CDZ A New and Improved Constitution for the USA

[Procrustes Stretched]

The Swiss have a much smaller (8 million or so folks--smaller than New York City) and much more homogenous and culturally uniform population than does the USA. Their land area is roughly the size of Vermont combined with New Hampshire or maybe two or three counties in New Mexico. I think extrapolating what works for them would work for us could be as impractical and perhaps as destructive as saying the local government of Muleshoe TX would be okay for New York City.

And no way in hell do I want to put all the power with the political party machines. Those already hold far too much power as it is and they all exist to get what THEY want in government rather than for the best interests of the whole country.

The Swiss, however, are a culture that is most similar to ours of all countries. The people there have the power, via petition, to object to actions of Parliament, and there is growing concern among the people that far too much power is being placed in their central government as opposed to mostly in the municipalities, cities, or canton where it has traditionally been.

well a national initiative option could be structured slightly different form Swirzerlands...using state processes already used and expanding on that. organization already in place promoting a NI.

on partys I think actually the partys in america are weak. Ive seen studies that show would be an improvement if party line actually meant something. As it is now lots of rank and file of both the corrupt puppet parties feel backstabbed by most of their politicians. BEcause those politicians are more atuned to the needs of donors than to party ideology.

I disagree. I think the party structures are as tied into the self-serving corruption as much as anything else. And I think there is plenty of evidence that those in elected and appointed offices as well as the more powerful bureaucrats are extorting money from those donors more than they are concerned with the needs of those donors. The donors give money to prevent government from making mischief more than they give money as bribes. And millions--I am not exaggerating--millions of that extorted money is funneled into the political party organizations. Which is why I propose this situation be corrected via the Constitution.

America is like no other nation. We were intended to be like no other nation. And when we operated via those principles, we were the most powerful, prosperous, innovative, and free nation in the world--the place in the world all wanted to come to because here people would have liberty to make of themselves whatever they had the vision and aptitude to be. No other nation could come close to us.

But we are what we are because we chose to be different--to have a government and society that embraced liberty instead of the whims of kings or other authorities that existed in the European and Asian systems. We should not be so eager to think we should be like Europe. We should instead look to restore those qualities that all of Europe envied and slowly but surely were emulating.

I think you've got on rose colored glasses when it comes to the past....

I admire the founding generation...but they were in some ways betrayed by the federalists and the Constitution. Patrick Henry opposed it...so did James Monroe....

One of the greatest errors in evaluating history is that if ANYBODY opposed something or ANYBODY misused something or if ANYTHING didn't work as expected or if ANYTHING was not as it should be, then the whole thing was too flawed or incompetent or evil to be considered effective. The irony is that the same people who accuse the past in that way don't seem to have enough problem with the glaring inefficiencies, error, evils, and misconduct in the present system to declare it too flawed or incompetent or evil to be considered effective.

Bingo ...



Side Note:
Once we can accept that nothing ever works perfectly as well as the fact efficiency and effectiveness supersede intention ... Then principle and responsibility override political response.

The intention to help someone does not ensure success nor excuse failure ... Especially if it requires confiscating resources and infringing on the rights of responsible citizens.

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Principles should serve men not the other way around. The political response usually speaks to the weakness or failure of the efficiency and effectiveness of any given program or law.

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

 

[dblack]

It's imperative that any new constitution, or changes to the existing one, address the ever-increasing collusion between economic and state power.

 

[BlackSand]

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

Taxes in general are not theft ... But it can be altered with intention or final use.

Taxes to pay for a fire truck are not the same as taxes paid for research on mountain lion habitat. I don't have to dislike mountain lions to think it is not the responsibility of government to fund their research.

Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft ... Intention is no excuse for failure to promote advancement.

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[Procrustes Stretched]

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

Taxes in general are not theft ... But it can be altered with intention or final use.

Taxes to pay for a fire truck are not the same as taxes paid for research on mountain lion habitat. I don't have to dislike mountain lions to think it is not the responsibility of government to fund their research.

Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft ... Intention is no excuse for failure to promote advancement.

.

Mountain Lion habitats might give us knowledge we did not know we desired. Sort of like the space program

A minimum standard wage or living is a classic conservative economic proposal that takes into consideration those inevitably left behind in the march of capitalist trade. A society cannot keep growing without maintaining a healthy bottom rung on which the middle class is built

 

[BlackSand]

Mountain Lion habitats might give us knowledge we did not know we desired. Sort of like the space program

A minimum standard wage or living is a classic conservative economic proposal that takes into consideration those inevitably left behind in the march of capitalist trade. A society cannot keep growing without maintaining a healthy bottom rung on which the middle class is built

Oh don't get me wrong ... Research in regards to almost anything is worthwhile ... I just don't believe it has to be funded by the government. It is no good to tax a middle class family's income to research mountain lions when they could use that money to send their child to college or buy a new car providing for their happiness and the economy ... They earned it.

