Government for the people. How?

[Izzy]

The objective of this thread is to altruistically* design a political structure wherein the needs and interests of EVERY inhabitant of this country are met. (None of this "general public" crap, we should try to make everyone happy. ) It's impossible to not be aware of how inconceivable this sounds, but I think by being mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, but.. just might be feasible?**

Now, before we can even begin devising laws, creating our constitution, bill of rights, etc., I think it's best we assemble a list of what people want from their government. Feel free to contribute ANYTHING. (I stole some of these from the world's smallest political quiz and the bill of rights. >_>)

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.
2. Military service should be voluntary.
3. There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults, where a consenting adult is anyone of 16 years of age or older.
4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.
5. End government barriers to international free trade.
6. Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.
7. Keep government welfare, but no taxation without representation.
8. Freedom of speech, religion, sexuality, peaceful protests, and petition.
9. Soldiers may not be quartered in a house without the consent of the owner.
10. People may not be unreasonably searched or kept in captivity.
11. The right to a free, public, and speedy trial.
12. Laws are to remain the same from State to State.
13. Eventual globalization is a priority.

*We can get into the semantics of altruism later. I have.. mixed feelings, but this most closely elucidates my intentions. (Lol, I swear, I bounce back and forth from being the apathetic hippy civilian who just wants to live to the extremely fervent humanitarian practically daily. >_>)
** Eh, truthfully, it isn't. Too many people disagree on matters of religion, which define the moral code for a LOT of people (even if they don't strictly adhere to it, haha). We need to agree now to define morals for ourselves and not base them off of religious texts. Like, if someone proposes "Don't kill", that's perfectly acceptable, and I expect it to be fully ratified. If someone else suggests "Love God", this is more open to debate. While you can submit ideas that coincide with religious texts, submit them because they are mandates you want and agree with, not just because your scripture of choice tells you to follow them.

Edited February 13, 2014 by bonanova

[Guest]

All religions other than Christianity should be banned in the USA

[gvg]

Oklahoma: Are you serious? Did you not read the first page of this thread? We are for relgious freedom. Christian? Why not! Muslim? Why not! Atheist? Why not! We will never implement that. You probably aren't joking, so I want you to read the first page, rethink your values, and try again.

Dawh: I'll read it when I get a chance, but what you yourself wrote is right =)

[Guest]

Oklahoma: Are you serious? Did you not read the first page of this thread? We are for relgious freedom. Christian? Why not! Muslim? Why not! Atheist? Why not! We will never implement that. You probably aren't joking, so I want you to read the first page, rethink your values, and try again.

Dawh: I'll read it when I get a chance, but what you yourself wrote is right =)

I was working under the assumption that OS is a spammer, so I decided that ignoring him was the best way to handle his statement. This seems an accurate assessment since I can't find any way for his comment to be germane to the current line of the conversation. Commenting just validates his existence (as far as he is concerned).

[gvg]

Well, I don't go by the mantra of letting trolls lie... I like to get 'em going, than ignore them =)

[Izzy]

All religions other than Christianity should be banned in the USA

Lawl. I agree. Christianity shouldn't be banned because we need morons to stone. So it goes. Unrelatedish, but.. RUUR?

Will check out your post after homework, Dawh. Couldn't resist from the above. The moment was structured so.

[gvg]

Izzy: Now now, be nice =)

[Izzy]

This was posted to my Facebook wall ten minutes ago. My copied response, because I don't have time to be creative right now. D:

Mmm.. Good in principle. People need a wake-up call. I can't help but think that humanism will arise from this with some negative connotations that I don't personally care for. Secular. Christian ads annoy me. This.. won't be much better.

It's hard to reason with people who have made up their minds, so this will have questionable success. I think the response will mostly be "Damn atheists, look at them shoving their beliefs down our throats!" Lawl at the irony. Meh at all else.

Loving the free speech though.

This didn't come through in my previous comment, but I f'ucking LOVE the banners. ♥

Thoughts?

Edited November 10, 2010 by Izzy

[gvg]

Izzy: Although I'm not an atheist, this is exactly what America needs: logic and reasoning, humanism. The one thing I do like is that they said moderate CHristians/Jews/Muslims etc. were still in the right, despite the fact that this is an atheist ad campaign. Truthfully, fundementalism is bad, religious or otherwise. But the ones who are in it for the love, for the salvation, and not the hate and damnation, well, anti-religious people (you sometimes turn in this direction btw, but it isn't just you) need to understand that they (and before my agnostic change I would have said we) are not in the wrong here. We don't follow the bad stuff, and if I had to make my own bible, I'd cut to some proverbs here, some psalms here, good Jesus, and end. That's what I payed attention too, and what many, though not all (*cough* Paladino *cough*) did as well.

