Mostly good stuff. I don't think I'd merge house and Senate. Some of them need more constraint, like I'd legalize prostitution, but only if it's regulated like restaurants (health inspectors, workers rights, etc.).
What is your solution the massively disproportionate representation in the senate then? There are currently around 66.7 Californians for every Wyomingite. Do you think Wyomingites deserve 66.7 times the representation in the Senate? And yes, legalization would occur with reasonable regulations which would make sure the industry is safer for all those involved. I tried to keep the list as concise as possible for each issue reformed.
There are other proposals to solve the Senate's disproportionate nature, such as apportioning Senate seats by state population. Most proposals I've seen for that would leave the Senate with a little more than a hundred seats (with a minimum of 1 seat per state), which would (mostly) solve the problem and make it closer to the house in terms of proportionality. Of course, it all depends on the exact implementation.
There's no solution needed, since there isn't a problem to begin with. Individuals (should) have proportional representation in the House, and states have proportional representation in the Senate, which is how it should be.
Do you think Wyomingites deserve 66.7 times the representation in the Senate?
Yes.
It is federally legal to prostitution. Just every single state outlaws except nevada.
Interesting, I never really thought about it, but of course that must be true for it to be legal anywhere.
The last one could just be "free education"
Could? I think it should be.
There is a case for having some cost otherwise people go to university for absolutely worthless degrees just to do something.
I would perhaps reword it to something along the lines of "add economic literacy to the public school curriculum".
I’m 90-95% on board, which is astounding considering the current options. Now fleshing out the legislation to make this transition possible…
Mandatory voting just adds semi-random votes, skewing the proportion of people who are really voting for their own interests, but rather out of vibes due to obligation. Holiday on voting days and repealing of disenfranchisement measures work much better.
One minor twist: the legislation mandates that one reports to the polling center. The uninformed can select "none of the above" if they are not sure what would be best.
The reason I think mandatory voting in Australia is nice (tiny fine for not doing it, so turn out is like 85-95% every time) is that because everyone obliged, it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult. When you go to vote on election day, you wait 20 mins, tops, usually less, and you can vote ahead of time via mail or in person. It's always Saturday for this reason too.
I'd argue it's this easy partially because everyone HAS to do it, so if politicians start making it hard, people are gonna be pissed very quickly, so no one messes with the well-oiled machine.
And there are no stupid "get out to vote campaigns" wasting valuable headspace where instead we could be talking about actually issues.
Australia's electoral system is far from perfect (single member local electorates which basically guarantees two stronger parties), but mandatory voting is definitely a feature I do not want to be rid of.
it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult
Voter disenfranchisement, and mandatory voting are mutually exclusive concepts. One does not have the right to vote if they are forced to vote. Having a right encompasses the freedom of choice.
It doesn't "just" do that. It totally reverses the ability for governments to block people from voting. If it's an obligation then people must be provided a reasonable chance to vote. It makes more people engaged in politics as well instead of "can't be bothered"
All the points are nice but the plan does not "make sense" in the sense that it will probably never happen (at least within our lifetimes).
If you arent dying, dont overestimate capitalism's remaining lifetime
Free education.
No private/charter schools.
Religions are businesses and pay taxes.
Ban religious-justified discrimination.
Religion is private between you and God.
Absolute separation between church and state.
Repeal all religion based laws.
How tf Americans don't have a holiday on voting day 😭
Russia just did three day voting on friday, saturday and sunday to make sure that both 9-5 and 2 over 2 could have a day off to vote. The downside is that it was very expensive as the staff gotta be paid more than thrice the amount, it was very taxing on volunteer observers, and ultimately useless as they've made up whatever numbers they wanted using the unverifyable electronic voting in the end.
Because decent state governments have early voting for like a full month before the final Election Day. No single day off needed.
A large portion of the states, if not the majority, do not have decent state governments.
I mean ours in India are decently spread out by disctrict and they're all holidays in that area.
We in the UK don't either. although polling is open from pretty early to pretty late and i have never ever seen a queue at a polling station so you're in and out in a couple minutes, even in local elections.
And postal voting is a thing
I dont understand why Americans are horny for mandatory voting. Voting is mandatory in Greece, it makes no difference. It is theoretically illegal to not vote but are you going to imprison people for not voting? So it isnt enforced, at all.
No one is voting because it is mandatory. Greece has 60% participation.
I believe Australia has mandatory voting and achieves a ~95% participation of registered voters basically every election, though they do enforce it with either a day in court or a fine.
I do wonder if you fined people, or wasted a day of theirs with court, whether it would have an impact in Greece after a couple of elections?
We swing between 93-95% participation
We alao make voting as easy as possible with voting opening 2-4 weeks in advance of election day, election day is always a weekend and as long as you vote before or on election day it's counted.
Also democracy sausages
I think such a high turn out makes our politicians a bit more honest with less empty promises since they can't dissuade anyone from voting.
You can not enforce new social norms like that. People, including voting ones, will revolt. They will call it undemocratic and a cash grab. You are just asking for trouble.
I agree many wouldn't bother, but I still believe it should be every citizen's duty to vote. It's literally the bare minimum political involvement people can have.
I wouldnt want idiots having to vote then voting because some friend said some madeup thing or it was the last thing they seen on ticktok. If people don't care and refuse to do the most minimum of looking into politics why should they decide my future
because you could do literally anything else, and it would be more useful. Mandatory voting is the equivalent to asking everyone in the room what they think about every interaction that ever happens. It's fully redundant.
Does your legal system work on imprisonment or nothing at all? Sounds very extreme.
Here it’s a small fine, but it’s also a day off and takes like 20 mins to go do plus you can get a delicious sausage. So it’s a no brainer that people go vote.
Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen, wouldn’t read too much into what they don’t do.
As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
thoughts on Selb and Lachat, 2009?:
In particular, the analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.
Here it’s a small fine
People will call it a cashgrab, that will mostly affect poor people(since the rich people both vote and also dont care about small fines).
it’s also a day off
Greek elections are always on Sunday and people can be given a day off if their voting location is far away(especially back in the day, when moving your voting location was hard).
Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen
I have been shitting on Greece for my entire life, but it aint cool when non greeks do it. Yes, Greece is fucked but i wouldnt really call it a failed state. It is a shithole but only greeks get to call it a shithole. It also relatively shitholey, in comparison to western european countries.
It just happens to be the worst "western" country. And yes, it is in the East, but the West/East thing was a Cold War thing and Greece was with the "West". Nowadays, many "eastern european" countries have reached and surpassed Greece.
In any case, take a look at the wikipedia map, which countries have compulsory voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
If you exclude Australia, all other countries are shitholes. And i am sure australians will be the first to tell you that Australia is also a shithole and politically fucked.
As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
It doesnt. If anything, it might do exactly the opposite. When a greek neonazi party was popular, a lot of "apolitic" greeks supported it not because they supported neonazism but because "fuck the system, at least they will go in and smash some heads". When clueless people are forced to vote, they might be clueless about what they are voting.
America's issue is the first past the post, winner takes all system. If the US had a more representative system, that allowed third parties and coalitions(like almost all other democratic countries have), things would have been better.
#1. Truly abolish slavery. #2. Change the legal system from punishment to rehabilitation. #3. Congress gets minimum wage. #4. Minimum wage and unemployment must be a livable wage.
Congress gets minimum wage
Only works in a country where politicians can't enrich themselves through heredity or graft. As it stands, the bulk of a Congressman's fortune accrues before (family/career) or after (lobbyist/book deals) they take high office.
My only issue with point 3 is wouldn't that make members of Congress more tempted by bribes and such? Sure, we can out law it and say it's bad, but as my uncle always told me, it's only illegal if you get caught.
I agree. Talking in such broad terms leaves a lot of holes. Since we're talking pie in the sky stuff maybe: have congressional service require divesting oneself of all past and future funds beyond X amount with the understanding that they have to have increased scrutiny in all financial matters- like no privacy. I can think of a lot of problems with this but could it be better than the current system? I don't see how it couldn't be a bit of an improvement over them making $174k and yet being hundreds millionaires from stock trading for themselves and family members over years of insider information.
Yup. Exactly why you can bribe police in some poorer countries. They don't make enough money to say no.
Ok so..
