At the moment the Republicans almost control enough state legislatures to call a convention of states. Assuming they could all agree on something useful, what amendment or amendments do you think should be made?
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The "put the servant back in public servant amendment".
All politicians will be paid at the poverty line
Term limits for all publicly elected politicians
Politicians must wear the branding of any group that contributes to their campaign
Any large group of politicians that can't come to a decision in a timely manner shall be locked in the building without food, water, or restroom facilities, until a decision is made
Balanced budget amendment. That they have to balance it without increasing their debt
Money has to be backed by gold?
It’s a dream, but end the Fed.
Term Limits for Congress.
End of Federal Income Tax
No salaries while Nation in debt.
Biggest and most pressing issue is obviously term limits, but it doesn't do enough.
Echoing u/Baron_Bubbles regarding the 'servant' back in public service -- I've thought about ways to do it in a way that is simple and in the same spirit of the amendment process:
No one shall serve in the House of Representatives for more than 10 years. If a citizen is not eligible to serve a full term they are not eligible to run.
No one shall serve in the Senate for more than 2 terms.
No one shall serve in Congress for more than 15 years with no exceptions.
We also need HUGE reform on campaign financing and lobbying. Lobbying as an institution needs to die a horrific death. Make it a felony and throw the book at the first violation. (Whether or not this is even allowed to happen would be a great benchmark for the success of the reforms).
There honestly isn't a reasonable solution I'm not willing to endorse. Make Congress members' personal finances while in office public record? Create an independent watchdog to audit Congress members if their net worth (or their spouse's net worth) increases dramatically.
These people work for us, and public service should be a sacrifice.
Looking at our current Congress I understand why the French went for the Guillotine.
Another thing I forgot to mention is we also need to have a maximum age limit for office to go along with the minimum age. It would help curb barely functional fuckwits like Pelosi and Biden.
Don't disagree but I think it might be a but punitive. No one is going to vote for an 80 year old non-incumbent for Congress.
And if they're incumbent, their days in Congress would be numbered anyway.
We don't need new amendments, just repeal all of them after the 11th.
That would include the 22nd which came about because FDR won 4 terms, although he died shortly after the 4th started.
A Bill of Wrongs. A formal, codified list of things that are not, under any circumstance, ever, a civil right.
These things would include abortion, sodomy, Islam, socialism, equality of outcome, and many, many more.
The end of the list would have a clause declaring that any sitting member of the judiciary who makes a ruling effectively establishing anything in the Bill of Wrongs as a civil right, shall be executed by hanging.
I don't think the US's problems can really be solved with an amendment because its problems are mostly people-based, but I would end jus soli citizenship as it has been a total disaster.
The problem is people based, but not because they're people, but because literal losers and failures in life are allowed to vote.
Every time I hear it, the more I like a Net Taxpayer voting system. If you want to vote, you have to pay into the system. If you vote yourself gibs, you're suddenly no longer a net taxpayer so you can't keep giving yourself shit. This would create a equilibrium where those who want to be slaves can be slaves and those who want to be free don't have to suffer under the slave majority rule.
Our problems go far beyond "losers" being able to vote, because a lot of the people who voted our way into this mess were "winners". All the Fortune 500 CEOs pushing for BLM and DIE shit are "winners" by anyone's definition of the word and would gladly vote for the entire third world to move into your neighborhood, higher taxes, more government intervention, etc...
And a lot of them are natural slaves in the sense that they are highly conformist and subservient to a system that rewards them for such conformity. And can't imagine living outside that system despite having the means to do so. The only billionaire in popular culture who doesn't seem to entirely fit this mold is Elon Musk, due to his goal of creating an autonomous Mars colony.
Jus sanguinis is a far better system given the realities of international travel and the unsecure nature of our border.
However, I would support a modified version of jus sanguinis that says you can be a citizen, if at the time of birth, at least one parent is a legal resident (as opposed to a citizen) of the US.
I wouldn't create any, would repeal a few.
16th and 19th would be a good start. 17th too
First, additional bills of rights for the modern era:
Second, place some limits on existing things that have gotten out of control:
Third, limit corruption:
Fourth, correct existing amendments:
Trees for Treason: Make treason a crime again and the death penalty for those who commit it. Make the DOJ investigate and enforce this and other laws already on the books. Bribery should be considered a form of treason as it is a form of undue influence.