I'm asking for sanity people. LISTEN TO STEWART AND COLBERT. Fight for what's right, compromise on what isn't important: why fight, die, and kill for a belief that's SUPPOSED to be peaceful?

That's my thoughts; sorry if I ranted towards the middle there (again, I wasn't calling you out). =)

[gvg]

My comments:

I have only one thing to say:

Please, those atheists out there, do not mark moderate christians/Jews/Muslims etc. for what fundamentalists believe. I (though no longer ‘technically’ a Chrsitian myself [go agnostics =)], but I was) have seen many wonderful people, who simply never knew the bad parts of their beiefs. Many make there own bibles that leave out the bad stuff, and that is what they follow. You don’t have to be an atheist or an agnostic to be a humanist or to be humane.

James: Beautiful. that’s what i meant. Some atheists shove their beliefs down others throats, the same way they claim fundamentalists do (though they ARE right). They too, to prove their beliefs, take out of context things. Although the Bible is definitely hateful, and the man on man part did mean gays.

MODERATE. AGNOSTIC. LET’S GO. WE have to unite as well.

[gvg]

To try and restart this forum: Where will unions fit in our plans?

The way I see it, it would be better to make people earn there money. What I mean is this:

There is a minimum thing you must do in one week, say, cook 29 batches of fries, flip 45 burgers, and work 12 hours at the cashier (completeley random).

If a worker matches each of these, they get the minimum they could earn that week, say, 50 dollars.

The differnce is that there is no hourly wage. If you meet the wages, good job; there's your salary. If not, you either don't get payed or your salary is harmed dramatically.

Now, if one worker passes the minimum, (say 50 batches of fries, 80 burgers, and 18 hours at the register) they get more, in a bonus like system. Ex: Each additional batch of fries, 5 $. Each additional burger: 1 $. Each extra hour at the register: 10 $.

Now, if you match this early, and aren't motivated enough to go for bonuses, then you can take the rest of the week off. I'm serious. Now, the employer can force each of his workers to come three seperate days a week (that aren't on weekends), but everyhting else is voluntary: you go as you need. Didn't get enough done? Well, stay late on saturday and get the minimum then. Sick? Out for a family, religious, or medical reason? Well, your minimum is reduced compared to everyone elses, and you can still go for extra. Ex: Worker A had Pneumonia for 5 out of 7 days. He has to only do 10 batches of fries, 23 burgers, and 6 hours at the register. If he does 20 batches of fries, he gets the bonus. Etc. Etc.

The unions, in this plan, work to help raise how much you make for the minimum work (but they cannot bargain for the amount of minimum work; here, free market (one of its good uses here) forces will set in: If an employer is offering more pay for less work, well, Mr. Scrooge just lost his workforce.

Like my plan? Or no? Anybody have another idea for unions completeley seperate from mine?

BTW, my neighbor told me my ideas were anti-union (He agreed with my ideas, though). Is that true? I'll admit that I'm not an expert on unions.

Think about it: It'll reduce the number of times in certain fields (*cough* SPORTS AND ENTERTAIMENT *cough*) where you go: Man, that guy sucks, but i can't get out of his 30 mil $ contract without so many penalties.

Edit: Misspelled neighbor

Edited November 22, 2010 by gvg

[Izzy]

That's a terrible idea. There's absolutely no way to ensure that someone will be there at all times to do the work. I would hate walking into a restauraunt and being rejected for service because the employees have already met their quota for the day. One of the good things about society now is that you can know what to expect. If I want Chinese food for dinner, I know where to go to get it. With your proposal, I don't, and that's a major inconveinience.

Better suggestion: those that go above and beyond the call of duty get bonuses and benefits. Those that slack get fired. Where's the problem?

However, your plan isn't that bad for businesses not required to be in contact with people all day. Authors, CEOs, etc. will do fine with this. Actors, restaurants, teachers, policemen, and.. almost everyone else will not. The latter half of every day will feel like Sunday in Europe.

It also makes people entirely dependent on other people. What if there just aren't enough customers to order x amount of fries? Or enough people that want haircuts? Or oilchanges? People shouldn't be penalized for situations they have no control over.

[Guest]

I agree with Izzy here. I knew something was off on the whole thing, but I couldn't put it into words. Izzy did a good job with that.