Mandatory voting
I think this can get messy. It would require a system to prosecute those who don't vote. That kind of registry can be very easily used for nefarious purposes by politicians or just anyone with access to that information. Also, it would really depend on what degree of mandatory this is. If you get thrown in jail then we are going to see a lot of poor people in prison for no reason. If you get just a fine then we are essentially introducing the inverse of a poll tax. Not voting is a protected form of free speech for a reason and can be interpreted as protest.
Merge house into senate
Last time something like this was posted I got flamed for asking what the point of this one is. The Senate is a representation of the states rights we have in our constitution. It serves as a safeguard against heavily populated areas dictating the laws for much less populated states. I'm all for reform but eliminating the Senate all together seems like a step backwards.
Ban tipping
I think this is another one where the spirit of the idea is right but the execution is wrong. What we need to ban is allowing restaurants to pay tipped positions far below minimum wage, and stop allowing restaurants to take a cut of the tip at all.
The act of tipping itself is a cultural thing that needs to be addressed culturally. If you can't tip someone for something, complications in the law arise that may disallow giving money to people in general. For example how do you distinguish between tipping a server for a meal and giving the server a dollar as a gift?
Tipping is really hard to rein in. Your suggestion of banning the "tipped wage" is good, but the regular minimum wage is so far below living wage already that paying people minimum wage still leaves them relying on tips.
As a Canadian I refuse to participate in the "tip for everything" grift that has sprung up recently. However when we're down at the local bar and the service is great, the food is good, the waitress is friendly and cheerful, I want to leave a tip.
Also as a Canadian, the Canadian Senate is an irrelevant relic that doesn't serve the same purpose as the US Senate, and should totally be abolished. But it's a totally different situation.
+1 on the senate, it serves a purpose, if you don't think it does you clearly don't understand why it exists lol.
It exists because there was a time when we needed buy in from states, not just people. The Senate was how that was accomplished.
It's a way of ensuring our democracy isn't too democratic.You can understand the point of the Senate without thinking that we need to ensure that land is adequately represented in our government.
The act of tipping itself is a cultural thing it needs to be addressed culturally. If you can’t tip someone for something, complications in the law arise that may disallow giving money to people in general. For example how do you distinguish between tipping a server for a meal and giving the server a dollar as a gift?
If you are a customer at a food or retail business and opt to give one worker there a cash gift while they are on the clock, how can that not be a tip? Current US laws like FLSA already have a very clear definition of tipped wages which would include anything matching that description.
Even if you want to allow that sort of cash "gift", eliminating tips for credit card payments should be enough to shift the norms and expectations. Namely, prohibit payment terminals from prompting for a tip as part of the same credit card transaction and prohibit the tip lines on receipts. Majority of Americans don't pay with cash. If a business says they accept credit card, customers clearly aren't expected to give a decent tip and by extension the advertised meal prices and wage amounts should reflect what the customer is expected to pay and what the staff should expect to earn independent of customer whims.
I can see the argument for credit card tips not being necessary, especially given that it puts the onus on the restaurant to be honest and distribute that tip correctly instead of just pocketing it (thanks subway).
But if I choose to give a server a dollar, that should be my right as an individual. Micromanaging who I'm allowed to give cash to is a step in the wrong direction.
We already have a registry of who did or didn't vote.
That you voted is a matter of public record, as is voter registration information.
Registration data is used for campaign purposes, and voter participation data is mostly used to encourage people to vote.
- internet listed as an essential utility like water, power, and phone services
Yes, that would be included in "Municipalize internet service".
Oh. Right, lol
Yeah except increase taxes on highest income bracket by 65, not 5%.
Reverse Harlow V Fitzgerald, that illegally set up Qualified Immunity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-immunity-supreme-court.html
I don’t like a 15 year term for scotus.
A term limit does make sense, but either in the form of a forced retirement age or a 36 year term. They should also be barred from collecting a wage or benefits from any employer after the end of their term (they should get a damn good retirement package, too).
There are good reasons for SCOTUS to be a life appointment. You don’t want them being bought out with lucrative cushy job offers once they leave. 36 years ensures one appointee per presidential term.
What about making the highest tax bracket immutable.
Basically, anyone earning more than that amount, for every dollar of earnings above that amount, taxes cannot be exempted, refunded or otherwise redirected.
Say that tax bracket is 500k/yr, and some rich fuck earns 2M. They must pay the tax, whatever percent of tax that is, on the final 1.5M of earnings. So if it's 50% taxes, they must pay $750k, plus whatever taxation is applicable to the first $500k. They can't skirt it by putting that money into a tax shelter or by donating it to the corrupt charity that they run.
Then they buy stocks and assets and borrow money and carry debt based off of their overvalued assets. They already do that now to pay 0 taxes.
In order to combat this you would either have to tax debt/loans, tax unrealized gains, and/or tax assets like houses and vehicles more highly than income tax.
All of which have staggering implications for normal people also. It really is a tricky thing to get right.
Maybe ban using stocks as loan collateral and make capital gains taxes have a progressive bracket from 0% for <100k per year up to 90% for more than 1 billion or something. Rich people will always find ways to dodge having to pay what they owe for the labor they exploited.
Well, I would want to see capital gains and dividends be included in the gross revenue calculation. If they bring in money, it is income regardless of where it comes from.
You forgot "embrace the metric system".
As someone who hates this God forsaken measuring system, I genuinely don't know if the costs of this would ever be worth it. There'd be thousands and thousands of miles marker signs that'd have to be replaced, not to mention having to redo thousands of textbooks.
Plus, when it comes to some things, imperial is just better. Mostly this is carpentry. 12 is way more divisible than 10 and fractions are way easier for cutting than decimal
It would very much be worth it. Imperial invites mistakes by using weird conversions and factional sizes. I often have to stop and think which factions of an inch are bigger or smaller than each other. When Australia switched from imperial to metric, it's estimated they save about 10% annually from having a lower error rate. Fewer things need to get fixed or replaced from measurement mistakes.
A kitchen-scale example: I once mixed up tablespoons and teaspoons when adding baking soda to my pancake mix. They turned out disgusting and we had to re-make breakfast because version 1 was inedible. Such mistakes are less likely to happen under metric.
The UK did this.
It's absolutely worth it. If you are worried about textbooks staying in circulation for a long time especially in 2024 then you got bigger issues to be honest.
There are also tons of machines and tools made to work in inches. As more things are becoming computer controlled, it's easier to convert between inch and mm on the fly, but every drill bit, end mill, and tool holder for the manual mill in my company's shop is in inch.
I'm also gonna disagree with you on the 12 better than 10 front. Just use a calculator if you can't do it in your head and round to the nearest mm. I bet you'll learn what 10/6 and 10/3 are faster than 12/5 too.
Can't we just have both, and teach both? But like, in a more committed fashion than we currently do. Probably swapping out road signs and textbooks as they naturally need to be swapped out, to include both sets of measurements and the conversions between them.
This will be considered for v4 as "Transition to metric system". It would take several years for the transition to completely take place for the average American. I'm also probably going to add "end daylight savings", which is close to being passed anyway.
Legally, we adopted the metric system in the 70s, so more than "a few years" I'd say
fuck you DST FOR THE WIN
Not sure if your list is ordered or not, but I would order it in a way where the top N can be implemented sensibly.
For instance, banning tax preparation companies is a bad idea if you haven't first made the IRS file your taxes for you, but your list had the former above the latter.
Likewise, the voting stuff only makes sense if implemented backwards from how you have it:
- national holiday first
- mail in for all second
- mandatory third (this is getting a bit...overreachy?)
A commendable attempt at building the foundations of a progressive movement that breaks the current political stagnation we have endured for the past forty years or more.
Unfortunately the majority of people are inexplicably content to be shafted by successive governments whatever their political persuasion.
Merg Senate in house: no: checks and balances.
What positives would merging them accomplish?
This is the only one i cant figure out.
That person didn't suggest it, it's in OP's list.
There's no benefit to that. Removing the limit on house representatives, that's huge and real, but merging Congress is dumb. There's a few dumb things on the list (eg "abolish gerrymandering" is like saying "abolish speeding"). Choose your favorite!
Edit: Now that I'm not trying to hurry to get ready for work:
Chapter One: the HoRs.
For those that aren't aware of how it works:
There's are two lawmaking bodies with two different purposes. The Senate is equally split among states. There are 2 senators for each state -- as a result, those seats are elected by their entire state (more people voting on each person), and the seats are more competitive (more people want to be elected to that seat). So Senators tend to be more serious politicians, more "universally appealing" (aka centrist). This also makes the Senate the one that gives smaller, or less populous states, more power, because both California and Wyoming get 2 senators, no matter what. These factors contribute to the Senate being a more deliberative body.