Corporate Corruption and Influences Act: Enforce the ending of monopolies, arrest corrupt people, execute the leaders of 'too big to fail' firms for sinking economies, yada yada yada.
Government Overreach: Anything that's not already in the constitution, the government must appeal to the populace to give them those powers and they can only be temporary and never renewed.
Purity Tests For Journalists: The 4th estate is basically untouchable by law and civil courts. They are a law unto themselves. Therefore, they must prove themselves worthy of such a stance through a simple yet rigorous screening of their actions every 6 months or they are stripped of their cloaks of journalistic priesthood.
We cannot get ourselves out of this through mere procedural changes. The rot runs much deeper, but since you asked...
Ban gay marriage, porn, corporations, unions, abortion, no fault divorce, welfare, jus soli citizenship, contraception, and mail-in ballots. Land may not be owned by foreigners, banks, hedgefunds, or any other financial institutions.
Voting is restricted to citizen home owners who are in good standing with a local christian church(any church that supports the return of the above is not eligible).
Enforce the gold standard and end fractional reserve banking with the death penalty.
Merely suggesting any form of gun control while a politician or government employee is a capital offense and the punishment can be exectuted by any citizen.
The President has free reign to arbitrarily fire civil servants and abolish executive agencies.
I've got a whole pile, but my main one is this:
The Reasonable Length amendment: Every piece of proposed legislation (state, federal, or local) must be made publicly available for comment for a length no less than 1 week for every 350 words in the bill. Any change to the bill - no matter how minor (even changing a single comma or something) - will result in the timer being reset.
I'll do you one better:
Every proposed bill should be first voted on, and if it passes the standard vote, it should then be tested for let's say "reasonableness". That is, those who voted against can nominate any person in the country who can legally vote, even the worst retard they can find if they want, and give that person - let's call him a "citizen representative" - a week to read the bill, and then grill him on what exactly the bill does, how it works, and how it interacts with any other existing bill. If the "citizen representative" answers all questions correctly, they get a huge sum of money (to motivate them) and the bill can pass. If the citizen gets anything wrong, anyone who voted for the bill gets all his limbs broken and fed to a pack of starving pitbulls.
The first time I've heard the expression "ignorance of the law isn't an excuse" was when I was like 5 years old, and it sounds reasonable if you don't think about it, but any developed country in the world right now has an insane legal system that even professional lawyers don't understand. It's completely unreasonable to expect Joe Blow to follow all laws when even someone who has had law as a career for the last 40 years is unable to do so. Legislation must be simple and easy to understand, and anyone who wants to make it complicated and inaccessible must be removed with extreme prejudice.
My country has under 11 million people and around 2,5 million laws, bylaws, etc. That's not even remotely reasonable and the people responsible for this are disgusting pieces of shit who have no place in a functioning society. The law really doesn't need to be more complicated than the ten commandments, without the overtly religious ones. People had that figured out millennia ago.
I'd start by amending the Bill of Rights to include set responsibilities with each right. I'd put some stronger controls on the branches of government to limit their ability to exceed their intended role.
A set of responsibilities in this day and age? That is antithetical to the bill of rights. A bill of obligations sounds like an excellent way to get us to slavery to the government.
We constantly enact new things the government can do. The whole premise behind the bill of rights is there are certain things the government cannot do.
If a majority of state legislatures can vote to overturn any federal law. State legislatures can pass a resolution of no confidence in the federal government. 26 states approving such a resolution dissolves the federal government triggering a snap election in 60 days. No one currently holding office or appointed by current government is allowed to run in the snap election and all appointees are removed after the election.
There shall be no standing army of the United States. States provide military forces and must give permissions by state legislature to deploy outside of US. Any declaration of war must be approved by 2/3 of state legislatures.
"Any federal actor who knowingly and willingly supports or enforces any law or order which violates this constitution, without taking the proper steps to amend this constitution first, shall be guilty of treason."
No more beating around the bush or "yes, but..." constitution. There must be consequences for subverting the foundation of the nation.
The Constitution is just a piece of paper. If it had any actual power we wouldn't be dealing with this current shitshow. The only value this conversation has is in refining our ideas of what a 'just' government looks like. If this was an in-person discussion it would have a little more value, but since this as a pseudonymous internet forum, coordinating any sort of actually effective action on this scale from here is nigh-impossible.