Perhaps we just happen to disagree the minimum is acceptable and worth maintaining at the cost of those who are willing to achieve . I am not saying that compassion is wrong ... Just that government funded compassion with no expectation of advancement is not an honest effort to spend wisely.

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[Procrustes Stretched]

Mountain Lion habitats might give us knowledge we did not know we desired. Sort of like the space program

A minimum standard wage or living is a classic conservative economic proposal that takes into consideration those inevitably left behind in the march of capitalist trade. A society cannot keep growing without maintaining a healthy bottom rung on which the middle class is built

Oh don't get me wrong ... Research in regards to almost anything is worthwhile ... I just don't believe it has to be funded by the government. It is no good to tax a middle class family's income to research mountain lions when they could use that money to send their child to college or buy a new car providing for their happiness and the economy ... They earned it.

Perhaps we just happen to disagree the minimum is acceptable and worth maintaining at the cost of those who are willing to achieve . I am not saying that compassion is wrong ... Just that government funded compassion with no expectation of advancement is not an honest effort to spend wisely.

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I see the problem with the type of argument you are using is that if all middle class families were reimbursed the cost of the lion Habitat study, how much of a fraction of one cent would they get back? And hiding behind 'they eared it' is silly. All income tax is earned by somebody.

Spending wisely is the issue. In a compromise we both would probably not be one hundred percent satisfied, but...

 

[BlackSand]

Spending wisely is the issue. In a compromise we both would probably not be one hundred percent satisfied, but...

It is not simply a matter of satisfaction with the results.

My understanding is that we are supposed to be considered equal. If we are equal in the eyes of the law ... Equal in determining the law ... Then we should be equal in the expectations of the law.

I am not suggesting that a complete equal is achievable as far as wealth or whatever ... I am saying that if we are expected to be equal ... The same expectations and requirements of the law should be shared equally.

To have one portion of society advance as expected and provide for another portion of society that has no expectation to achieve or advance ... And give them equal say-so in determining the law ... That is simply not consistent with equality any way you want to look at it.

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[Foxfyre]

Mountain Lion habitats might give us knowledge we did not know we desired. Sort of like the space program

A minimum standard wage or living is a classic conservative economic proposal that takes into consideration those inevitably left behind in the march of capitalist trade. A society cannot keep growing without maintaining a healthy bottom rung on which the middle class is built

Oh don't get me wrong ... Research in regards to almost anything is worthwhile ... I just don't believe it has to be funded by the government. It is no good to tax a middle class family's income to research mountain lions when they could use that money to send their child to college or buy a new car providing for their happiness and the economy ... They earned it.

Perhaps we just happen to disagree the minimum is acceptable and worth maintaining at the cost of those who are willing to achieve . I am not saying that compassion is wrong ... Just that government funded compassion with no expectation of advancement is not an honest effort to spend wisely.

.

Or voluntarily donate that money to an organization studying mountain lion habitat which would mean that all of it got to the organization instead of the fraction that would have been left after the government bureaucracy swallowed up a lot or even most of it.

Dblack said that because something worked in the past is not an endorsement for whether it would work now. I know where he was coming from with that and agree with the point I think he was making, but to be precise, I can't quite agree with the statement itself.

I think those informed by honest history are way ahead of the game when it comes to making better choices now. No all the Founders didn't agree on everything and yes they made mistakes and got it wrong here and there just as did the governments in the various states and cities. But a substantial majority did agree on all things they put into practice and much more turned out well as opposed to those things that would need repair.

We should be looking back and seeing what worked and what didn't work to help us make better decisions now. And we should do that with a critical eye and demand absolute honesty in the critique rather than just parrot partisan propaganda and sound bites in order to make our side look more noble or competent.

It is as foolish to say something was bad because it didn't work perfectly for everybody as it is to say something is good because it has benefitted a few.

 

[Olde Europe]

Hear, hear!
Madison and Hamilton were all over the place on intent and meanings, so how the heck can anyone else claim to know -- unless they buy into the originalist approach and seek out what the people who ratified the document and not the mere writers meant and intended -- oh never mind

I have to confess to harbouring a growing suspicion that the "originalists" mostly follow an agenda, that is, to impose a backward, ultra-conservative, ultra-libertarian agenda upon a twentyfirst century population. To that end they exploit the gap of uncertainty that inevitably resides between text and intent, ascribe their own agenda as "intent" to Founders and Framers, not without cherry-picking quotes that might lend themselves to those ends, and voilà, they have acquired the support and approval by the Founders for their ideological bent, a pre-New-Deal society in which women still knew their place and the Unwashed still treated their rich, virtuous betters with the respect they deserved. But that would be, quite obviously, just my own feeble attempt at deriving "intent" from some phrases and paragraphs I have read here or there.