The House Representatives are determined by population -- so California has many more senators than Wyoming. They're elected in their district, which can be quite small, so the profile of voters in a district is often very different than in an entire state. (This is why all the crazies are in the House.)
There's a minimum, obviously -- the smallest state will always have at least 1? Or 2? I don't remember. But you can't have a state with no representation, that's not ok.
The problem is, our national population is very very different from what it was. The difference between New York and Maine is much more drastic than it was 200 years ago. But we haven't increased the number of Representatives. And there's a minimum. As the oopulation grows, and the House doesn't, it's becoming more and more unbalanced, in favor of smaller states.
Imagine trying to get smaller states to vote in favor of decreasing their power.
(Also: electoral college votes are on the same system. The electoral college was intended to give smaller states more power, but because there's a minimum, and we haven't reduced the total, it's become super imbalanced. It was a mediocre idea to start with, and now it's even worse. Abolishing the EC is pretty popular, but it might be easier/better to just follow the rules and increase the total number of EC votes. But, again, small states won't agree to it.)
The Constitution says we're supposed to increase the total number of Representatives (and EC votes) but at some point (1929 to be specific) Congress was like nahhhh
Chapter two: why we can't Abolish Gerrymandering.
First of all, it's already illegal.
Secondly, it's hard for outsiders to tell the difference between appropriate "gerrymandering" and actual gerrymandering. If you look at Chicago, where I'm from, there's a weird vote assignment on the west side of the city, it looks manipulated and weird. But if you live here, you know, there's a huge highway that cuts through there that's very hard to cross, so populations on one side are very different from on the other. One side of the highway is there a bunch of Latino immigrants and settled, and on the north side are more affluent (white) people.
(The fact that a highway cuts through a neighborhood isn't an accident, but that's just regular systemic racism, unrelated to Congress.)
If you made the voting map a simple grid, the Latino voters might be split up in a way that reduces their voting power. So the map is weird, but it's actually good that it's weird.
(This is why I said it's like speeding: one, it's already illegal, but two, it's something everyone is doing (and traffic would be super shitty if everyone followed the speed limit), but some people are taking it to an illegal extreme.)
If you look at a state, calculate a percentage of the minorities, and check that number (those numbers -- since there are more than one minority) against the number of districts that vote the way those minorities vote, then, that's what we've decided is "fine" -- and, for real, what else are you going to do.
Illegal gerrymandering is when those blocks of voters ("blocs," is you want to get into Gramsci), are intentionally divided so as to reduce their power. The voting rights act of 1965 made this illegal, and every ten years, after the census, districts are often redrawn. In 2010, we ended up with a lot of gerrymandering. Now,finally, were starting to see some corrections to badly gerrymandered maps, like Alabama, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, Georgia... Louisiana...idr the others, but it's a lot. 2024 is going to have a very very different House of Representatives than the one we have now.
This last point is worth underscoring. The current Republican house majority is due to illegal distract maps. It is, technically, an illegal Congress. So all these ridiculous shenanigans the House Republicans are up to shouldn't be happening. (And, in fact, one could easily make the argument that the high percentage of insane and stupid Republican Representatives is because of the maps -- because the the "depressurization" caused by fair maps would have dialed Congress back to a more centrist stance.
If you want to learn more, check out Democracy Docket, which is a news source from a group of people (lawyers) who are taking bad maps to court.
None you lose thr checks and balance
I'm still on team Approval Voting and Proportional Approval Voting.
I'm on team anything but FPTP. The sane voting vote is split!
Oh no! Let's vote on which voting system to use to vote on which voting system to use. That way our vote about voting won't have vote splitting!
Technically Condorcet method voting is the fairest and least vulnerable to manipulation, but as long as the system works better then FPTP (such as with bonda count) I would be fine with it.
Condorcet is not either of those things but it’s better than some. V321 or STAR outperform all other voting methods by large margins, especially with resistance to strategic voting and manipulation. https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/
Instead of banning tipping, the law should maybe require to include all costs. This should not just apply to stuff served, but anything.
Banning tipping in restaurants implies that servers would need to be paid a fair wage without needing tips to make up for a lack of wages. Menu prices would incorporate those costs. Tipping in restaurants is the most invasive which is why I chose restaurants specifically.
So instead of banning tipping you mean removing minimum wage exceptions for tipping.
Fwiw a lot of restaurants worldwide are starting to include an obnoxious 12+% "service charge" that can be "removed" if you have a complaint. Basically, enforced tipping that wouldn't be changed by your "ban tipping" plan.
I definitely agree hard with more emphasis on removal of after-the-listed-price fees
- ranked choice voting - ok I think we can agree here
- Mandatory voting - how? Currently voting is handled state by state, you want to make the federal government take that over? What would the punishment be for not voting? Frankly I disagree with this
- Universal vote by mail - even more how? Again, federal takeover of voting process? How do you ensure no votes are lost especially when someone will be punished for not voting?
- Voting day national holiday - definitely agree.
- Legalize marijuana - this takes a lot more than just saying "marijuana is legal now." Are previous marijuana related convictions going to be overturned, if so how? Are marijuana sales going to be regulated? If so how?
- Legalize prostitution - similar questions as with marijuana
- Revert citizens United - certainly agree here but that's a big fuckin how? It was explicitly the supreme court overruling a law passed by Congress. Amend the Constitution to say something explicit?
- Abolish corporate home ownership - very strange stuff here because you start touching on the above, too. Maybe more you're looking to cancel corporate personhood but that comes with a huge amount of problems too
- Abolish electoral college - sure why not if you've solved the voting issues above
- Abolish gerrymandering - this is what made me make this response in the first place. You can't just say "abolish gerrymandering" without some plan for it. That's like saying "abolish borders" like it's meaningful. How? Who decides what districts look like? Will there still be districts? If not how will representation be determined?
- Abolish filibuster - I think the filibuster is fine. If everything else on this list goes through, hopefully we have meaningful ways of ousting useless obstructionist politicians instead
- Merge Senate into house - why? What does this solve?
- Remove house rep cap - FUCKING agreed. The cap is unconstitutional and absurd
- Universal healthcare - lots of hows here too but Obamacare was a good start and I'm down with single payer
- Universal basic income - how much? Does it count toward the 50k below?
- Income up to $50k untaxed - fine. I also think any monetary amount in the legislature should be increased by the CPI automatically every year. Fines, limits, payouts, etc.
- Ban tax prep - hmm ok
- IRS files taxes for citizens - how does this work? Is tax code flattened to make it so citizens have no choices to make? Do things like tax credits for buying solar panels go away?
- Vat for luxury items - who decides what's luxury?
- Supreme Court 15 year limit - disagree, the whole point of lifetime terms is to prevent getting what's yours and getting out.
- Increase highest bracket tax - sure why not
- Collateral for loan is realized gain - expand?
- Abolish PACs and lobbying
- Politicians banned from stocks - so they can't own shares of any companies? Or they just can't trade while in office? Does this go for any elected official? More than just elected officials?
- Municipalize Internet - at a minimum declare it a utility. What's the rest of the plan?
- Abortion constitutional right - I'd argue it already is one, though the supreme Court evidently isn't in agreement. An explicit "bodily autonomy" amendment would be nice. Add a right to privacy to that too, expanding on the 4th.
- Ban tipping - idk if I agree with trying to codify what should be a cultural change, but I'm generally on board with the Idea. There's a million loopholes to close in any language to this effect
- free financial education - just like... Government funded seminars? Mandated high school courses? What do you take out to fit this in?
Mandatory voting - how? Currently voting is handled state by state, you want to make the federal government take that over? What would the punishment be for not voting? Frankly I disagree with this
Tax credit for voting. Make it count like a $50 charitable donation would.
If you're thinking, now, "but then poor people would always vote and rich people would be off sailing their yacht", I completely agree.
Tax credit for voting.
Yes. Or even better just cut a check or give cash or equivalent.
Make it count like a $50 charitable donation would.
No. That's a deduction, and it's worthless for the vast majority of people who have less in deductions than the standard deduction. Also doesn't reduce taxes by the full amount: a $50 deduction would be at most like an $11 credit (or cash) for most people, if it even mattered.
