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- 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?
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.
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.
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
#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.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect system when humans are involved. We’ll either fuck it up or change our minds on what is perfect.
A perfect system would necessarily be mutable. If we couldn’t fuck it up, it wouldn’t be perfect, just rigid and unforgiving.
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.
Extremely best case: everyone votes by mail early so no one has to rush and struggle to vote on election day.
How do you ensure that the vote is secret if you vote by mail?
Edit: would the downvoters care to explain what’s wrong with my question?
An online voting system would be great. Keep the in person, just allow online as well, election locations all the sudden are not busy at all and online is easy access.
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.
Merg Senate in house: no: checks and balances.
What positives would merging them accomplish?
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.
I feel like the whole gerrymandering debate is missing the point. Why are our elected officials representing land rather than people? The majority of voters in my district are ideologically opposed to my existence, so they elect people who actively try to harm me. No other representatives are allowed to speak on my behalf because I’m not on their patch of land. I have no one representing my interests in the House of Representatives or my state’s equivalent. This will be true for someone no matter how you draw the lines.
It would be better to abolish the idea of districts entirely, and come up with some way to award representatives proportionally.
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.
Are you seriously using Russia as a good example of democracy lmao
No, lmao, but can’t deny Russia has some nice things, even though by having those it is shooting itself in the foot. Like 2012 elections where they’ve basically said “Look, we have the entire election committee in the bag - еhey can draw us whatever results we want. But, let’s try to legitimize those elections in the eyes of the people! Let’s put a camera on every single polling station and let anyone watch them online, so that everyone can see how fair our elections are!”. As you might imagine, during the election, all social medias got completely flooded by recordings of voting fraud… And yes, people instantly noticed that the price for those cameras was like 10x of their market value, with 90% of costs landing straight into government officials pockets…
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.
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.
Three the most important things are missing:
- abolish home education;
- mandatory elementary education;
- get rid of multiple-choice tests.
Most of the changes won’t matter if people are uneducated or easily misled.
wonder if there is evidence that these steps are effective at improving education outcomes?
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
you are correct. “ban tipping” is not an actionable platform and leaves too many variables up for abuse.
- 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?
re: gerrymandering
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
Honestly at this point the only thing you are keeping is the English language.
The United States does not have an official language. English is the most widely used language in the U.S., and some states designate it as their official language. usa.gov
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?
It would give religious entities a direct reason to influence politics even more.
They’re already influencing politics, and there’s nothing being done to stop them. There’s no reason to believe that they will stop or slow down.
Yea after more research this is the conclusion I’ve come to. I think ending the tax-exempt status of religious entities is the best solution to stop the problem.
i think there is potential to do one better and find a more productive solution. start a crackdown, investigate religious entities that are clearly making a profit from rental land. threaten them with removal of tax exemption. investigate institutions that participate in political activity. threaten them with taxes.
if the IRS would start doing this for all the ultra wealthy, this will be a natural antecedent to that process.
i don’t see why it has to be an all or nothing deal, unless i am missing something huge.
Nope, that would be definitely seen as religious persecution. Only way is to equally end all religious tax exemptions simultaneously.
oh sorry there’s another key fact to this, religious institutions are tax exempt under 501©(3) in the same way as all other charitable organizations.
so going after “religious organizations” already means you are going to have to define which 501c3s are “allowed” or not—and unfortunately there’s a lot of crossover of semi-but-not-really religious groups. so any attempt at un-tax-exempting churches is going to look like persecution to some because the line is going be drawn somewhere. think of yoga or mindfulness studios, plenty of which are 501c3. are they religious? well, yeah, often. all of them? certainly not. so how do you choose? in any raw “tax the church” scenario you end up litigating what consitutes “religious” or not—which looks like ( and arguably might be) proto-persecution.
so, investigate the profit. publish the documents showing a church breaking its 501c3 requirements. give them 180 days to knock it off or something, then tax them like the rest of us. you’ll probably also catch some non-religious 501c3s doing shady stuff as well—and all the better.
hope this makes sense.
edit: i guess the other assumption i made is that we don’t want to just… tax all non profits. i hope we both can agree that would be shitty lol.
edit 2: ok you don’t make that assumption, so there we go.
think of yoga or mindfulness studios, plenty of which are 501c3
They shouldn’t be tax exempt either. If they generate profit, they should pay tax on it. Subsidies are used to benefit specific activities, and they are easier to investigate for fraud as to whether the subsidy is spent as intended.
Remove lobbying.
No idea why we created a new word just to cover up what it really is. Bribery.
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.
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.