That said, I agree with a lot of the suggestions made here, I just think this hypothetical is the wrong way to bring forward this discussion.
The reason we aren't like Australia having police knocking and making warrantless arrests for wrongspeak is precisely because we have a bill of rights.
I agree we won't get any effective action out of this but it is a useful thought experiment.
Bullshit. The reason we aren't having our rights openly trampled to the same degree as Australia is because there's enough (perception of) public resistance to such actions. But if there was not an armed, independent populace in the US, we'd be in the same boat as Australia. The fact that we have a Bill of Rights certainly doesn't hurt, but without popular (and institutional) support for the ideals of Freedom of Speech, the Right to Bear Arms, individualism, and more guns and ammo in civilian hands than all the world's governments (IIRC), the tyrants would have succeeded in installing their New World Order long ago.
Apologies if I come off as aggressive, but I think it's well past time that informed individuals should have realized that laws are only as strong as the people that back them. If they're inconvenient to the current regime they'll be ignored or disposed of. It's our job to do the same to laws or regimes we find "inconvenient" (read "tyrannical").
Remind me what is the second bill of rights?
The fact we have these unique rights that the vast majority of world does not is precisely the reason American culture is synonymous with freedom and liberty.
You're severely confused on what the Bill of Rights is from both a legal/theoretical and practical standpoint. From neither perspective does the Bill of Rights grant us any unique rights. Legally the Bill of Rights acknowledges rights that are inherent to all men, and guarantees that the government will not interfere with those rights. Practically the Bill of Rights is a piece of paper on which our founders wrote down principals without which they felt a just society couldn't function. If I recall my history correctly many were against the idea as they felt any document delineating the rights of the people would be used to restrict the rights of the people, as there was no way for a document to cover every right of the people. Therefore the document was written specifically to restrict the (federal) government, particularly with the 10th Amendment.
You're also confused as to the uniqueness of our Bill of Rights. Many other nations have something similar to our Bill of Rights which "guarantees" their population certain rights. Canada for example guarantees the Queen's subjects Freedom of Speech, Religion, et. al., but these are regularly infringed there. The only portion of our Bill of Rights that I am aware of being truly unique is the 2nd Amendment, and even then, other countries have adopted a right to bear arms for the purpose of self defense.
I think both of us would agree that the Bill of Rights contains principals which are essential to the functioning of a just society. I am not disparaging the bill of rights in any way when I say "it's just a piece of paper." Rather, I am pointing out something which the founders were well aware of: liberty is fragile. To borrow a metaphor from Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
American culture being one of liberty and individualism necessarily predates the Bill of Rights. Without those ideas already existing in the culture no-one would have been willing to fight the British at Lexington and Concord when they came to confiscate the arms of the colonists. American culture is synonymous with freedom and liberty not because some people wrote down some ideas on a piece of paper over 200 years ago, but because they spread those ideas. And because they spread those ideas, people fought and died for those ideas.
Without a constant preservation of the ideals on which this country and it's liberties and freedoms were founded, as codified in the Bill of Rights among other documents, we will lose those liberties and freedoms. We must work diligently to ensure those ideals are instilled in each generation, and fight against those who would seek to destroy them.
The point is our culture of freedom would not have endured for so long if we did not enshrine that culture in our most important legal document. I've made no argument against a necessity for the citizens of the country to stand up for their rights. Much to the contrary, I find that to be imperative.
And I've shown evidence this is not the case. Such legal documents are regularly ignored in the US and elsewhere when inconvenient to the government. The legal documents mean nothing without the will and ability for the people to resist actions by the government that would undermine them, and there is no evidence that these are provided by the documents themselves.
I agree that we should hold these documents in high regard, but many (yourself included) seem to believe that the documents themselves have some power. That their status as the founding and supreme law of the land has given us a culture of liberty and individualism, as if by magic (or perhaps I misunderstand.) I believe this to be exactly backwards; that in having a culture of liberty and individualism, we have written our founding documents to reflect this.