Man, the rich just fucking off away from society would be delightful. Things might actually function in society.
We have mandatory voting in Australia. It's "enforced" by a AU$20 fine. Not really a true punishment, more like a nudge. It's more of a societal understanding here, you turn up to a polling place as a civil duty. You can donkey vote if you want, you can draw a cock on the ballot form and invalidate it, doesn't matter. As long as you got your name crossed off, and most importantly had the opportunity to vote, then you're clear. I wouldn't have it any other way, it means that there can't be changes to dissuade people from voting, and politicians don't resort to wildly populist policies to try and encourage people to come out to vote. Also helps that federal elections always occur on a Saturday, and employers are required to give time off in order to vote.
100% on the "lots of missing 'how's" point. You skipped the "ban lobbying" one, which is probably the second biggest "how" after the gerrymandering.
Lobbying is not some official policy or process. Senators don't have "lobbying hours." Lobbying is basically just "being at lunches and parties that politicians are at." Unless you're proposing Congress not be allowed to go out in public and live as secluded monks, I don't see how you "abolish" it..
Yeah I just didn't have it in me and meant to go back for it lol.
Those are some good questions.
a lot of your questions boil down to “how” and no hate but it’s just funny to witness lemmy discovering what drafting legislation looks like
That's exactly my point. There are people working hard to make these things happen and generally these are very well supported by the public, but without the plan behind them, theres no substance here.
The reason these don't get passed is because of the particulars of implementation. you can't write a bill with the only text being "universal healthcare" without a lot more to it. Once there's a lot more to it, then it gets picked apart and rejected.
Politicians banned from stocks - so they can't own shares of any companies? Or they just can't trade while in office? Does this go for any elected official? More than just elected officials?
What about only allowing investments in broad index funds? But banning trading specific stocks and options could go a long way too.
re: gerrymandering
Ranked choice is quite terrible actually, barely better than Plurality (also known as FPTP). The center for election science has a whole article on it here. https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/
3-2-1 voting and STAR are the best choices, but the CES actually advocates for approval due to logistics and people getting confused by 321 and star.
Yea STAR voting is better, will add to v4, better than the winner take all bullshit we have right now.
End qualified immunity for law enforcement!
mandatory voting
what the fuck lmao? where did this come from, genuinely asking this is so authoritarian and out of place among the rest of the stuff
Australia has had mandatory voting for eligible voters (18+) for a long time. It works like this:
Prior to elections, the Australian Electoral Commission updates the electoral roll of all eligible voters. On election day, voters have their names crossed off the roll at whichever polling place they attend.
After the election, the electoral roll is cross-checked against voter records. Anyone who didn't vote and can't provide a valid reason (for example - illness, living remotely, religious beliefs) is issued a $20 fine by the AEC. If not paid, this can escalate to further fines of around $180 plus court costs if convicted.
Over 180,000 penalty notices were issued after the 2022 federal election to enforce the compulsory voting laws. While controversial to some, the system has maintained over 90% voter turnout in Australia for nearly a century.
A similar system would probably moderate political extremes in the US. I think any fine that is used as a means of enforcement needs to be scaled to the means of the individual being fined in order to not disproportionately target lower wealth individuals (but an elimination of the enforcement fine completely for the lower end of the wealth scale would maybe ironically result in less from that group voting and thus give them disproportionately lower representation in outcomes).
if you're going to require voting, give me a good fucking candidate to vote for, for fucks sake. This does nothing to prevent degradation of the candidacy.
thanks for this, provided a lot of insight. for those interested, $20 AUD = $13.06 USD.
i find that this change only might be useful in the US, especially if introduced gradually and after other measures such as a voting holidy (very important!) and vote by mail rather than all-at-once, but i think is less tenable as a position than in Australia due to the following differences:
- class: the USA generally has a significantly larger wealth gap than Australia; this directly relates to the fee and i agree with your assessment that any fines should be appropriately scaled; still a concern
- staus quo: the longevity of the policy indicates that the country has the voting infrastructure to handle a 100% turnout without unintentional disenfranchisement, long travel times or long wait times
- population distribution: this is a lot different in the US and again affects infrastructure. we already know that low income areas are subject to the worst of wait times, travel times, and environmental conditions while voting so it’s super important to be concious of what CV is doing for those populations. vote by mail aids this but is still a concern.
conclusion: compulsory voting, in my opinion, should not be on this list because it is nowhere near as effective nor feasible as the other election measures already listed.
Nothing screams authoritarianism quite like having to spend 10 mins at a local school on a Saturday, once every couple of years, and drawing a big old big on the ballot paper.
my comment was a genuine question please respect that.
what is the method of enforcement? like if it’s prison, or even time in court. yeah that’s weird and it gives authoritarianism vibes.
if it’s a fine, what is the price point? what about those who cannot afford to travel to vote nor to pay? and what is stopping the wealthy from just paying the fine and skipping elections anyway?
or like what other options of enforcement are there? i just don’t think making voting mandatory is at all needed to ensure free and fair elections and it just has an icky vibe to it.
edit: also you say “every couple years.” are you aware that elections are held several times per year in most parts of the US? or are we just making federal elections mandatory?
edit 2: you say “10 minutes.” when waiting times for voting of 30 minutes or even an hour are not rare. so what is the solution there?
edit 3: what about individuals whose religious convictions forbid them from participating in polls? does this not violate their constitutional rights?
edit 4: doing my due diligence and found that…
We empirically explore the effects of a sanctioned compulsory voting law on direct-democratic decision making in Switzerland. We find that compulsory voting significantly increases electoral support for leftist policy positions in referendums by up to 20 percentage points. (Michael M. Bechtel, Dominik Hangartner, Lukas Schmid)
…which is cool and admittedly something i was unaware of. nevertheless i still find that the means of obtaining this end questionable.
- Democratize the workplace.
There are probably many ways you could go about this: Requiring that employees have a representative on the board of all corporations, forcing companies to give a certain amount of equity to employees, all businesses have to be worker co-ops, maybe some kind of automatic unionization? The point is to give workers more say in how businesses are run and a fairer cut of the value they produce, which would probably end up fixing some of the other things on this list as a byproduct.
- News reporting must be factual and clearly distinguishable from opinion and other non-news programming.
Something needs to be done about deliberate propaganda and misinformation. I'm not sure what the answer is here, but maybe having some rules for what can be called "news" would be a start.
- Enumerated right to bodily autonomy
This would cover abortion, prostitution, and marijuana consumption, and would also cover many forms of trans healthcare that are currently under attack. Speaking of which...
- Strengthened protections for minorities, including legal recognition of trans and intersex people. Something like the Equal Rights Amendment but for all minorities. Let's explicitly get it into law that you can't discriminate based on something people are born with.
I don't agree with merging the House and Senate; uncapping the House fixes the proportionality issue and the Senate is a useful check to ensure that smaller states still have a voice.
Adding 5% to the highest tax bracket seems way too low. There should be a new top bracket with a rate so high it's almost confiscatory; anyone earning that much is a resource hoarder and should be made to share with the rest of society. We used to have a top tax rate of 95%, so this isn't unrealistic.
Banning tax prep is redundant if the IRS is calculating it for you, and I wouldn't want to outright ban it for those whose financial situations may be complicated enough to actually need it.
Why are we including a ban on tipping? I feel like we're getting lost in the details here. This should be a shorter list of high-level changes. If you don't like tipping, wouldn't it be better to do something about employers not giving fair wages in general?
I don’t agree with merging the House and Senate
I've read this several times and I understand it. What I've also read several times is "this will never happen" which I understand as well.
The funniest thing is that with congress the way it currently is, none of this has the slightest chance of actually happening. Thus I keep "Merge the senate into the house" because it's the only way any of this would change. Previously I had "Abolish the senate" which I thought would be unfair to all the current senators. 2 senators per state and the filibuster are why nothing is changing.
Decommodify housing as well
How you gonna afford all the social schemes with no tax under $50K? I have "free" healthcare but it's 2% of my taxable income. The taxable brackets start at $18,200 ($11,880 USD) here. You'll need to ensure there is finance for social services else you'll be bringing harm to your society in the form of failed infrastructure.
Tax the rich
Mainly: "Increase highest bracket tax (+5%)", "VAT for luxury items", "Collateral for loan is realized gain". Universal basic income will put money back into the economy and generate sales tax. Legalizing marijuana will bring in tax revenue when regulated properly, same with prostitution. Universal healthcare will arguably save us money over time.
