August 29, 2007

• You have absolute power in your country for 1 hour; what do you do?

  With only one hour you have to imagine that almost anything you do will
  be quickly reverted or altered as soon as you lose power. So my
  strategy would be to do as much as possible, implement every possible
  crazy idea I’ve ever had without even giving them too much thought in
  the hopes that at least a little bit of something will have an impact.

  First the quick and easy stuff. Close Guantanamo Bay, repeal the
  patriot act, no child left behind, the digital millennium copyright act,
  unlawful Internet gambling enforcement act,  and the military
  commissions act. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security.
  Eliminate the Director of National Intelligence. Withdraw all troops
  from Iraq. Also implement a flexible plan to reduce our military
  presence abroad everywhere in stages to minimal levels by the year
  2020. This plan could be modified but not repealed by Congress or the
  President but would require popular vote to overturn. Also I’d pass a balanced budget for once.

  Next why don’t I add some amendments on to the Constitution? I have absolute power so I can do that right?

  First a long over do Equal Rights Amendment only sightly modified to
  clearly state that it guarantees equal rights regardless of sex or sexual preference. The
  goal here is to make it impossible to craft an amendment banning gay
  marriage without first repealing this amendment.

  Second a Guaranteed Popular Vote Amendment which would make it against
  the law for the Supreme Court or any other representative body to
  determine the results of a close election. It would require that in the
  event of an election that is too close to call, votes must continue to
  be counted until all votes are counted and if that results in a
  difference withing the realm of the margin of error then a re-election
  would be held.

  Third a Equal Education Amendment which would guarantee any resident
  of the U.S. the right to a high quality education under the law. It
  would also include a component that also guarantees our right to any
  tools or inventions that are necessary in order to be an educated and
  functioning member of the society. That would mean that every citizen
  would be guaranteed access to computer technology and High Speed
  Internet.

  Fourth a Freedom of Choice Amendment. Basically an amendment codifying Roe v. Wade into the constitution.

  Fifth a Limited Powers Amendment which would weaken the powers of the Presidency as follows:
  - ban signing statements
  - require Congressional authorization before moving of troops or non-manned military apparatus.
  - make it so that organizations that specialize in covert operations
  and  intelligence must answer to and take orders from Congress or
  officials directly selected by Congress or popular vote, not
  presidential appointees

  Sixth an Anti-Torture Amendment which would codify the Geneva Conventions into U.S. law.

  Seventh a Supreme Court Constitution Amendment which would alter the
  composition of the Supreme Court so that 3 justices are selected by a
  popular vote amongst all scholars in Academia who specialize in law
  and/or politics.  3 of the justices are selected by popular vote of the
  people and must not come from an academic  or political background at
  all. And lastly the final 3 members would be selected through the usual
  Presidential nomination process.  All nine members must still be
  confirmed  by Congress.  A supreme court justice now will serve an
  eight year term renewable one time rather than serving for life.

  Eight a Right To Unionize Amendment which would guarantee the rights to all workers to form unions in any work place. Period.

  Ninth a Right to Health Care Amendment which would guarantee the right to all residents to quality health care.

  Tenth a Limited Monopoly Amendment which would make it illegal for any
  government instituted monopoly power including copyright and say
  bandwidth allocation and like things to persist indefinitely. Congress
  can set the length but the length would be maxed at the average
  lifespan of a human being  or 150 years whichever is smaller and this
  includes renewals.

  Ten seems like an appropriate number of amendments to implement. It has historical resonance.

  OK now for a bunch of new laws and decrees:
  - legalize all controlled substances currently banned, instead
  institute a series of progressive taxation based on the amount of harm
  caused by each substance to society and have the money go to mitigate
  that harm.

  - a similar law legalizing and taxing prostitution

  - similarly a law that taxes all kinds of goods that the production of
  which or consumption of which causes environmental or social harm
  proportional to the amount of harm it causes. So sugar, alcohol, fatty
  foods, gasoline, plastic, non-fuel efficient vehicles, light bulbs, all
  are taxed. The money is used to offset the harms and to research new
  means to offset the harms.