 

[PratchettFan]

Hear, hear!
Madison and Hamilton were all over the place on intent and meanings, so how the heck can anyone else claim to know -- unless they buy into the originalist approach and seek out what the people who ratified the document and not the mere writers meant and intended -- oh never mind

I have to confess to harbouring a growing suspicion that the "originalists" mostly follow an agenda, that is, to impose a backward, ultra-conservative, ultra-libertarian agenda upon a twentyfirst century population. To that end they exploit the gap of uncertainty that inevitably resides between text and intent, ascribe their own agenda as "intent" to Founders and Framers, not without cherry-picking quotes that might lend themselves to those ends, and voilà, they have acquired the support and approval by the Founders for their ideological bent, a pre-New-Deal society in which women still knew their place and the Unwashed still treated their rich, virtuous betters with the respect they deserved. But that would be, quite obviously, just my own feeble attempt at deriving "intent" from some phrases and paragraphs I have read here or there.

Personally, I don't give a damn what the intent of the Founders was. They created an excellent form of government and I applaud them for it, but they are dead and this nation belongs to the living. It is now our society and we decide what it should be. If we are to dump the current Constitution for another, then what Jefferson or Hamilton thought is utterly irrelevant.

 

[Olde Europe]

Personally, I don't give a damn what the intent of the Founders was. They created an excellent form of government and I applaud them for it, but they are dead and this nation belongs to the living. It is now our society and we decide what it should be. If we are to dump the current Constitution for another, then what Jefferson or Hamilton thought is utterly irrelevant.

As I have argued before, any Constitution ought to reflect the best thinking of the time, keeping those yet to be born in mind, so, in a way I agree with you. That doesn't mean that there's nothing to be learned from the Founders. Oh, and BTW, we'd have Jefferson on our side, as the man once famously mused that each generation should scrap the document and write their own Constitution, adjusted to their needs and aspirations.

 

[Olde Europe]

Oh don't get me wrong ... Research in regards to almost anything is worthwhile ... I just don't believe it has to be funded by the government. It is no good to tax a middle class family's income to research mountain lions

Or voluntarily donate that money to an organization studying mountain lion habitat which would mean that all of it got to the organization instead of the fraction that would have been left after the government bureaucracy swallowed up a lot or even most of it.

Mountain lions, standing atop the food chain, have (at least had) a pretty significant impact on the health of the forests' flora and fauna by keeping plant-eating populations in check and thus helping forests to rejuvenate. The health of the forests, in turn, has a significant impact on water supplies and flooding. I'd say, keeping an eye on the nation's forests is pretty much a task the Federal government should assume, and they should well make sure it's actually done according to the highest scientific standards, not by some obscure charity (or whatever), since "Seven ways to hug a mountain lion" wouldn't help that much.

And yes, the enlightened self-government the Founders conceived costs a dime, and some waste here or there adds to that, to the understandable anger of those required to fund it. Whether the average charity actually has a smaller overhead cost than the federal government, I am in no position to say, but would hazard a guess that the far superior performance of Medicare and Medicaid in this respect (as compared to their private competitors) may very well be replicated elsewhere.

 

[Derideo_Te]

an expansion of the house of representatives, part-time, stay in district,
who can vote when asked to by a strong minority of DC reps. Disperses power.

a national initiative option,

I would have no problem with expanding representation in Washington IF we do away with ridiculous gerrymandering. Districts should be shaped to get the right number of population but not the 'right kind' of population.

What do you mean by a national initiative option?

gerrymandering could be illiminated by making representation proportional to party vote by state...or even nationwide.

a nationl intitiative option would be like the Swiss have...upon gathering enought signatures people can get an issue they care about on the ballot.

The Swiss have a much smaller (8 million or so folks--smaller than New York City) and much more homogenous and culturally uniform population than does the USA. Their land area is roughly the size of Vermont combined with New Hampshire or maybe two or three counties in New Mexico. I think extrapolating what works for them would work for us could be as impractical and perhaps as destructive as saying the local government of Muleshoe TX would be okay for New York City.

And no way in hell do I want to put all the power with the political party machines. Those already hold far too much power as it is and they all exist to get what THEY want in government rather than for the best interests of the whole country.