Taxing 50 thousand people earning $50k at just 1% gets you 25 mil.
Taxing a single billion dollars (of which there are thousands among the top 1%) at 5% gets you twice that.
Bezos' net worth is around 210 with a capital B. Tax just him 5% and you could pay those 50k earners a 210k salary. One guy.
Tax the rich.
No employee, owner, shareholder, investor, contractor, etc. can make more than 50 times the amount of the lowest paid employee, contractor, supplier employee, supplier's supplier employee, etc. (Including all of the foreign slaves).
Tim Cook wants to earn 50M per year? Then all of those Foxconn guys that they need nets to stop from suiciding need to make at least 1M. All of the guys making chips have to make 1M. All of the guys mining coal to produce the electricity have to make 1M.
Income inequality problems would be abated. "Dey took our yobs." would be less of a problem because you would save money by using local labor due to lower shipping costs. Poverty would eventually be eliminated.
Probably communism with extra steps, but maybe it would be less prone to party dictators.
But Foxconn isn't an employee of Apple. Their a contractor. This would more than likely setup companies to be more or less nesting Russian dolls. Funnily enough, it would make it harder to track money between companies because now there is so much noise
Foxconn is a supplier to Apple so their employees count for Apple. All numbers will have to be public.
Fuck 50 times. Why should it be higher than 30...or 20...or even 10 times?
But yeah, communism with extra steps is better than what we have now. 😉👍
No employee, owner, shareholder, investor, contractor, etc. can make more than
501 times the amount of the lowest paid employee, contractor, supplier employee, supplier’s supplier employee, etc
Ranked choice voting is clearly a better choice than plurality voting, but if you're not familiar with STAR voting, please check it out:
dunno how you mandate people vote. the rest looks like an ambitious but overall laudable start.
Australia already does it
A benefit rather than a detriment. Have a benefit offered only to those who have voted in the past election. It could be even paired with the universal basic income, an extra $100 added to your monthly UBI if you are a registered voter who has voted in the most recent election. With universal vote by mail, election day being a holiday, and plenty of early voting days leading up to the election there would be no excuse to not vote.
I'm not sure it would be a good idea, even if it's a benefit instead of a detriment.
Ignorant or apathetic voters with no stake in or care for politics will just vote to obtain benefits without doing any research beforehand. That leads to them either voting for the first person on the ballot or the name they hear the most.
A fewer number of informed voters would be more likely to lead to progressive changes, in my opinion. Uninformed throw-away voters adds noise and introduces a demographic that can be influenced by candidate popularity rather than their policies.
Make UBI entirely dependent on voting. Don’t vote, no UBI check.
Somehow the IRS knows to come after everyone for taxes - they don’t typically miss people. So maybe something somehow like that?
Additionally, no ID renewal without proof of having voted/a valid exception (e.g. out of country)
Dude I'm voting for you
i think your biggest problem is how you are getting any of this done with opposite financial incentives in the way without a literal revolution.
Convert corporations into Worker Consumer Cooperatives to prevent investor wealth accumulation and regulatory capture and align business towards worker and consumer interests rather than short-term profit seeking.
MANDATORY voting... Let's be real, we have people who are unable to read the candidates' personal statements, you really want them voting?
That'll be used to get President Camacho legislating Mandatory plant watering using Gatorade.
That is reeeeaally anti-democratic.
The way I see it, mandatory voting is to ensure that everyone is capable of voting. It prevents problems like employers not giving people appropriate time off for voting. The trade off is of course that you'll have people voting more or less at random, or just going with whatever candidates their tribe is voting for without thinking. I suspect the latter averages out to a much smaller effect.
Should also include "tax the church"
I will consider this for v4, although I'm still torn on whether that's a good idea. It would give religious entities a direct reason to influence politics even more. Any good reasons to the benefit other than more tax revenue?
Then better enforce the separation of church and state, to ensure they dont influence politics. I thought the reason they were not taxed was to ensure they didnt influence politics.
The sheer amount of land they would have to sell off to be able to pay their taxes would drive prices down for houses and farms. The LDS own something like 850,000 acres or something of just farm land. People could build affordable housing or just housing in places increasing supply.
Why would a two party system implement ranked choice if everyone is stupid enough to keep voting for them? They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot.
That's the issue isn't it
If people aren't voting is that a protest or apathy? How would you tell?
doesn't matter, it's the same problem, neither of those people are confident in the governments ability to lead.
A vote for third party is a vote for Democracy
the problem is that we have to vote, one of the two of them is going to get into office, that's just how it works. Ranked choice would likely involve repealing that as well.
The instant run-off is the middle-ground solution. It still benefits the 2 major parties, but it eliminates the Spoiler-effect.
My favorite modern example of the spoiler effect was the 2006 Texas Governor's race, which had a double-spoiler.
Rick Perry was being challenged by Democrat Chris Bell, Independant Kinky Friedman, and Carol Strayhorn - anohlther Republican.
Strayhorn split the Republican vote, spoiling Perry's majority. But then Kinky grabbed a lot of the liberal voters, so Perry still won.
It all starts with the top - proportional representation.
It still amazes me that states have those proposition votea/referenda started by petitions and yet there isn't a movement to get proportional representation on the ballot? Or if there is it seems pretty quiet from outside the US.
Honestly, along those lines, I don't think we (Americans) will get anything until we get rid of the electoral college and the Senate.
Can you please create a community for this? I'd love to be able to discuss each point separately, and suggest others.
eh.. is there a reason why "abolish slavery" happens to NOT be on that list? i'ld put it right on top!
Not necessary, already solved with the 13th amendment. This is a list of solutions which have not yet been implemented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
which part of "except as a punishment" was actually unclear in those laws that currently still "protect" slavery since how many centuries now? did you already ask your gov how many are enslaved due to this slavery protection law today? do you know how many are today tortured because slaves still do not have any laws protecting them? tell me which laws you think would protect slaves today from torture? could they call a lawyer? by which law if they dont have rights? this "don't have rights" was a huge part of slavery, right? so tell me, as this law clearly states the possibility of slaves, which laws would protect them? how could you tell if there are no other mentionings in any other law? i guess you just can't, because this law protects slavery but no law protects the victims of it.
so if you did not ask your government yet about the total numbers (which could be 0 of course as you claim), on what "knowledge" are your believes based on then? pls let me know!
i remember news about children put into cages at the southern border, i remember that originally a five digit number of families was in the news, later on claims, that those kids were sexually abused instead of beeing taken care for, they tried to find them but only got a low 4 digit number of them back. what would you say happened to those at "unknown locations"? i do see a "possible" direct link to the slavery-protection by law you seem to believe would actually "prohibit" it.
Just having this exception in the laws degrades the credibility of the whole country. Why not get rid of this shit then?
And thus if you were right that slavery does not happen any more (wow cool, a real step towards civilisation) then it should also not be of any problem of any kind to remove that exception from the laws right today before sunset, right? who would even hesitate?? if there are none who currently "profit" from that law, or who are already planning to profit from it by creating false evidences of "crimes" sufficient to apply this laws to innocent ones in front of some of those "secret courts", if none of such exists, why not just remove this exemption then and if only to really have more civilized law afterwards ???
IMHO "abolish slavery" needs to be on that list, so this list could have any meaning at all.
Making election day a holiday probably won't have the effect you're hoping for.
Best case: Almost everybody goes to work as usual. A few of them get a pay differential for working the holiday.
Worst case: Holiday means holiday. We'll give all bus drivers the day off to vote -- and hope the bus riders live within walking distance of their polling location.
In Australia we use local primary schools as voting places. I have always walked to vote.
Also lots of people do work on election day, we offer heaps of time to vote before the day if you can’t get off for an hour to vote.
Yea, instead of a holiday just vote by mail. The state gives you like 10 days to send in your ballot. So easy.
Extremely best case: everyone votes by mail early so no one has to rush and struggle to vote on election day.
You could just vote on Sundays, it's what we do in Austria.
I think in the US they all have to work on sundays too
it would be trivial to allow bus drivers and other essential workers to take half days in order to both vote and staff essential services.
and, as OP pointed out, vote by mail can also exist and be encouraged. it’s simply not as black and white as you are framing the situation.
Wow man you must be reading my mind. Was actually working on a website to do something like this with civil discussion. There are a ton of things missing to this list but it's a good base line.
