Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Culise]

"Only persons may benefit from the protections of the First, Third, Fifth, Eighth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty Fourth, and Twenty Sixth Amendments. While the term "person" is not defined in this Amendment and may be defined by other law, no definition of the term shall include entities that, by their nature, cannot be imprisoned, executed, fined, and/or deported from the United States. Notably, legal corporations cannot be considered persons, and so cannot benefit from these protections."

Actually, can I make this mine?

I personally wouldn't, though I won't obstruct your willingness to accept such.  For my own part, I like being able to sue corporations for their misdeeds, and can you imagine trying to handle the entire field of corporate taxes or contract law on an individual level for each shareholder?  Especially for taxes, being able to tax corporations at say, a bit under 40% like in the US (third-highest in the world on paper), wouldn't quite swing when you're talking about shareholders who don't make as much individually as corporations do when taken as a collective whole - imagine almost tripling the capital gains tax on every grannie who happens to have one or two shares of Microsoft or the like to try to match the now-absent corporate taxes.

Besides, the Supreme Court decision that governs the corporate ability to make political donations was justified without any reference to corporate personhood - corporations qualify by virtue of being "associations of persons," and the concern that a ban on corporate donations would set a precedent that could apply to other such associations.  As such, this law wouldn't work for the major issue of corporate donations, which is a significant contention on my part personally, nor does it affect political donations by super-rich individuals; it attempts to solve a real problem through an overly-indirect method.  Moreover, the courts have been very consistent in rejecting arguments that the Fifth applies to corporations (or other associations of persons) in the first place, though I suppose an explicit statement to that effect would not be entirely unseemly.

[IronyOwl]

It's interesting how many ammendments here are direct attacks against people.

Most people usually try to make things better by making certain things less worse, and most people usually try to make things less worse by attacking the enemies doing so. It's historically not very effective, but very intuitive and simple in theory. Also, powerful assholes do tend to cause a disproportionate amount of problems.

Plus, constitutional amendments are standing overarching rules, which tend to by nature be attacks against people on some level- attacking people who would deny you free speech, attacking people who would take away your guns, etc. Some are just more on-the-nose "these fucks, these fucks right here" than others.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I would probably create one of the following.

First possibility would be to change over the current one vote system to a ranking based system, where if no candidate receives enough votes to reach the minimum amount of votes required, then the votes to the candidate with the lowest number are redistributed according to who they would have voted for next.  Probably would eliminate the Electorial College, or at least overhaul it.

Second possibility would be to better spell out the right to the privacy of an individual.  It isn't really spelled out, just relatively loosely justified through a combination of other amendments.

Final possibility would be to have there be complete transparency in the government, with a 10 year leeway for the military aspects to account for some of the more sensitive stuff.

[Bauglir]

I personally wouldn't, though I won't obstruct your willingness to accept such.  For my own part, I like being able to sue corporations for their misdeeds, and can you imagine trying to handle the entire field of corporate taxes or contract law on an individual level for each shareholder?  Especially for taxes, being able to tax corporations at say, a bit under 40% like in the US (third-highest in the world on paper), wouldn't quite swing when you're talking about shareholders who don't make as much individually as corporations do when taken as a collective whole - imagine almost tripling the capital gains tax on every grannie who happens to have one or two shares of Microsoft or the like to try to match the now-absent corporate taxes.

What's that got to do with anything? I didn't say abolish corporations. Heavens no, they have many good applications, and you've listed a lot of great reasons to keep them around. Nothing in that amendment has anything to do with this paragraph. All I did was deny a number of rights to corporations - why would that make them ineligible targets for lawsuits or anything like that?

Besides, the Supreme Court decision that governs the corporate ability to make political donations was justified without any reference to corporate personhood - corporations qualify by virtue of being "associations of persons," and the concern that a ban on corporate donations would set a precedent that could apply to other such associations.  As such, this law wouldn't work for the major issue of corporate donations, which is a significant contention on my part personally, nor does it affect political donations by super-rich individuals; it attempts to solve a real problem through an overly-indirect method.  Moreover, the courts have been very consistent in rejecting arguments that the Fifth applies to corporations (or other associations of persons) in the first place, though I suppose an explicit statement to that effect would not be entirely unseemly.

I'm not attempting to address donations by super-rich individuals with it, and I don't agree that individuals having a right necessarily implies associations (that is, legal entities constituted for whatever purpose) of them inherit those rights. The reason I listed all of those amendments, even the ones that make no sense, is because the law's major thrust is to enforce that interpretation, not act as comprehensive campaign reform, which I made very unclear in the original post so that's my fault.

I suppose a close third choice might be an explicit statement that money is not speech, but eh.

[Sheb]

No love for forcing proportional representation by state in the House and popular votes for the President?

[Culise]

What's that got to do with anything? I didn't say abolish corporations. Heavens no, they have many good applications, and you've listed a lot of great reasons to keep them around. Nothing in that amendment has anything to do with this paragraph. All I did was deny a number of rights to corporations - why would that make them ineligible targets for lawsuits or anything like that?

I'm not attempting to address donations by super-rich individuals with it, and I don't agree that individuals having a right necessarily implies associations (that is, legal entities constituted for whatever purpose) of them inherit those rights. The reason I listed all of those amendments, even the ones that make no sense, is because the law's major thrust is to enforce that interpretation, not act as comprehensive campaign reform, which I made very unclear in the original post so that's my fault.

I suppose a close third choice might be an explicit statement that money is not speech, but eh.

Because many of those things I listed are at present tied to corporate personhood.  They're largely the reason such a silly thing as the extension of personhood to an inanimate and ephemeral thing as a corporation came into existence in the first place.  Abolishing corporate personhood won't abolish corporations (corporations significantly predate that particular legal fiction), though they might lose many of their protections regarding, for instance, ownership of property against state seizure (one of the case laws that established the concept of corporate personhood), but it will cut the bottom out of a whole slew of legal precedent regarding corporations in the US. 