  - rather than have laws that ban smoking in all public places, you
  instead ban any activity like smoking that creates secondary harm
  through its passive use (IE second hand smoke) in all places that
  receive public funding. And on top of that you put a tax on any
  institution that chooses to allow such substances to be used the money
  from which would go into funding the medical system. So you can still
  have bars that allow smoking for example they just gotta weigh the
  advantages of having a different kind of patronage versus the added
  costs the government will force them to fork out.

  - a law making it illegal to ban licensed gun owners allowed to carry
  concealed weapons from carrying their firearms in any institution that
  receives any public funds.

  - however at the same time we implement a law that makes carrying an
  illegal firearm punishable by life imprisonment. This will be
  implemented a year from this date and until that time anyone can hand
  in any illegal guns they happen to own at no penalty and the government
  will pay them a hundred dollars for their trouble.

  - implement a gun responsibility law that makes the registered owner of
  a gun economically responsible for any harm that is caused by that gun
  whatever the circumstances.

  - change the minimum age for alcohol and tobacco and all other controlled substances to 16.

  - a law making any attempt to abridge the meeting or prevent the membership of unions punishable by life imprisonment.

  - eliminate the death penalty nation wide.

  - a law that implements a series of tax benefits and scaling financial
  rewards for citizen voting. The more you vote the more financially
  benefited you are for voting.

  - implement a yearly citizen referendum whereby citizens will be
  presented with each law passed during the past year and have the option
  to vote to strike them down or not. Simple majority wins.

  - during said same referendum, citizens can also propose new laws, as
  many as they like. Any proposal supported by a third or more the
  citizens would have to be taken up by Congress during the next session.
  Any proposal supported by 2/3 or more the citizens would immediately
  become law. No Presidential veto allowed.

  - a law that appropriates an appropriate amount of money equivalent to
  that which is owed for reparations for slavery and discriminative
  practices and distributes it to all surviving members of family members
  of citizens who were held in slavery or to institutions that are in
  support of them. The law would also contain a formal apology for such
  events in history.  The law would also eliminate affirmative action,
  but not diversity based selection methods which would still be
  perfectly legal.

  - a law that implements severe financial fines to any news institution
  that publishes information that is not true. The fines are proportional
  to the size of the organization publishing the story and the size of
  its readership/viewership. The fine would be implemented at the moment
  we determine that what was asserted was false and the fine would be
  mitigated depending on how much corroborating evidence the institution
  can bring forth to show that they had reason to believe the story they
  were providing was untrue, but there would always be a fine.

  - a law creating a public television station and a public radio station
  used solely for political advertisements and campaigning and which
  guarantees equal access to all candidates.

  - a law making copyright terms last 1 year, renewable one time. the law
  would also make it so that nothing is copyrighted ‘automatically’ the
  way it is now. Rather a copyright must be filed for, everything else
  falls into the public domain.

  - eliminate the entire patent system not because I am against it but
  because its history is pretty chaotic and I think it’d be a good idea
  to just start over from scratch.

  - a law that flat out bans all campaign contributions of any kind.
  Anyone running for office needs to use public funds for campaigning and
  is not allowed to use his or her own money either. Anyone sitting in a
  public office or working for a public institution would be banned from
  taking any gifts or trips from any lobbyists.

  - a law that eliminates national income and blanket sales taxes (we
  rely more heavily on taxes on goods based on the harm they cause as
  described above). At the same time it increases the inheritance tax to
  reasonable levels.

  - a law codifying that all entities working for corporations must act
  in accordance with ethical principles and the law and the well being of
  the populace. These interests must take precedent over shareholder
  interests.

  - a law that ensures that all residents are provided a Minimal
  Comfortable Survivability Distribution every year for the entire of
  their natural life. This is an amount of money as determined by a
  special commission that meets every year that the average person needs
  in order to survive comfortably and remain healthy given the current
  economic situation in the country. The money given to children is of
  course given to their guardians to use on their behalf. This system
  will replace welfare systems and social security (the money distributed
  may increase if special needs such as disability need to be met). The
  money you are given is not effected by the money you earn on your job
  and retirement plans you choose to invest in separately. But if you
  blow this money, the government doesn’t help you out at all. You’d have
  to rely on the charity of your fellow citizens in that case.

