RickJay
You nailed it!
That was f’in brilliant!
Wow. That’s way stricter than any current laws. Where do you get that from?
How can you legitimately deny cousins (or even siblings) to marry if you are going to allow same sex couples to marry? The only legitimate reason is potential birth defects in the offspring (the danger of which is grossly overstimated by most people), and unless you are going to outlaw sex for those individuals outside of marriage, what’s the point?
In most states, cousins can’t marry. So if I say “closer than second cousins” then I’m assuming it’s the same as “cousins and closer”. Of course then you get into the 1st cousin once removed, etc. Well, whatever the medical profession tells us is too close, okay?
For same sex couples, since procreation and genetic defects aren’t an issue, then no such prohibition would be necessary. Brothers could marry, as could sisters. But not brother to sister.
Actually, I think you’d be surprised at how many states allow cousins to marry.
But that’s not my point. Why are siblings not allowed to marry if they are legally allowed to have sex? How can you justify banning one without banning the other. It also seems you are legitimizing the anti-SSM argument that marriage is about procreation.
Dump the Senate. It is an archaic hangover like the House of Lords and serves no useful function (save that it allows House members to publicly support utter nonsense secure in the knowledge that the Senate won’t act on it.)
It does violence to the very concept of democracy, in that it grants much more political power to the voter in North Dakota than to the voter in New York. The notion that a state that has only enough people in it to justify one, count 'em, one Representative should be blessed with an equal number of Senators as a state with twenty…ludicrous.
All in all, though, I stand in awe of the Constitution. I am enamored of its system of check and balances, as they were clearly constructed by men who didn’t trust each other any further than they could throw each other. By jealously and zealously assuring that the other guy didn’t get too much power, they assured that they didn’t as well. An element of constructive anarchy is built in, at a great blessing to the Republic.
As to the Electoral College…well, really, what is there to say? One bullet in the back of its neck, clean, swift and merciful.
I think that our current constitution works quite well - two things I would like to see:
One term limit for every elected federal office. I think that most of the stupid crap our politicians do is for purposes of re-election instead of conscience. (So a career polititian could be a congressperson for 2 years only, then a senator for 6 years only, then president for 4 - if they were liked enough to make it that far).
Run-off elections for the presidential race. (Something that supporters of Bush Sr. and Gore can both agree on).
Change the 2nd Ammendment to:
The right of the people to keep and bear small arms is not to be prohibited.
Add something about people being superior to animals and that the government cannot regulate the treatment of privately owned animals; legalizes marijuana; restores full citizenship rights to anyone not in prison, on probation, or parole who is of legal age; legal age would be specified; and probably some other stuff.
Then wait for the Supreme Court, politicians, law enforcement, and other left and right wing busy bodies to dismantle the hell out of it.
This must be the most ill conceived presidential election proposal I have ever seen. Do you realize that the the reelection rate of House incumbants is over 98% in large part because the vast majority of House districts have been gerrrymandered to favor one party or the other? Instead of 2/3 of Americans on the sidelines watching the election take place in the battleground states they can watch 19% of the election take place there and console themselves with the warm feeling that perhaps they may be one of the lucky 1/10th of Americans who live in a congressional district that isn’t already conceded to one side.
But wait, with such trustworthy stalwarts as Kathrine Harris as Secretaries of State there will be no need to vote at all since they alone get to decide how a state’s electoral votes will be assigned. Congratulations, you have designed a system even worse than the current one. Instead of disenfranchising mere millions you potentially disenfanchise every single American but 51 lucky souls.
This would actually be a slight improvement over what we have now. It still leaves voters in some states with many times the representation of those in others. And, of course, Americans living in Puerto Rico or the other insular territories still have no vote at all. But what does that matter, eh? Hardly any of them are white.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
And, if it requires tweakage, then tweak, but don’t throw out the beneficial parts in order to fix the minor problems.
The underlying principle, which has served us well, is the idea of a government founded in law, where everyone, from President to three-year-old, has rights that may not be violated and the right to be represented in the making of laws by persons in whose selection he or she is privileged to participate.
Effectively judicial review is an inherent part of that structure, in that it says that the courts will refuse to enforce something, however well supported, that violates the fundamental principles under which the elected officials are privileged to act as a government. The anal-sphincters-with-the-capacity-to-speak which demean “judges making law” are clearly incompetent to grasp the nature of constitutional government, and should be placed under an absolute despotism with no protections in law, for an indefinite term to be ended when they can convince a judicious individual that they have really had a change of heart and understand the value of our system.