The Swiss, however, are a culture that is most similar to ours of all countries. The people there have the power, via petition, to object to actions of Parliament, and there is growing concern among the people that far too much power is being placed in their central government as opposed to mostly in the municipalities, cities, or canton where it has traditionally been.

well a national initiative option could be structured slightly different form Swirzerlands...using state processes already used and expanding on that. organization already in place promoting a NI.

on partys I think actually the partys in america are weak. Ive seen studies that show would be an improvement if party line actually meant something. As it is now lots of rank and file of both the corrupt puppet parties feel backstabbed by most of their politicians. BEcause those politicians are more atuned to the needs of donors than to party ideology.

I disagree. I think the party structures are as tied into the self-serving corruption as much as anything else. And I think there is plenty of evidence that those in elected and appointed offices as well as the more powerful bureaucrats are extorting money from those donors more than they are concerned with the needs of those donors. The donors give money to prevent government from making mischief more than they give money as bribes.

"The donors give money to prevent government from making mischief more than they give money as bribes."

Prove it!

And millions--I am not exaggerating--millions of that extorted money is funneled into the political party organizations. Which is why I propose this situation be corrected via the Constitution.

Extorted? From whom? Why is no one investigating this alleged "extortion"?

And no, you haven't proposed that this "situation be corrected via the Constitution". Instead you are proposing tearing down the existing constitution and replacing with a Libertarian fantasy that you refuse to examine in detail because it cannot withstand scrutiny.

America is like no other nation. We were intended to be like no other nation.

America is like no other nation when it comes to spending on the military and waging war. It was like 3rd world nations when it came to healthcare coverage (only those who could afford it had any) until the ACA was passed. It has become like no other nation when it comes to allowing for the corruption of politicians by corporate special interests.

And when we operated via those principles, we were the most powerful, prosperous, innovative, and free nation in the world--the place in the world all wanted to come to because here people would have liberty to make of themselves whatever they had the vision and aptitude to be. No other nation could come close to us.

But we are what we are because we chose to be different--to have a government and society that embraced liberty instead of the whims of kings or other authorities that existed in the European and Asian systems. We should not be so eager to think we should be like Europe. We should instead look to restore those qualities that all of Europe envied and slowly but surely were emulating.

Those EU nations have affordable healthcare for everyone that is just as good as here is America. They don't waste trillions of their taxpayer dollars on the military. They don't allow corporations to own their politicians.

 

[Derideo_Te]

The intention to help someone does not ensure success nor excuse failure ... Especially if it requires confiscating resources and infringing on the rights of responsible citizens.

What exactly has been "confiscated" of yours and which of your rights have been "infringed"?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

Taxes in general are not theft ... But it can be altered with intention or final use.

Taxes to pay for a fire truck are not the same as taxes paid for research on mountain lion habitat. I don't have to dislike mountain lions to think it is not the responsibility of government to fund their research.

Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft ... Intention is no excuse for failure to promote advancement.

.

"Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft"

Prove it.

 

[BlackSand]

The intention to help someone does not ensure success nor excuse failure ... Especially if it requires confiscating resources and infringing on the rights of responsible citizens.

What exactly has been "confiscated" of yours and which of your rights have been "infringed"?

A resource is anything that provides assistance in achieving a goal. Confiscation is the ability to seize what belongs to another. Individuals have the basic right to secure what is theirs and a responsibility to use it wisely.

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[BlackSand]

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

Taxes in general are not theft ... But it can be altered with intention or final use.

Taxes to pay for a fire truck are not the same as taxes paid for research on mountain lion habitat. I don't have to dislike mountain lions to think it is not the responsibility of government to fund their research.

Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft ... Intention is no excuse for failure to promote advancement.

.

"Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft"

Prove it.

Prove it isn't.

.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Taxes are not theft. Do you agree?

Taxes in general are not theft ... But it can be altered with intention or final use.

Taxes to pay for a fire truck are not the same as taxes paid for research on mountain lion habitat. I don't have to dislike mountain lions to think it is not the responsibility of government to fund their research.

Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft ... Intention is no excuse for failure to promote advancement.

.

"Taxes for the purpose of redistribution used to sustain the minimum are theft"

Prove it.

Prove it isn't.

.

The burden of proof is on those who make the charge -- dopey

 

[BlackSand]

The burden of proof is on those who make the charge -- dopey

I have done nothing to change the definition of theft ... Dopey.

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[Procrustes Stretched]

The burden of proof is on those who make the charge -- dopey

I have done nothing to change the definition of theft ... Dopey.

.

Your Anarchistic ramblings aside, who is your US Rep?