Edit: website will include the milestones required to complete each change including why important and potential impact, negative and positive, and difficulty of task.
No. You keep treating the symptoms.
You shouldn’t say that without adding what you mean by that, so please share your thoughts. Pretty please?
You need control first. Obtaining it is larger than all of that.
Choosing between a bad option and a worse option is not the control you need.
What's the root cause?
Sure, but be careful with "universal basic income" ,"taxes" and actual national expenses.
What you have there is a wish list. It's a good wishlist, but an actual plan requires planning. Including how the math works out. Which can be done, but you still need to do it.
Thank you for this approximate description of most Nordic countries.
I think the actions on this list would improve economic conditions for the middle class.
I’ll just say if prostitution is legalized, then there needs to be something that ensures that someone isn’t coerced into it somehow, or sex trafficked into it.
It can't be regulated until it's legalized. Once it is it should be.
No, I think passing legalization for anything doesn’t make sense unless you have a framework in place (even if imperfect) for regulating some negative externalities of it. I think that’s pretty routine, and there are already examples we can use from other places so the same mistakes are not made again
Here’s an interesting report: https://journalistsresource.org/economics/legalized-prostitution-human-trafficking-inflows/
And this one: https://journals.law.harvard.edu/crcl/to-protect-women-legalize-prostitution/
Policy makers just have to understand the data and frame a policy using what we already know
I’ll just say if prostitution is legalized, then there needs to be something that ensures that someone isn’t coerced into it somehow, or sex trafficked into it.
How is it currently done in Nevada?
It has no chance of becoming a reality without the help of moderates and liberals who have made it very clear they would rather lose to MAGA than compromise with leftists and progressives.
People have yet to acknowledge the first implications of this. If we believe the numbers of progressives and leftists are growing there will come a time when we begin winning primaries but will lose general elections consistently because moderates and liberals suddenly won't "vote blue no matter who". Which means fascism isn't just a possibility, it's guaranteed.
If moderates and liberals don't make different choices there's nothing we can do.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
Collateral for loan is realized gain
Functionally how would that work? Maybe I'm being obtuse here, but it sounds like a Catch-22.
Currently what billionaires do is never sell their assets so that they never have to pay capital gains tax (since they haven't realised the gain), but then take out large loans using those assets as collateral and live off the loans. That allows them to enjoy the benefits of their capital gain without ever paying tax on it.
The line you quoted is saying that if you use some asset as collateral for a loan then for tax purposes that should count as realising any gains in value
Exactly this. Billionaires does this because the interest rate is cheaper than paying taxes.
Perfect, thanks, the additional context of this applying to billionaires living off of loans based on assets held in the form of unrealized gains makes it make sense. I just wanted to make sure the quoted line wasn't implying something like lenders being required to accept realized gains being made from said loan in the future as collateral when granting the loan in the first place.
Under the current system, i think we'd call these interest only loans. It only works in a scarce resource situation that drives cost. And we do exactly this to eliminate private mortgage insurance, a debt to equity ratio.
Start with one thing, mate. Most impact and easiest to implement.
Why delude yourself with this bullshit fantasy list? Focus on reality.
While I agree with tackling one problem at a time, there's no issues with listing all of them. Then, when you tackle one, you get to mark it off.
There's something great about an easily comprehendible list that everyone can understand.
Pretty sure this is ranked by biggest impact to smallest
Yeah, in order to have the slightest chance of doing most of these things, America would already have to be a lot better.
Yeah, in order to have the slightest chance of doing most of these things, America would already have to be a lot better.
Keep the faith, citizen. These things just take time, but change does happen.
I focused on reality and all it did was make me start thinking we're fucked, so I made a list of solutions.
When you propose things, you have to keep some line items you can remove easily during negotiations to show “good faith” 😬
Why delude yourself with this bullshit fantasy list? Focus on reality.
"What? Fly?!? If Man could fly, they'd have wings!" /bahhumbug
5% tax on highest bracket not nearly enough. Normal citizens pay like 30%, they should reduce the normal bracket to somewhere around 10-15 percent, raise top bracket to about 49%, and tax businesses at the same rate.
Are you trying to fix systemic problems of government structure or pass laws? They are different things.
Needs more limitations on investment in the stock market, more investment into co-ops and employee owned businesses, and more investment into rail infrastructure and other good civic infrastructure at the federal level. Also, change from general ranked choice voting, to the schulze method.
Also I wanna see a real move towards taco tuesday. We think it's a meme or whatever, but like an experimental free food day, or free single meal, for at least one day a week, seems totally achievable, and like it would do some good. Maybe try to integrate some community gardening into it or something, set up some federal system for that, that would be fucking sick dude hoo lee.
Edit: If you're getting rid of states, or like, trying to rethink them, I think I remember seeing some maps redrawn with states if they all had totally equal population, which you could do, and I've also seen some maps that allocate states based more on natural resources, than just having like, a lot of the western states be shitty squares and stuff. I think I saw one based on water tables, but I can't seem to find it or remember the name of it. You'd probably wanna go in for stuff like that, if you wanted to still retain the idea of states, and give them a reason to exist but also be fair and not lame.
Schulze is great, but good luck explaining how it works to my mother.
Schulze is good for elections at STEM organizations. For the general public, something like approval voting or STAR are better.
Legalize all drugs. Keep prices low(street value) with quality monitoring paid for by tax of product. Any further tax revenue from product to be used for addiction treatment.
And change the the DEA to do the following:
- inspect mom & pop drug manufacturers for safety & purity
- provide free or low cost or sliding scale rehabilitation
- school education on scientific effects of recreational drugs
The military and intelligence operations are used for anti-slavery.
Writing "Abolish PACs and lobbying" implies reverting Citizens United v FEC so you probably don't need a separate list item for it
Lobbying and pacs weren't created by citizens united.
Honestly, reversing citizens united is the only part that's needed. Pacs and lobbying aren't intrinsically bad, they just need regulation and oversight that they don't have because of citizens united.
A group of people showing able to pool their resources to advocate for legislation, and people should be able to ask their representatives to take action on their behalf.
Pacs and lobbying are now far more than those two things, so we need regulation, but we still need them.Citizen's United is what is preventing the government from abolishing lobbying, so abolishing lobbying implies reverting Citizen's United. You could either have one or the other on the list, but you don't really need both.
You could pay for a whole bunch of that with a Land Value Tax.
I am actually not sure about the coroprate home ownership point. Here in Germany renting is much more common and accepted compared to the US, and i think there are lots of situations where this makes sense. However both in the US and here in Germany the systems need changes. And i think they should mostly target land ownership rather than the houses themself. What drives up the prices in desired areas are mostly increases in land value, not that building houses got that much more expensive (although that is also a factor).
And most of that value gain are from external factors rather than the owners own merit. If someone builds an architectually great and energy efficient house or develops land, then it is fine if he gains value from it. But if simply owning the property improves the value over time, because society around it builds nice schools, parks and so on. Then the owner hasn't done anything and that profit should be taxed completely away. If that makes sense.
That said there probably should also be a mechanism to support the first home people own to counteract scale efficiencies that corporations might be able to leverage.
Not sure if outright banning stocks for politicians is the way to go, but there should be more points regarding transparancy and conflicts of interest. Also not just during their time in office, but after that aswell.
I'd have no issue with politicians holding a borad market index fund.
It’s all wishful thinking, but certainly makes sense within the context of a suggestion to improve our QOL.
Again, replace the senate with proportional representation. Bicameral legislatures work, there's no reason to be rid of the senate. Just give it a purpose beyond "you represent a state". Expand the senate to 600 seats, National votes for party reps, 0.5% threshold to gain a seat, 6 year terms, rotate every two years. Then we'll get actual third parties into office, which will break up the two party strangle hold.
Ranked choice voting
I agree. However, I'm curious exactly what type of ranked voting system you would advocate for — Instant Runoff, Single Transferable Vote, etc.
Mandatory Voting
I disagree. The right to vote also encompasses one's right to not vote. Even if one ignores the freedom aspect of it, an argument could be made that mandatory voting would actually have a negative effect: forcing people to vote, who otherwise wouldn't've, will likely cause them to choose whomever they are the most familiar with — essentially, this means that the person who can afford the most advertising is the most likely to win. Furthermore, as pointed out in this comment, there are potential privacy risks associated with tracking voters.
