Propose changes to the U.S. Constitution

Post Reply New Topic

This can be anywhere from amendments, to writing a new constitution. Post some ideas of amendments/rewrites you would like to see. If you make an amendment, try writing it out formally.

Here is one of mine, to abolish the death penalty:

Repeal 16th and 17th amendment, make it so congressional districts don't exceed 50k in population as our founders intended, balanced budget amendment, the Ludlow amendment from 30-40s

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law recognizing an establishment of religion or morality-based institution, or approving the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, and use them in self-defense, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No military member or officer of the law shall enter any person's domicile without the free-will consent of the owner.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime with their life, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, to have the assistance of counsel for his defense; and to be considered innocent of all charges, but civil and criminal, until proven guilty with absolute certainty. Failure to meet these statutes shall result in the immediate acquittal and pardon of the alleged offender.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, according to the rules of the common law, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments, inflicted, whether in the course of interrogation, during the course of a trial, or after a verdict or conviction is rendered.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; nor shall any persons be denied their rights, regardless of age, gender, ancestry, religion, political preference, sexual orientation, education, or mental or physical disability.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the people primarily, and to the states secondarily.

Could I be considered an anti-constitutionalist because I don?t really give a s**t about the U.S. constitution one bit? Go ahead and call me blasphemous, but the thing has had zero influence in my life as a human being. With it hanging over my head, I feel that my decisions are not because I individually say so.

I want everything I do in my life to be because I said so, not because something or someone else says I can. That only shows me that my life is not under my own private control within my own rules, but within someone else?s. I want to live and be free by my own standards and not have to conflict with someone else?s within the realm of civics and politics. This ?freedom? of this and freedom of that that I've been told about every single day since school that so many exploit for their agendas is all fake to me.

I am personally so sick of countless people saying that free speech gives people the right to literally say whatever they want to the point where I grown to despise it. The first amendment protects people from government censorship, nothing more or less. So the next time some imbecile announces that my sexual curiosity is either sinful, disgusting, unnatural, or leads to bestiality and pedophilia, for instance, I am going to tell that person to get bent and that he or she can take his or her so-called opinion and shove it because it's my life and I live how I want to.

I think I heard someone once say during a certain event that opinions are about things and not people. He or she said something about having the same information, as far as I can remember. I still couldn't agree more because people can be unpredictable and always subject to change and you can't resist change. What's the point of having an opinion when people defy it anyway? If anything, you're not allowed to have it anymore once you have been proven wrong.

Not everyone acts the same, so what's the point of generalizing people into these groups except to justify prejudice? Not everyone believes in the divine or morality, so what's the point of having it around other than to justify your own life? Not every person adheres to certain standards, so what's the point of having them except for yourself and yourself alone?

What is the point?

Repeal the 16th Amendment and abolish the IRS and taxation of income.

Reword the 2nd Amendment to explicitly define gun ownership as a constitutional right of the populace.

Introduce an amendment prohibiting the exercise of capital punishment.

Introduce an amendment explicitly placing communications under the protection of the 4th amendment against surveillence without due process.

Introdue an amendment defining marriage as a civil contract between any number of consenting adults of any sexual orientation or gender identity.

Introduce an amendment requiring a balanced budget.

Finally, introduce an amendment repealling the federal minimum wage laws and preventing the federal government from ever creating one ever again.

The only thing I think is needed is Term Limits:
"Members of the United States Congress shall not serve more than 12 years in office excluding terms served under circumstances of succession."

28th Amendment, essential points...

Corporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. All elections must be publicly financed.

Complete overhaul of Congress.

The bicameral legislature model is a holdover from the (still incomplete) transition from feudalism. Everybody who counted got a voice, but the Lords got a louder voice than the Commoners. In the US this translated to direct election (again, only by those who counted i.e. were eligible to vote) of regional Representatives, with the state legislatures (comprised of the American equivalent of the Lords) electing their state's Senators.

The 17th Amendment, which established direct election of Federal Senators by the eligible voters of the state, was an attempt at democratizing this system. The problem is that the resulting configuration doesn't make sense and serves no useful function. We have two houses, both of which apportion representation on the basis of residential location, but defining those regions on different scales. In such a system it is nearly impossible for every person to be adequately represented by a representative of their choosing. In practice, members of both houses end up representing both their states-as-entities and the residents-of-their-states-as-individuals. Should a conflict of interest emerge, the configuration is severely unbalanced against the residents-as-individuals.