I won't claim to be an expert on unions either, but the main impetus for unions was because in general, it's far easier for an employer to fire an employee and hire a replacement, than to address grievances said employee might have. If you're forced to work 12 hours a day turning bolts in a factory with no breaks (other than 15 minutes for lunch) and no place to sit down, you, as a single employee, have little recourse to change your working conditions. If you complain to the supervisor that your back is breaking and request that hours be reduced to 10 a day and if you refuse to come back to work until conditions are met, then it's fairly easy (especially in times of high unemployment) for the manager to simply find someone else to do your job. As a single employee, you know that if you refuse to work, you'll likely lose the job to someone who will do the back-breaking labor for the same wage, or even less.

However, if all the workers in the factory could spontaneously decide to quit work until conditions improve, the employer would likely have to redress the issues presented by the employees. Of course, the likelihood of all the employees walking out spontaneously is practically nil, so the concept of unions arose. The ability of employees to organize and deliver demands as a group gave them a seat at the negotiating table that they lacked before unions were invented. Unions are the reason we have child labor laws, a 5-day, 40-hour work week, things like paid vacation/sick leave, etc. Without things like unions, a lot of these things might never have come to pass.

People can argue about how useful unions are today and there are no doubt some issues with unions allowing bad employees to remain employed in a job for which they lack qualifications, but that doesn't mean that all unions are bad or corrupt. For the most part, unions have been on the wane for the last 30-40 years, which has coincided with a long period of more or less stagnant wages (compared to inflation). Are the two factors related? Quite probably, though the exact relationship is extremely complicated.

Of course, the last 30 years has also seen the rise of a devoted propaganda campaign set up by industry to denigrate and marginalize unions. Many people have a negative view of unions today because they only hear bad things about unions in the news. "Thugs" and "gangsters" have been choice words from right-wing media sources used to describe union workers to help propagate this sense of ill-will toward unions of all stripes. There were and are unions that operate like mobsters and undoubtedly there were some pretty influential unions that were connected to illegal conduct, but that doesn't mean that they are all that way or that we would be better off without them.

Unions arose in the US because the employers were always the ones with power. If we significantly changed the power map for industry in this political world we are trying to create, unions may not be necessary. But that would depend on how much control the government exerted over industry. As history shows, government can be a boon to either industry or to labor when disputes arise, so creating a sensible policy for industry is a careful balancing act and it requires a thoughtful examination of a slew of factors. To say that one policy will work for everyone in every industry is likely to be somewhat facile. For the most part, government had probably best not step in until their absence proves a problem. If we can create a society where industry and labor get along nicely, there's really no reason for the government to get involved. It's only once a problem arises that we need to worry about it.

Of course, telling an author, "You must write X words per day" may not encourage the right attitude either, Izzy. "I like to count. One. Two. Three. Four..." Also, I wouldn't encourage CEOs to make many decisions either. That'll just make things go from bad to worse. "Whoa! Let me get my reorg boots!"

[gvg]

Izzy: Yeah... I see what you mean. I was just on the thinking that businesses would hire more people to always have workers, since the situation you said would be bad for them (thus creating jobs).

I guess I shouldn't have tried to base a system on sports, huh?

It worked well then.

But maybe that's just it. What if we only used it on the jobs you said? Would that not prevent overpaying someone? (Like a CEO who pays himself lovely bonuses, or a athlete who makes more in one year than I would in a few hundred lifetimes.

Now in your idea, how would you know that people weren't slacking? How would you watch each employess to make sure they were working during each hour, earning what they were being payed?

What if, knowing they had a lovely hourly wage, they simply did near nothing? That's what I don't want. In a large company, it's impossible to make sure each person is doing what they're supposed to (unless you hire one person per person to do nothing but watch them), while in mine, since they must do a certain thing, rather than a certain number of hours, it's easier to do so. Also, I would think the incentive is large enough (then again, I am overestimating humanities belief in hard work...)

However, I do see the problems (quite clearly actually, I'm surprised I didn't see them. Espacially the dependency part... that's the last thing I would vouch for). Any way to salvage my idea? Is it even worth using for the jobs listed by you?

Or am I chasing the end of a rainbow? (Is that even a saying?????? )

Dwah: Yep, learned about that part at least in history classes. And I'm not saying that unions are bad; far from it. I'm just saying that lately, based on what I see in the news (even some liberal sites) and also from horrors stories from my family (My uncle said that he was fired baecause of a different union that he wasn't a part of. the workers were lazy, bacame very mob-like in how they made sure each did as little work as possible, and eventually, a new manager came in and cleaned house. There's also the story I heard that said unions destroyed the brick industry, because they said that each bricklayer could only lay a certain number of bricks, to the point where peoiple switched to more metal or wooden frames.)

Oooh! That reminds me! What about in construction?