This confusion of cause and effect will be disastrous to our ability to effectively implement reforms that ensure that we retain our liberties (as a country, not just individually) going into the future. The only time anyone should be bringing up "But the Bill of Rights says..." outside a history lesson is the trials of our politicians for treason, when we point out that they repeatedly violated their oath to protect and defend the constitution by passing and enforcing laws that violate it (OK, there's probably a few other places, but those are the big two.)
If I didn't believe this distinction of cause and effect was essential, that we were standing on the precipice as a country, I wouldn't be devoting so much effort to writing messages that are probably only being read by you. We agree on quite a bit; that a drastic change in our government and society is needed, what principles those changes should be based on, etc., but I think that a lot of people are still holding on to ineffective methods of implementing and maintaining those changes and ideals. I'm not saying this is you necessarily, but there's a lot of people that don't seem to be able to extrapolate from incomplete information. If we don't spell out explicitly that their freedom is their responsibility, that it doesn't matter what our founding documents say if they are unwilling to fight, that unless they pass along the will and ability to stand up for those principles to the next generation nothing we do now matters,
The have done a good job bastardizing the Constitution over the course of centuries but you are being hyperbolic when you say that it is outright ignored. It’s an extremely important safeguard.
Yes, the culture of American revolutionaries is what led them to create the Bill of Rights. In turn, the fact that they created that document was an important safeguard in protecting those rights. No one will deny culture has changed significantly over the last 250 years. I have no doubt that without these legal safeguards it would be much worse than without.
That’s not to say that we can all just ignore what’s happening and expect to be fully protected by the constitution. Much to the contrary, we need to take affirmative steps to protecting our ideals and our liberty. This is accomplished through private enterprise and through interacting on the political plane, especially on the local level.
There’s a good reason the United States has enjoyed an unprecedented degree of peace since its founding. We have not had to suffer through the bloodshed of war on our own soil. Certainly, you must appreciate that violence is a last resort and is fundamentally a point of no return. You cannot fault people for avoiding that drastic step.
69th amendment
Return to gold standard
Lobbying is a death penalty offense
Election campaigns have a budget limit
Paper ballots in person only
Intentional violations of the bill of rights are a death penalty offense
Shall I go on?
Something to physically constrain the overall size of the federal government in some way.
Everything posted is good/bad but can easily be circumvented, or have obvious unintended consequences.
If you could limit the federal government to for example no more then .5% of the total population by workforce you create another constraint that it must operate under. It 's headcount is a separate budget.
It's a physical restriction of the size of government, or something similar that restrains it at it's core.
But realistically if current day republicans made an amendment it'd be something like limiting the number of rapes migrants are allowed to no more then two annually or recognise cuckoldry as marriage.
Death sentence for Communists.
"Breaking the Public Trust" laws for politicians and other public servants (cops, teachers, etc...) that carry additional, harsher fines and penalties on top of whatever law they broke.
The right to vote should be earned, not just handed out.
I'm going to go for the trolling option of "Don't be a massive faggot" ala internet law and Idiocrasy.
Can throw in "tits or GTFO" as well for whenever some narcissist decides to bring up "As a woman", or "As a mother" for zero fucking reason.
I'd call it the One Impossible Amendment for multiple layers of puns.
Repeal the 19th Amendment
Ratify the titles of nobility amendment
overturn Marbury vs Madison with an amendment, also overturning every supreme court decision
Repeal the income tax amendment
Expel and forever ban Jews from sitting foot on American soil
make lobbying illegal
repeal the amendment that allows direct voting for senators
repeal the amendment on presidential succession
You mentioned the chosen people. prepare for their golems to criticize you.
Citizenship only for ethnic-europeans and citizenship stripped of those who aren't. The country is dying and "conservatism" is one of the largest obstacles to salvaging some of it.
A lot of people saying term limits for Congress but I don't think this will do much and possibly even make things worse. The issue isn't about term limits but actually bribery, regulatory capture, and control over who runs for office.
If you place term limits without correcting those three issues all that will happen is there will be a revolving door of big-business lackeys instead of a consistent set of big-business lackeys. This could lead to an even more controlled Congress because the individual congress people would have less power since they are limited in term.
Putting an end to the self selected political class would be worth pretty much any price if you ask me.
It's not a self-selected political class though. It's a political underclass selected by the financial system overclass. So long as those people get to pick who runs, term limits are close to irrelevant.