What I propose is a redefinition of the Senate as being that house concerned with matters of and between the individual States-as-entities. Each State shall continue to be represented by an equal number of representatives, as a symbol of the equal esteem in which each member State of the Union is held. I can't think of any compelling reason to change that number from 2. Importantly, for this to work correctly, each individual State decides how to elect their Senators - whether by popular vote, state legislature vote, or whatever method they decide - via amendment to their State Constitution, with State Constitutional Conventions being triggered automatically should the states fail to otherwise amend their constitutions in a timely fashion (say within 1 year of this proposal passing into law). This matters because the means by which a State chooses its Senators will itself become an expression of each State's individual identity, fostering the neglected idea of "laboratories of democracy".

The House of Representatives gets a bigger face-lift. No longer do its members represent a geographic region - representation on that basis already exists in the Senate, and if a State encompasses regions not adequately represented by their state's senatorial delegation, the appropriate remedy is for that region to become an independent State entitled to their own Senators (a process to be encouraged and provisioned for in these reforms). No, members of the House of Representatives - one for every fifty thousand Americans, so about 6400 of them for our current population - are elected by sortition. Lottery. Random chance, anybody who wants the job can throw their name into the hat. Each name drawn gets a seat in the House of Representatives. But not every seat has the same sway, because every voter in America can choose one and only one of these Representatives as their Voice, and Representatives have influence in the House in direct proportion to the number of voters who've named them Voice. When a Rep's term (maybe the length of each individual Representative's term should be calculated via a process incorporating a random element as well?) is up, they have a (50/50? Some other number, possibly inversely proportional to that Rep's randomly-generated term length?) chance of staying on for another term (which, if it's calculated, would at this point be re-calculated). Otherwise, another name is drawn to replace them.

As a voter, you can change your Voice selection at any time from any internet-connected device equipped with a Smart Card reader capable of reading your Voter ID - which is provided to all eligible voters free of charge and contains no personal identity information. The Constitution will explicitly name as a crime of High Treason (punishable by death or the greatest penalty permitted under law) any request for, access, or attempted access to anyone else's Voter ID information for any purpose other than voting or the operations of the Voter ID system itself (e.g. the way Social Security numbers are used today). Logging in with the Voter ID smart card should also require pass-phrase user authentication, with both a 'free access' pass phrase and a 'coerced access' pass phrase, where the process only "works" if you use the 'free access' but it looks the same either way, so you cannot be forced by criminals or cops (but I repeat myself) to reveal your Voter ID info (unless they know your 'free access' pass phrase, then they can tell you're not co-operating ). Personally I would also be in favor of making possession of a Voter ID Reader by any on-duty Law Enforcement Officer a strict-liability (meaning they only need to prove a cop had one, not that he did use it or intended to use it in any nefarious way) felony but I doubt that would pass into law.

Obviously needs a lot of fleshing out, but that's the gist of it.

If it were up to me, I'd just toss it and replace it with something else.

- One house consisting of two representatives from each state, serving up to three four-year terms. The other consisting of 200 representatives elected proportionately across the whole country, serving one nine-year term (a third elected every three years).
- Scrap all those amendments about discrimination in voting. Replace them with something broader - the government may not deny residents or citizens of the USA over the age of 16 the right to vote for elected representatives. The government may not discriminate against citizens on basis of race, colour, employment, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability without rational cause inherent to biology.
- Abolish the death penalty
- The United States must be carbon neutral, and congress may pass law to enforce that
- All residents of the United States are entitled to free education, provided by the government and funded by taxation, up to but not including undergraduate degrees. Unless the student has another funding source, higher education to be paid for by government loans of up to $15,000 per annum, earning interest equivalent to inflation, to be repaid according to ability and wiped after 25 years. The government has the right to provide grants rather than loans as it sees fit.
- The education system must remain politically neutral. Curricula are to be set by panels of experts.
- All residents of the United States are entitled to free healthcare, funded by taxation.
- Congress shall make no law banning the recreational use of any object or substance. The 2nd amendment is repealed and made a state's rights issue. No special protections for firearms, no special bans on drugs.
- The neutrality of the internet shall not be compromised
- No person shall be imprisoned for acts which do not harm others
- No law may be passed which specifies a minimum sentence for a crime
- Prisons may not be run for profit
- All persons have the right to communicate privately. The government shall not monitor communications without prima facie evidence of criminal misconduct threatening life.

Repeal 16th (abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Income Tax) and 17th amendments.

Introduce a balanced budget amendment.

Introduce an amendment explicitly proscribing the implementation of fractional reserve banking (obliteration of the Federal Reserve System) and private central banking.

Introduce an amendment prohibiting corporations lobbying congress.

Introduce an amendment prohibiting the preferential treatment (affirmative action) of one's age, socioeconomic background, race, culture, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, gender, political ideology, neurotype, and disability.

We should just scrap the Constitution and go for a Dictatorship.