This is not to say that the document of 1787-9 is in some way sacrosanct – it’s been amended 27 times, the last five within my lifetime. God willing, some wise and considered changes will be put in place in the future. But the principles for which the Constitution stands, not the precise wording of the document, are what Americans revere and need to stand in defense of.
I disagree. Each state is going to have certain districts that are pretty safe bets for one party or another. But most states would have competitive races. So if you’re an Indiana Democrat, instead of having no hope whatsoever that your state will send its electoral votes to your candidate, in at least part of the state you might have a chance of having your vote count. Rather than wooing the same old swing states year after year, the candidates would have to run a more truly national campaign. And just because a certain Congressman has been reelected many times is no guarantee that his district will land in the column of his party mate for president. Many Congressmen are popular in and of themselves, and districts may often split their votes between Congress and President.
This is gonna be one of those threads I have to print out and read at leisure. SDMB at its best - folks getting together and throwing around ideas.
My knee-jerk reaction is this: bag the Constitution and leave it at that. No more United States. Let the several states revert to sovereignty.
I’m not an expert on gerrymandering. I’ve never had to argue it since there is a large consensus that it works and that it’s bad. I’m not certain which of those you disagree with but let me know and I’ll try to straighten you out.
My understanding is that nearly every district is biased in favor of one party or the other. Even the contested districts tend to give one party an advantage just not a big enough one to deter the opposition. The districts are contested because the bias can be overcome if the opposite party runs a popular enough candidate. Do you understand you are seeking to insert this prejudice into the system? And speaking of prejudice, my comments to AHunter3 also apply to your proposal. Why would you want to leave all those nonwhite islanders without a vote?
It’s an election not a lottery. Why take a chance when you can have certainty? A popular vote would ensure that every vote counts.
Actually the exact opposite is true. Politicians follow the votes. Since the battleground states would still have electoral votes up for grabs ( albeit only 2 per ) the pols would still woo them. In addition they would pay attention to the odd congressional district here and there that isn’t decided. In short, your plan wouldn’t make the campaign more national but atomize it even further. If you want a national campaign you have to present the politicians with a national electorate. Again you are proposing solutions that don’t fit for problems that don’t exist. There’s no need to jump through hoops in order to simulate a national contest when you can just hold one. A popular vote is a national vote and thus lends itself to a national campaign.
This game of “concede areas to the political opposition” is beginning to annoy me. Can someone persuade the kingmakers that they’re not selling underarm deodorant or putting on American Idol – they’re trying to choose a leader for this country and the Free World? I’m tired of getting well-packaged Presidents, produced from a bland base with just enough piquancy added to produce a generally-pleasing flavor, well-appointed so as not to look too stodgy or too trendy, forthright until one parses his comments and finds a lack of definite thought.
Maybe this all has to do with what the rest of the country was doing when I was getting born, but that election was won by a man who stood forthright for what he believed in, even at the cost of losing both wings of his party, did not hesitate to call his opponents liars when they lied, refused to give up when every poll said he was defeated (and isn’t it interesting that every other Democratic candidate for the nomination has conceded to Kerry already?) – and won.
What needs changing is the unwritten constitution – the part that says, in essence, that we choose our Emperor on the basis of the clothes his image consultants have laid out for him – and perhaps we need a small boy to point out the obvious and legendary fact.
I’d like to hear a little more explanation of the above.
How do you pick the civil servants, and how do you ensure that they are impartial? I am assuming they would not be elected, which would subject them to the pressures of elections and partisanship.
I am assuming that the “revenue shall not be reduced” means no tax cuts unless we are running a surplus. Otherwise, you might be obliged to raise taxes during any recession that caused a drop in overall tax revenues or a deficit.
I would take your suggestion and reverse it from “decide on spending first, then see how much taxation it takes to cover the cost” to “decide how much there is to spend, and then stop spending once it is all gone”. That is to say, remove all government programs from auto-pilot. Congress should be obliged every year to decide how much to spend on every program, starting from zero.
And the budget must be balanced in every year, except by a three-quarters majority in both houses of Congress, and subject to Presidental veto.
Let’s see, what else -
[ul][li]Line item veto for the President[/li][li]Any Supreme Court ruling can be overturned by two-thirds majority vote by the House and Senate[/li][li]Get rid of the Electoral College altogether - straight popular vote[/li][li]“Two consecutive terms” limit for Senators, six for Representatives[/li][/ul]I am sure I will think of something more as soon as I post.
I considered simply amending the Constitution to remove everything but the first five words of the First Amendment, but that might not be practical.
Regards,
Shodan
Cool! Then we Floridians could invade Georgia! We don’t really want any of their territory – just a chance to kick some peach-eatin’ Bulldog ass!
Shodan:
