Executive should not be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
The Executive and her/his family must divest of all assets while in office and live on the salary and benefits provided by WE THE PEOPLE.
The Executive cannot invest in markets, gamble on our futures, or profit from the office in any manner.
Prosecute every member of this regime who violated the old Constitution. Strip them of their assets and return them to the coffers of We the People. Implement fair punishments, including those applicable to traitors.
ECONOMY AND BUSINESS
Regulate tech companies,
including seizures of assets and jail time for companies that violate laws, commit crimes, or interfere in public processes.**Steep fines are not enough to keep these people in line. Paying billions of dollars is nothing to people who make trillions by using their companies to rig and destroy democracy.**Outlaw billionaires.
Tax corporations and the wealthy. Make them pay their fair share, which means a Progressive Tax to make them pay what they owe.
Define a Universal Basic Income.
Every parent is eligible for up to one year of paid parental leave per child.
Set a living minimum wage that is in line with Universal Basic Income.
Every job has minimum paid vacation and paid sick time.
Universal childcare is funded, staffed, and available for every parent.
Make hoarding wealth as humiliating as it presently is to be poor. Society should champion the least of us and scorn the worst of us. Billionaires are the worst of us, no matter how they accumulated their wealth and regardless of how much they give away.
RECOVERY FROM DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING
Prosecute those who participated in fascism. I don’t believe we can oust them from power and say
*now we need to rise above and look forward.*NO. We must make them examples through Nuremberg-type trials conducted by the International Criminal Court. (I don’t trust our current corrupted judiciary or partisan system to do this well.)Investigate and prosecute the far-right funding system.
TAX CHURCHES and religious non-profits.
Take all ill-gotten gains and replenish the Treasury they plundered. If that means dismantling their off-shore wealth hiding structures and seizing assets for public use, so be it.
Devise a system to undo the generations-long indoctrination structures of White Christian Nationalism (which includes white supremacy). As a victim of indoctrination, I grasp how much therapeutic support people need to break free from those systems.
Abolish NSPM-7 and its predecessor, the USA Patriot Act of 2001. Both violated guaranteed Constitutional protections in our original founding document.
Change the school process such that every student spends one year interning on civics, government, and community building, ideally between high school and college. This would create an official nationwide civics and government program, funded by taxpayers, using hands-on experience to teach future generations the fundamentals of how governance works.
MEDIA
Regulate and restrict social media like addictive drugs.
Break up all media monopolies.
Outlaw billionaire ownership of media entities. Information is too important to be owned and controlled by billionaires.
**Develop a process to identify, label, and penalize people and groups that pollute our information environment with lies. Without shared truth, there is no freedom.**Bring back media regulations that Reagan scrapped, which has led to the infotainment, propaganda-fueled world we live in today.
Invest in old-school journalism education.
From kindergarten, teach citizens about healthy media consumption, including critical thinking.
Make online stalking, doxxing, trolling, harassment, and other forms of stochastic terror felonies punishable with prison time.
EDUCATION
Mandatory civics education from kindergarten.
A uniform history of this country taught at every level. This would include the truth about slavery, colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and the many flaws of our founders. This effort could be directed by a National Historian and assisted by a representative citizen committee.
Public schools are not dens of religious indoctrination. Religion can be taught by parents in the home and reinforced in their chosen churches. Public schools are not churches or religious institutions.
The arts and humanities are fully funded and taught at every level. These disciplines teach children critical thinking, empathy, and an appreciation for a world that is bigger than themselves.
Regular school visits by elected officials. These would serve two purposes: To remind our leaders whose futures they’re working for; and to inspire our children to grow up and change the world.
Fund free college education for every American who qualifies. Forgive student loan debt and scrap student loan programs.
IMMIGRATION
A fundamental statement that, unless one is an Indigenous American, everyone is an immigrant.
An understanding that while no country can absorb an unlimited stream of new people, we must devise and maintain a fair, humane, accessible immigration system.
Abolish ICE, the Border Patrol, and the Department of Homeland Security. While securing our borders and screening visitors is necessary, these organizations are too corrupt to be reformed.
Abolish the Incarceration Industrial Complex and outlaw private prisons.
Determine how much money every immigrant spent to become a citizen the “right” way and make them and/or their families whole if they were kidnapped and disappeared for following the government-outlined process.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Restore the respect for science and expertise as central to a functioning democracy.
Include a statement about protecting and preserving the planet in a new Constitution. This would include recognizing that the climate changes, and acknowledging that human actions contribute to this cycle.
Update infrastructure to embrace green energy wherever possible.
Update infrastructure to embrace cleaner, more efficient processes whenever possible, even if it means a larger up-front investment.
Invest in electric vehicles, public transportation, and movement that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels.
Help Americans in areas already lost to climate change migrate to other areas. No matter how much money we spend, we will not stop rising seas unless we change our longterm habits.
Incentivize reuse and recycling over continuous consumption.
Restore the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Hurricane Center.
Remove NASA, the NIH, and other scientific agencies from private billionaire influence and fund those agencies to empower future scientific breakthroughs that will benefit all people.
Stop poisoning our land and water by restoring regulation of corporate pollution and poisoning of living beings. Make companies and their shareholders liable for this damage.
The Military
**Civilian control of the military. Strong civilian control is necessary to ensure the military stays grounded in the shared reality of the country and its citizens.****Develop a robust, impenetrable system of military guardrails that cannot be hacked.****Define what we want the military to do, and stick to it.****Once we define what we want the military to do, determine costs, draft a budget, and fund only what we need.****Evaluate and reform the entire process for awarding military contracts. Weapons made to kill human beings and destroy the planet should not be a rabid free-for-all of money-hungry people racing to make the biggest and fastest buck.****Make it illegal for anyone in government to profit from military contracts, retire from the military and start companies that exploit military connections for profit, and/or accept money to facilitate military contracts.****Do not abandon soldiers once they are injured, disabled, and/or suffering from the mental and psychological impacts of combat. Fund a robust Veterans system of tools to help retired soldiers access what they need to thrive in civilian life.**Restore Officers’ Education programs to what they were before this regime.
Policing
**The police forces of the United States of America are among the most racist forces on this planet. Develop screening tools that detect RACISM - in addition to mental proclivities toward violence, sadism, and prior instances of abusive behavior.****Police departments are CIVILIAN functions. They should look like civilians. We must de-militarize all police forces, prohibit partnerships with military or military-adjacent agencies, and abolish structures of surveillance.****Define what we want police to do, stemming from a locally funded group of civilians who are trained to protect their neighbors. Police forces should be educated about community building, fostering positive community interactions, and de-escalating dangerous situations without causing or using violence.****No police officer is above the law. They must live by the laws and standards they enforce and be tried and, if convicted, jailed when they do not.**Set budgets according to what we want police to do, and refuse to fund military-type weapons or military-style gear for police departments.
Guns
**Abolish the Second Amendment and create sensible gun policies.****Gun ownership is a privilege, not a right. Guns must be regulated like operating vehicles, with testing and licensure requirements that are periodically evaluated and renewed.****Gun owners must carry sufficient liability insurance to cover accidental losses to others.****Create a national system of tracking every gun to its owner. Institute penalties, including jail time, for those who operate beyond this system.****Outlaw the sale or transfer of guns person-to-person or secondhand.**Outlaw civilian and police ownership of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Civilians and police officers do not need military-style weapons.
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