  - A freedom of migration act which would make it so that the only
  restriction upon your ability to come to the U.S. is whether or not you
  can get someone to hire you. No lines. No rules. No walls. No limits.
  You can either have a job here or you can prove that you are making
  enough money or have enough money saved independently to support
  yourself and your family, or you can prove that you are actively
  searching for a job, which you’d have to verify every month or two and
  if after two years you still haven’t found employment you will need to
  leave. In fact the government will pay you to leave and look for
  employment elsewhere. Similarly if you are having trouble finding a job
  there will be government funded programs that help people migrate from
  various parts of the country to others where employment opportunities
  are greater whenever the worker supply exceeds the demand in a certain
  area. Of course going to school in the U.S. basically would be treated
  the same way as having  a job here.  I would leave a letter for my
  successor  advocating that he or she also try to pressure other
  countries to implement the exact same kind of laws making labor
  distribution fair and efficient.

  - An analyst conscription act which will allow congress during times of
  needs to draft analysts from business and academia to work on the
  research and development needed to keep our country and its populace
  safe from whatever threat. A drafted citizen is drafted for a maximum
  requirement of serving for 3 years but may elect to stay longer if he or
  she so chooses. The analyst is paid a normal average competitive
  analyst salary and the analyst goes through a normal interview process
  (and background check of course) once randomly selected to see if they
  will provide skills or intellect that will be beneficial for dealing
  with the problem at hand. If not the person will be allowed to go back
  to his or her previous life. So in current times we’d have an
  anti-terrorism analyst draft in progress.  The group of analyst
  commissions through this act would have extraordinary powers to
  implement policy without having to wait for the approval of the
  President or Congress but which can quickly be overturned by Congress
  or the President should the need arise. So for example if the analyst
  commission decides that the levy system in New Orleans is unsafe they
  can immediately order an evacuation on their own authority. Of course
  they would still need to work normally with other institutions such as
  the military.

  - A multiple parties act which makes it easy for members of independent
  parties to get on the ballot in elections all over the country. All you
  have to do is request that your name be put on the ballot and get one
  person to vouch for you. If the ballots get too cluttered then we hold
  preliminary elections to reduce the candidate pool followed by run off
  elections.

  - A law that requires the U.S. to make all do effort to intervene in
  any humanitarian crises or genocide happening anywhere in the world and
  to protect and defend all international laws, statutes, and decrees.

  - A law that radically increases the nationwide funds for education. The law would require the building of new schools, hiring of many new teachers and radically increase the pay grade of teachers. Teacher salaries would be partially linked to how bad a school they are willing to teach in, in addition to and even more than their student’s performance. So to get the highest salary you would do a good job teaching and helping to reform the lowest quality schools in the country.

  -   A law banning the use of nuclear weapons by the military at any time under any circumstances without unanimous approval of the U.S. Congress. The President still has control over the weapons and can use them if he pleases but it will be an illegal act and if humanity survives he will be impeached for it.  Also the law would call for a massive reduction on our nuclear arsenal.

  - A law that implements a moratorium on the development of coal based power plants or nuclear power plants until cost effective solutions to the CO2 emissions and nuclear waste problems respectively can be solved. You can build as many wind farms as you want however.

  - A law appropriating a very large sum of money to go into the continued research of fusion power. This is over and on top of ongoing clean energy research.

  - A law appropriating a very large sum of money to go into the continued research of faster high speed internet systems with the goal of making the U.S. the country with by far the fastest broadband access available to its citizens in the world.

  Lastly, how about we implement one last Amendment if I have time before they kick me out the seat of absolute power.

  The Internet Independence Amendment which would say something like
  “Congress shall pass no law interfering with the progression and
  development of the Internet.”

  OK so that’s all I can think of off of the top of my head. I’m sure
  most of these are a little bit crazy, might have horribly unforeseen
  consequences and probably just generally weren’t thought out very well.
  But that’s OK since I just pulled most of it out o my arse just now and
  I only had an hour anyway. My hope would be that after doing all of
  this all at once it would put a jolt into the system of the country and
  we’d be more tolerant to trying radically new ideas to see what works
  and what doesn’t. Maybe even a few of these ideas might turn out to be
  not so crazy ideas after all and might stick in some way shape or form.

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  • 1:18 pm
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