I've seen my parents get mighty mad about certain projects that were finished w3eeks later than they were supposed to. What about implementing my idea there? Finish a project by this date that you gave me, or don't get payed? (Woops, just noticed some problems there too. "Um... how about 20 years from now?") Sigh. Thought it was good.

Edited November 22, 2010 by gvg

[Izzy]

Well, with authors, I wouldn't change it from what's going on now. It seems to be a write x books in y years sort of thing.

The same people that would oversee that work is getting done in your scenario oversee that people aren't slacking off too much now. ...What's wrong with slacking? (>_>) Bosses have certain expectations. If they aren't being met, they'll know about it and let people go accordingly. If they are, I somehow doubt they care how much work Bob is doing while Bill plays fantasy football and checks Facebook all day. Which, yeah, is a problem. That's where managers come into play.

I think that's how construction works already?

On an unrelated note: censuses. The decadely censuses are vastly underestimated because they don't account for the people that don't want to be counted (illegal immigrants, homeless people, etc.) Every ten years, this becomes a huge political debate. The left says we should sample and then estimate, the right says to take it as it is so the people they don't care about (namely the people that won't vote for them ) aren't counted. You can guess who I side with, but what's an elegant way to pass that into law?

[gvg]

Can't we do both? or would that cause to much hoopla?

Estimate those that aren't counted, count those who do. I'm sure we can get a rough estimate.

[Izzy]

Well, obviously we're going to count those that are here.

[gvg]

Duh

But why can't we combine them? I don't see why this needs to be debated too. Count both, one directly (those that want to), and indirectly (estimation of homeless, illegal immigrants, etc.)

Oh, and I dunno, does construction work that way? I'm pretty sure they don't give official time estimates, and get payed if their unofficial estimate is wrong, and they take forever.

BTW, Izzy'll love this: In Texas, a bill is in the process of becoming law that allows teachers in public schools to display the Ten commandments in broad daylight inside the classroom.

I don't think I need to ask about your thoughts

Edited November 23, 2010 by gvg

[gvg]

And what if, for my earlier idea, I take out the part where they go home early if they're done? They still have to get the minimum done, and get paid bonuses (So in essence, you get payed for what you do)but you must come in even if you met the quota?

Or still no?

[Izzy]

Still no. They'll spend the rest of the day doing nothing. I'm pretty sure construction people get paid by the amount of piping they lay or houses they paint, etc.? When I was.. 12ish, a new neighborhood was being built a few streets down, and some friends and I went exploring (mostly to play inside the pipes and mounds of gravel). The houses didn't have doors or windows, so we went inside one. We expected the walls to be dry when we sat against them, but they weren't. It was this.. thick whiteish stuff. There was a pretty clear human body imprint. Scared, we got the hell out of there. Some construction guy saw us trying to creep offsite, and asked us if we messed up his wall. He went into this rant about having to redo it and it costing him money. To escape the dreaded call to the parents, we ended up running and jumping down this *at least* ten foot bridge thing. The coolest part was that none of us got hurt in that stunt, lol. We didn't even realize wtf we did until we were laying in the grass laughing. >_> *nostalgic moment*

Lol, I don't understand why it's being debated either. Ask our lovely leaders.

Which raises another question: why the hell does China have veto power in the UN?

Eh, they do that here. In this middle school I attended for a semester, they had a daily moment of silence. My English teacher has Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Sagan, and (unrelated by still cool) Chompsky quotes all over the room. The atheist teachers so kindly balance out the stupidity. It's ridiculous, but I'm not particularly bothered.

[gvg]

Alright, so my idea sucks.

Back to the drawing board.

And if that's the case, well, good. that's how it should be.

And good job. Sorry to say I don't have any amazing stories like that.

Well, I did get lost in the woods for about 4 hours. that was a wonderful experience

And I don't think a moment of silence is necessarily religious. It could just be for respect.

And I have an agnostic teacher, but she doesn't say too much against religion. She just always brings up both sides of the religious spectrum.

That is one of the great things about high school though: I can write all the essays I want bashing religion. Just did so for a Tom Sawyer thingy. Quite fun. She read it to the class too Although I think it was because it got an A. Still fun to see people's reactions though. =) Got a few looks that day. Ah well.

[Guest]

Which raises another question: why the hell does China have veto power in the UN?

Because the US and Russia (and the UK and France) have always had veto power on the UN. Neither of us would have joined if we hadn't gotten that power. Now that China is a big economic power, they feel they deserve a seat at the big kid's table. So now they are one of the permanent members and have the veto just like the US and Russia.