I do apologize for misinterpreting the main purpose behind your proposal.  I did infer a bit too much by assuming out of hand that it was intended to restrict the political power of corporations.

[Bauglir]

I did explicitly say that it was intended to "do away with corporate abuse of election law", and that's... not really what I meant. So. Really entirely my fault.

I'm okay with the concept of "corporate personhood", sort of. An organization can be considered an entity for all sorts of reasons, like liability and so on, and so that's why I didn't want to just outright abolish it. I just want to keep its rights from getting conflated with the rights of actual people.

[Culise]

Ah, I see.  Then it was mostly just the last sentence of the proposal that threw me.  Indeed, I can definitely see some merit in an alternate classification of corporations and other similar organizations in order to establish a positive set of rights (I think that's the term, but it's been a while; basically, that it only possess the rights that it is explicitly granted, rather than a "negative" definition where it has those rights that have not been explicitly abrogated), such as ownership, the right of contracting, the right of civil suit, and the extension of liability to it rather than its shareholders.  I'm not certain it's entirely worth discarding corporate personhood or the rejection of 14th Amendment rights (that is, protecting the corporation from deprivation of property without due process of law), but I think I can understand a bit more of what you intended.

[Shadowlord]

(I shouldn't try to read this stuff in the middle of the night, my eyes just glazed over and then this popped into my head)

No love for forcing proportional representation by state in the House and popular votes for the President?

♫ What's love got to do with it, got to do with it? What's love but a second-hand emotion? ♫

[TheBiggerFish]

(I shouldn't try to read this stuff in the middle of the night, my eyes just glazed over and then this popped into my head)

No love for forcing proportional representation by state in the House and popular votes for the President?

♫ What's love got to do with it, / got to do with it? / What's lo-o-ove / but a second-hand emotion? ♫

♫ What's love got to do with it, / got to do with it? / What's lo-o-ove / but a sweet old-fashioned notion? /
What's love got to do with it, / got to do with it? / Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken? ♫
(I shouldn't post this late at night either, I start quoting lyrics.)

I agree that corporate rights should require affirmations.

[Helgoland]

No love for forcing proportional representation by state in the House and popular votes for the President?

Amendment proposal: Institute a German-style MMP voting system, ensuring both local representation and the equality of all votes. To prevent splinter parties, establish a 5% barrier - if your party gets no direct mandates and less than five per cent of the popular vote, no seats for you.

Also have the president either elected directly or by an electoral college which gives a fair representation of the popular vote.

[wierd]

Define fair.

Fair, as in total population density (Each vote is the same as any other vote, thus fair)-- or fair, as in allocation of political power proportional to that necessary for the district to be properly represented. (Some votes are weighted heavier than others, due to economic or social importance of the district.)-- Or fair, as in each district is a fixed square area, and each fixed square area gets the same representational power (Self explanatory.)

Depending on how you define "fair", there can be all kinds of repercussions.

For instance, low density rural areas being abused politically by very population dense urban centers.  This is a serious question-- Say for instance, issues with water rights. The urban centers may demand water use restrictions on rural district residents, which result in crop failures, just so the urban residents can continue to water lawns.

[Sheb]

One thing of note is that you then run into the issue of allocating candidates on lists: the US political parties don't really do that kind of stuff at the moment.

[martinuzz]

Define fair.

Fair, as in total population density (Each vote is the same as any other vote, thus fair)-- or fair, as in allocation of political power proportional to that necessary for the district to be properly represented. (Some votes are weighted heavier than others, due to economic or social importance of the district.)-- Or fair, as in each district is a fixed square area, and each fixed square area gets the same representational power (Self explanatory.)

Depending on how you define "fair", there can be all kinds of repercussions.

For instance, low density rural areas being abused politically by very population dense urban centers.  This is a serious question-- Say for instance, issues with water rights. The urban centers may demand water use restrictions on rural district residents, which result in crop failures, just so the urban residents can continue to water lawns.

A very good example to ponder there.
It points out the nescessity of a layer of control in lawmaking. Say an ordinance was passed, to restrict water usage for agricultural areas. The farmers affected should always have a possibility for appeal, up to a High Court. The trick here is to make sure you have a good Constitution. In this case there should be a Constitutional law that guaruantuees a person reimbursement / subsidy for adaptation when new legislature directly hurts his/her livelihood.
Simplified, this could mean, the urban residents get to keep watering their lawn, but they consequently will need to pay more taxes, which can be used to reimburse farmers.

With a good Constitution to protect minority rights, it doesn't really matter which of your 3 definitions of fair voting you use.
Although my personal preference goes to 'one man(/woman/other), one vote'

[wierd]

You can plow all the money into the ground you want, it wont make dry soil produce food.

Water rights are a serious point of contention for a reason. It is a limited resource, which has very high demand on many sides. Do you favor giving farmers water rights, and have lots of pissed off urban dwellers with dead blue fescue lawns and subsequently diminished property values--- but stable food prices-- Or do you cater to the city dwellers, due to the total number of impacted properties and total monetary damages incurred by the downturn in property values, and suffer runaway food prices as the market reacts to the resulting scarcity?

Remember, urban settings are places where things like Home Owners Assc. types are-- Failure to keep the lawn pretty can land you a very stiff financial penalty.  Get enough of those people in a dense population environment, and things can spiral out of control quickly.

Couple that with the idea that perpetual population growth == perpetual economic growth == A GOOD THING!, in the face of water sources being of fixed capacity, and the increased competition for that limited resource, and you have a pretty damnable mess right there.

How you define "fair" completely changes how you would be able to handle a problem like that.