Universal vote by mail
I disagree. There is too much potential for abuse.
Voting day national holiday
I agree.
Legalize marijuana
I agree — granted, I would legalize all drugs. However, I'm of the opinion that selling it to minors should still be illegal. I've also been considering the idea that any entity that wants to engage in the sale of addictive substances must also provide, proportional to their sale volume, rehabilitation centers. There would also need to be strict regulation, such as there is with the sale of food, on their production, and composition.
Legalize prostitution
I agree. Of course, this would then mean that prostitutes would be entitled to the same employee protections, and rights as anyone else.
Revert Citizens United v. FEC
I'm not very familiar with this court case, so my answer isn't thoroughly thought out, but, if I understand it correctly, that ruling overturned a previous ruling that prohibited some forms of election spending. If so, I would agree with such a ruling — I believe that people have the right to spend their money where they see fit. It is the voter's duty to determine whether the person should be elected.
Abolish corporate home ownership
I disagree. I'm not sure I understand your rationale behind this one. Why don't you think this should be allowed? As long as the land-value taxes are being payed, the people are being justly compensated for the ownership of that land.
Abolish the electoral college
I haven't come to a firm decision on this matter. Would you mind elaborating on your rationale?
Abolish gerrymandering
While I agree with the sentiment that gerrymandering is bad, what would you suggest should be done to "abolish" it?
Abolish filibuster
I disagree (I don't disagree with the idea that filibustering is bad. I disagree that it should be prohibited). It is the duty of the voters to hold their representatives to account.
Merge senate into house
I disagree (from the perspective of the U.S. Congress). I would like to know your rationale for why you want them merged. The intent of a bicameral legislature is to act as a sort of "check and balance" on new legislation — it plays an important role in a federation. Do you disagree that this is the case? If so, why?
Remove house rep cap
I've never thought about this. I'm inclined to agree. I can't think of, nor can I find, any good reason for why there is a cap beyond the arbitrary.
Universal healthcare
This a tricky one. I'm not yet convinced that it is as cut and dry as many people make it out to be — there are many caveats. I, at the very least, am strongly inclined to favor a hybrid system. There are also certain circumstances where a free market is simply not compatible (e.g. emergency departments).
Universal basic income
While I understand the rationale that it would effectively cover one's right to life, I have economic concerns. Primarily, I am concerned that it would lead to runaway inflation. I have considered other options like breaking down the necessities for life into categories and apportioning them equally (e.g. foodstamps). I have not yet come to a conclusion on this matter.
Income up to $50k untaxed
I'm more of the thinking that income taxes should be abolished.
Ban tax preparation companies
...why? I suppose there is some lobbying risk, but, beyond that, I don't understand this one. However, even if there was lobbying risk, they are within their rights, imo.
IRS files taxes for citizens
This may only be possible for simple taxes. Anything more complicated than simple income tax would not really be feasible, I think. Also, it is important to note that the IRS does already offer this, to an extent. I could be mistaken, though. In all honesty, I think the solution is to just simply taxes, rather than trying to obfuscate away their unnecessary complexity. This, most likely, will just lead to more bloat, and money wastage.
VAT for luxury items
Generally, I would disagree with the implementation of a VAT. The only tax on products that I would support is one that is in the form of compensation to the public for damages (e.g. environmental taxes).
Supreme court 15 year term limit
I'm not certain on the exact number, but I am in favor of the idea of term limits for non-elected officials.
Increase highest bracket tax (+5%)
Again, I'm more in favor of abolishing income tax.
Collateral for loan is realized gain
I don't understand the rationale for this. Would you mind elaborating?
Abolish PACs and lobbying
This is similar to the point about Citizens United v. FEC. It is the voter's job to hold elected officials accountable.
Politicians banned from stocks
I think this is sort of missing the point. What you're effectively getting at is that insider trading should be illegal, which it is. The real question is why the SEC, or related government agencies in other countries, doesn't seem to go after some people when it seems obvious that they are engaging in insider trading.
Municipalize internet service
Hm. I'm generally against adding any more government bloat unless absolutely necessary. One of the main issues with how ISPs are structured is that they somewhat currently function as an monopoly — due to intrinsic factors. This is the main reason, in my opinion, why prices are high, and why the service is often bad. Intrinsic monopolies are a tough issue to solve. I'm not sure that creating a government run ISP would make the problem any better. If anything, it might actually get worse. A cooperatively owned ISP may work, though.
Abortion constitutional right
This will always be a tricky issue. In my opinion, both sides of the debate have fair arguments. The main question is "whose rights trump whose?" Is it the baby, or the mother? Whichever one that one chooses, I would like to know their rationale. It is not an easy question to answer, imo. It most likely will always lie more in the realm of philosophy than in hard fact, which, of course, doesn't lend itself well to legislation. If I were pushed to side with a group, I would most likely side with the mother.
Ban restaurant tipping
I disagree. That being said, I certainly would like for tipping culture to die. It is not my job to ensure that an employee is payed well — that is between them and their employer.
Free financial education
I'm more in the camp of wholly restructuring how education is done, but that is out of the scope of this comment. I agree that economic literacy is important, but my beliefs on the matter of education go far beyond only that — I believe that we need a fundamental restructuring of the education system.
I would add:
Equal Rights Amendment
Reverse Shelby County v Holder
Reverse District of Columbia v Heller
Add ethics code for Supreme Court with enforcement authority
Discharge federal student loan debt and regulate higher education costs
Demilitarize police
Ban property tax based school funding
Abolish the death penalty
Federally mandated paid vacation, paid sick leave, overtime over 40 hours, and a ban of right-to-work laws.
Allow the Army Corps of Engineers to repair and maintain infrastructure.
Legalizing Prostitution just creates more Human Trafficking, as a result of allowing human traffickers to operate in the open under the guise of legality. We have decades of evidence that lead to this conclusion. We don't need to keep trying it.
I'm ill informed on this one. Do you have a source you like?
I was under the impression that if it were made legal, it would make more difficult criminal behavior. Sunshine being a disinfectant and all that. Plus being less dangerous for any given sex worker.
"We find that countries with legalized prostitution have a statistically significantly larger reported incidence of human trafficking inflows. This holds true regardless of the model we use to estimate the equations and the variables we control for in the analysis. Also, the main finding is not dominated by trafficking to a particular region of the world." SOURCE
This is a study that references many other studies going back decades with data examining differences between 150 countries.
Once we end all drug prohibition then the DEA can use its military and intelligence operations to target slavery operations and leave independent service providers alone.
Our minds and bodies fully belong to ourselves individually. We have the right to do with them as we choose.
If a civilization doesn’t want a bunch of drug addicts then don’t give birth to people with that propensity by allowing people that hate life to not reproduce.
The only valid purpose of a civilization is increase the standard of living for all of its members equally. A civilization that uses oppression must be destroyed either from within or without.
Limit the age for candidates, to the pension maximum
not sure about the mandatory voting and outlawing tipping. Just compliance wise. Not voting itself can be a intended thing and I can't think of any country where you have a gun to your head to vote taht is a place I would want to live. As for tipping you will just turn it into bribery. No place should be allowed to pay with the expectation tips is part of compensation. Tips are a gift basically.
Australia has mandatory voting, and so does Belgium. There are definitely some places with compulsory voting that aren't great, but there are others that are fine.
Most require you to show up or face a minimal fine if you don't have an excuse, but you don't actually have to cast a vote, just check the box for showing up.
You have about 25 items too many on this list.
Mostly. I'm fine with some of these being left up to the states, like prostitution and marijuana, although I do think marijuana's federal status should change (from schedule 1, to a much lower schedule). Also, I think the highest tax bracket should be 99%, or even 100%. But that highest bracket should be a very high number, like 0.001% of GDP.
Mandatory voting I dunno.
The rest are definitely good, I'm thinking just having a whole ass revolution might be easier than getting all this done, and as a bonus would come with additional benefits.
If it can possibly be done without a revolution, that is by far the better and easier choice.
Revolutions are messy, difficult, a great time for power seekers to consolidate power and eliminate the competition, and in the history of mankind, most of them have not resulted in positive change.
They are extremely dangerous, and should never be considered anything other than an absolute last resort when nothing else has any hope of working anymore.
Famine is probably a good indicator of when the situation is bad enough for a revolution to be a potentially rational choice. If significant portions of the population are in danger of famine, then it may be time for a revolution. We are quite far from that point still, fortunately.