Getting over hypernationalism is going to be one of the hardest challenges to really level the playing field. Even if policies would be good for the world, the US is going to veto them if they think that they will be harmful to US interests, same as any other permanent member of the Security Council. Even if it would probably benefit everyone in the long run, if it has a short-term detriment, it's going to be vetoed, to avoid looking "weak." Humans are still terribly tribalist in nature.

To talk about gvg's idea to count the census by physical counting and estimation: I would agree that makes a lot of sense. Of course, a direct count is always going to be expensive. We could definitely use statistical analysis to estimate the populations fairly accurately and more cheaply, but we can't do that in the US because it doesn't say "estimate" the number of people "every ten years" in the Constitution and we could never modernize our process--that would be going against the will of the Founders! Plus, the ardent anti-intellectuals don't trust things like statistical analysis. They don't believe that human systems can be modeled by a mathematical formula. And of course, the idea that the homeless and immigrants would be more likely to share ideology with the Democrats doesn't endear the Right to the idea in any case.

You could make an argument that illegal immigrants shouldn't be counted for things like the census (since they aren't supposed to be here anyway), but the homeless should without a doubt be counted in some fashion. Personally, I think that both ought to be counted for representation purposes since both are still consuming resources in the community and we are supposed to be legally obligated to count all citizens, whether they live in a house or not.

Though I'm not a statistician, I do think that statistical analysis would be good enough with today's equations and computers to accurately estimate the population, so I would support using that method to count everyone in our society, since it would be a lot cheaper. Of course, if anyone knows better than I, I would be happy to go along with other ideas too.

[Izzy]

We always get our English teacher off topic by starting debates in his class loosely related to the material. Monday, we spent the hour debating objectivism vs. subjectivism. Today, someone took something I said on Monday entirely out of context ("Just because you cannot personally see them does not mean they aren't there" in reference to atoms as an explanation of how we see an objective world subjectively, thus creating realities for ourselves) and tried to use it against me to prove the existence of their beloved sky fairy. Obviously I had to fix that. It lead to many atheist giggles and frustrated Christians. My teacher giggles like an adorable school girl. Which is cute because he's a guy<3. >_>

Annnnnyway.

Economy aside, China keeps vetoing the notion of Darfur being a genocide, meaning we can't technically do anything, because of their oil interests. What Bush did wasn't any better, but that's unacceptable.

...Why doesn't Germany have veto power? We're better than the French.

Or, better thought. It's a union. No one should have complete veto power, and if they do, vetoes from the other veto powers should un-veto the veto.

Think of it like soup. You don't have to taste the entire bowl to know what's up.

Illegals should be counted. We still need to know how many schools, hospitals, etc. we need.

[gvg]

I see. We actually haven't debated anything in my class... more like her telling life stories related to the material by 1%...

And I don't want to start anything, but you can't disprove the 'sky fairy' either...

Anyway.................................................................... (Ha, I had more dots

I agree. I didn't realize that something like darfur even is voted on. It should be an automatic response. But since it's voted upon, we need checks and balances. Your idea sounds good.

And while we may NEED to count illegals, how do you intend to do that? It'd be like saying "HEre I am! Deport me!" That's why estimation would work better.

[gvg]

Dawh: The thing is, I understand it would be less expensive, but it would also be less accurate. I think, here, we need to use both.

Complete direct counting would be illogical, because of those who can't be or don't want to be counted. Estimation isn't what the constitution had in mind, either. And with something like taxes and HoR on the line, it should be as accurate as possible.

[Izzy]

...The constitution is lovely and all, but, and call me a domestic terrorist, I don't particularly care if we uphold everything in a nearly 300 year old document. We should keep the good bits, which is what we've mostly done, and revise those that no longer fit with how the world works. Estimations are arguably more accurate than a census, while also easier to conduct and more cost effective. If the constitution doesn't ask for that, I don't actually care.

@GVG: Nor can you disprove the existence of the dragon in Carl Sagan's garage. With the dragon and with several gods, we can show that both are unreasonable assertions beyond a reasonable doubt. While a God that hides behind every gap there is and completely conceals himself from his creations to ensure that they are faithful is a plausible God, he sure as hell is a God I want nothing to do with. That doesn't even begin to address the inconsistencies about said gawd and the world. Just wait for the mathematical proof.

*shrug* Open borders? No such thing as illegals? Getting the homeless off the streets? The surely alleviates the problem.

And not at all. It doesn't matter what percentage of the population you sample, it matters how big your sample is. Go back to the bowl of soup example. You want to know if there's enough salt, so you add some, stir, and try. If instead of one person, you're cooking for twenty and want to know the salt content, you don't need a bigger spoon when you taste it, and eating the whole pot would be wasteful.