And new or returning challenges
Excellent project OP, this is cool
UBI requires such a large reorganization of the economy that you may as well add democratization of the workplace, and it would get done earlier. I think both would be great personally.
Amerikkka should not exist. It must be abolished. There are concessions the State & capital will adhere to when we mobilize, but revolution will never be on the ballot.
Domination is a byproduct of coercive hierarchy. To free ourselves from domination we have to be strategic in how we interact with systems of power. Non-reformist reforms can improve our material conditions in the short term, but true liberation is only achieved when we abolish all States, abolish Capitalism and abolish hierarchy.
We don't have to bargain for our humanity. We have the capacity to collectively organize and care for ourselves and the environment.
I’d personally abolish the senate and leave the house alone, or change the house to one rep per every x number of people instead of whatever we do now.
You forgot to add abolishing slavery.
Considering that lemmy.world is pretty much just a ball of pearl-clutching white liberalism these days it's not very surprising.
Yeah, I could get behind 90% of this. Find me that candidate/party and I would vote for them!
mandatory voting is not something i agree with.
The house and senate should both exist, they both serve a purpose. The senate gives every state an equal footing, the house gives every state representation in regards to population, so they both serve a very explicit purpose.
idk about house rep cap. There are already so many, perhaps improve the makeup of the reps though? That's pretty messy.
on the supreme court term limit, include an age limit as well.
That's it, everything else would be fine probably?
I agree with you, I think uncapping the house is the right move however, it'd give the people a more representative vote while the Senate maintains State interests
i suppose that's true, but to a point, it doesnt really matter how big the house is, you just need a better member make up like i said. Ultimately, we already have a problem with incumbent house members. they get voted on every two years. Having more would only make that more likely, which probably isn't great.
I'll leave that shit to the political science majors, lol.
I like a lot of your proposals,but I don’t think they will fix everything. Certainly an improvement though.
I don’t think the supreme court changes would fix issues with the court, and I think a 15 yr. limit could make it worse.
Each presidential term would get 2-3 nominations per term, allowing them to establish a majority if elected for 2 terms. Considering how powerful the court is, allowing a president to establish a majority simply by being in office for 2 terms isn’t great.
Increase the seats to correspond to the number of federal districts, currently 13.
Stop I can only get so erect
How about a wall around the crazy states, everyone can go and come for some years, after that, close it. Let them drown in guns and bubbles, I say. - a joke, apparently. I like the list, maybe fight all the cults where old guys marry several underaged girls, too. Oh yeah, they still exist.
Maybe I will add "Revoke Scientology tax-exempt status" in v4.
Revoke all religions tax exemption
re: wall
careful lol i recognize this is a joke coming from a good place probably but this is verging on a fascist talking point. trans people being abused by the florida government and children being murdered in texas schools have a right to safety, not to be simply ignored with the opportunity to abandon their home in a few years.
One thing I’ve been mulling over is “tax stock dividends at source.” So if a company is paying out dividends to stockholders, there’s no hiding it, the tax to the IRS is paid up front.
I’m happy if the mail comes on time. I don’t think the government could properly manage these broad sweeping programs especially with radical changes to the legislative and judicial branches and elections.
Nor do I think you’d be able to get the states on board with this much radical change. Everything sounds ok on a surface level but rather than thinking pie in the sky, pragmatism would be needed on just the most important issues such as a universal health plan or education plan
I'd rather focus on ripping cars out of cities, promoting mixed use zoning areas, removing regulations on food service (which is the reason small American food vendors need food trucks, instead of "street food" like the rest of the world.
The disjointed, car based, child hating society we have is a big problem.
IRS filing taxes for us could lead to unintended consequences, like them just saying "yep, everything's in order here. you're all paid up. What's that? Tax return? No, you paid the exact amount you owed in taxes, so you get no return." and probably you'd have to do a FOIA request to get a copy of the return, then you could probably fight it, but it'd cost more to fight it than you'd get back in the return in the first place.
Most countries that do this send an itemized tax bill showing how everything adds up and you are given time to dispute it before paying.
I believe most Americans don't realize that this is possible, thanks for mentioning that. This is how it should be in the US as well.
oh that's kinda cool then.
I like where you're going here, and the only things I disagree with are the Senate merge and Electoral College as these still serve a purpose. The removal of the House cap will rebalance there, and if anything the Senate could be reverted from popular election back to being appointed by the State Legislatures so they rebalance back to being actual actors for the State as intended vs overpowered Representatives.
The Electoral College helps balance democracy being 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, but maybe get some math experts to review the equation for apportionment and/or set all electors to be proportional to the vote percentages in every state.
Maybe abolish slavery? Perhaps actually honor treaties with indigenous people?
mandatory voting is dumb
Why, you can just code for no one.
What's wrong with filibuster?
Being able to kill a bill without having the votes to vote it down by either talking for a while or just threatening to talk for a while seems fine to you?
It's a procedural loophole that allows the minority party to tacitly veto legislation that doesn't have a supermajority.
It's become too easy. It no longer involves actually standing on the floor of the senate and talking. It's a purely procedural thing now. OP should have said "bring back the talking filibuster".
No, I stand firm, abolish the filibuster. Enforce strict talking time limits. It is wasting American tax payer time and money with bullshit nonsense, and gives individual representatives too much power.
There's the gerrymandering thing though. When done in good faith it can give a voice to minorities. When done in bad faith... well, you've seen what happens. Point is it's a double edged sword.
so find a solution that is sharp on neither side and checks itself. here is one.
Yea an algorithm which requires the edges of the district to be of some equal distance from the center would be a start on gerrymandering.
I would love most of these to be implemented. But I wouldn't want the Senate to be merged because of separation of powers. Better to have a mandatory retirement age or term length for all politicians.
Also, I would like every law that has been and will be enacted by the Senate, that only affects the Senate and other positions of power, to be voted by the people in a popular vote. This way corruption by conflict of interest wouldn't happen so blatantly like it has in the past.
If you really think two bodies is better you can still have be proportional to people not states.
Remove daylight standard time.
Remove "drive in empty lane" language from DMV instruction.
These two things would have near universal impact on US culture.
*amendment requiring DST
Abolishing corporate ownership is stupid. What does that even achieve?
If you trying to fix the housing market this is completely the wrong way to go about it. The issue is the value of the land isn't correctly valued. Things like LVT, density minimums (increasing with population growth), good rail links again with dense redevelopment near the stations.
Things like this will fix the housing market.
Unless you worried about landlords being dicks you just need better laws. Like what are you actually trying to achieve? I don't get it.
I'm going to add "Land value tax" to v4.
But there still isn't enough houses. I don't see what difference banning corporate ownership does. The issue is supply of housing and demand being proped up by immigration.
Banning corporate ownership doesn't fix supply or demand.
If I move to another city and want to rent a house for a year what do I do then if corporate ownership is banned? Rent a second house of someone? It's just going to change who is renting.
Prostitution will just objectify women
I mean, objectification is already a thing women have to deal with. It won't make that problem worse.
Every study on places where it's been decriminalized have shown that it results in an increase in prostitution, an increase in trafficking, and better safety and recovery routes for those involved.
Greatly reduced harm to a slightly increased group of people.The questions I have are about the increase in human trafficking. Could it be because of an increase in reporting? How many cases of human trafficking go unreported? Is it more so in countries where prostitution is criminalized?
It's possible that a country with decriminalized prostitution may have a better reporting system for human trafficking with victims more willing to come forward without worry of repercussions. Either way, I'm leaning towards decriminalization rather than legalization for prostitution for v4.
The idea behind decriminalizing it is that it is an acceptance of the fact that people will objectify women (as they already do), in exchange for significantly reducing the exploitation of women.
The objectification and exploitation already exist, the point is that it significantly reduces the exploitation
How? At what point will it be seen as "oh, don't have enough money? Just resort to prostitution". Capitalism will always capitalism. If it means giving less benefits to women because they can just be prostitutes, it will happen. Right now this pro-prostitute agenda is likely being peddled by the same ones who want to take advantage of it.
Would make more sense if abortion was banned except in circumstances where the mother's life is in danger or rape
People who dont want children should not have one. It is that simple. You want less abortions? More education and cheap and available contraception is the way. People won't magically want to have more kids if you force them to birth one.
I agree with you. It's got nothing to do with increasing birth rates. We should increase the education of contraception as well.
