New government for the 21st Century

[Icecreamcon3]

I have a dream. That one day Mankind will grow out of its infancy and peacefully expand into the galaxy. In order to ease that transition from type 1 to a type 2 Kardashev civilization I believe we need a society and form of government more up to task. As Carl Sagan once wrote "Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works."

My goal is to design a better educated, more free, more involved, and more fair and just democratic society using the tools of sociology, psychology, political science, behavioral biology, philosophy, economics, and the knowledge of the past ten thousand years of human civilization. To be clear I am not trying to design a perfect world... just a better one. So who would be willing to help?

I want to explore novel ideas such as sociocracy and other organizational systems that the world has yet to hear of.

How is this for a constitution?
What should we add what should we remove?
Should there even be a constitution?

1.Freedom of religion,assembly,speech, and of the press
2.The right to bear arms
3.The right to due process and trial by jury
4.The right to face one's accusers
5.The right to be free of arbitrary arrest or long imprisonment without trial
6.The right to own property
7.The right to be free from slavery
8.The right to equal protection under the law regardless of race, creed , color or country of national origin
9.The right to equal opportunity regardless race or sex
10.The right to self-government by direct voting
11.The right to access to mean of mass communication
12.The right to all scientific knowledge
13.The right to knowledge of all government activities
14.The right to be free of involuntary military service
15.The right to emigrate or immigrate
16.The right to free education
17.The right to practice any profession
18 .The right to opportunity for useful employment
19.The right to initiate enterprise
20.The right to invent and implement new technologies
21.The right to build and develop natural resources and improve nature
22.The right to have a child
23.The right to a comprehensible legal system based on justice equity
24.The right to be free from extortionate lawsuit
25.The right to privacy

Edited August 6, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[Phi for All]

If you want this transition to be peaceful, I think you need to work with what's already there and aim the system in the right direction. If you want a major regime change, it won't come without some loss of life. Too many people would think they were fighting a usurper or a despot, and while it may not be true, it would be very easy to make you seem like one.

 

Honestly, if you want a major shift in the way we look at our world, you need to include economics in your approach. I think the way to get the society you're looking for is to make people understand that some things work very well within a free market economy, but some things are just not right for capitalism. Medicine really shouldn't be a for-profit business, it doesn't fit the model very well. The goal should be healthy clients, but healthy clients don't spend healthcare dollars. So we treat symptoms so people can continue doing whatever caused their symptoms.

 

There are lots of things like that, where privatization really doesn't make sense. We need to come to grips with the whole "money" thing. Wealth is becoming too lopsided and it's gaining way too much influence in our governing bodies. If we're going to continue to promote Democracy, we have to start representing the wishes of more people. And the economic models need to allow people the freedom to dream of the stars, not just scramble from paycheck to paycheck with no time or money left for future vision.

[Icecreamcon3]

I concur in a lot of ways, such as how medicine should be no where near a for profit system, but I personally don't think the free market is the way to go, for one it can cause ridiculous socio-economic stratification and monopoly such as what we see in America today, and it is designed to drive society by greed rather than mutual cooperation for the greater good of the society. And although I must admit it is very good at distributing goods and services, it seems intuitively immoral. I must repeat myself, this is just my personal opinion. and if more people would wish to join me on this project to design a better form of government and we democratically, scientifically and logically decided that the free market economy is the best out of all possible systems that we could think of, of course I would have to put aside my opinions and biases and agree.

I would rather have a system that would allow for the system itself to change as the society's needs change, maybe by having citizens vote on the amount of federal taxes that the they pay, so paying 0% taxes would be a more unprotected capitalist anarchy while 100% would be very socialistic/communistic society, thus able to dynamically and quickly respond to the economic problems therefore making it more fit for the rapid change of the coming century. And of course it wouldn't be that simple but that's just the general idea. And I'm pretty confident that we could peacefully try out a new government similarly to the Quakers and other types of unique societies in an attempt at a quasi-utopian system of organizing our species.


I haven't slept last night so I apologize for any fuzzy thinking that may be in this thread or my reply I will edit it when I'm more "sober".

Edited August 6, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[EdEarl]

 

My goal is to design a better educated, more free, more involved, and more fair and just democratic society using the tools of sociology, psychology, political science, behavioral biology, philosophy, economics, and the knowledge of the past ten thousand years of human civilization. To be clear I am not trying to design a perfect world... just a better one.

I think your list is too complicated, and some items lead to conflict. For example, right to property. Some property is more valuable than others, and invariably more than one person will covet the best property. Giving everyone the right to bear arms means someone sometime will kill someone else for their property.

 

I'd like to simplify this fantasy, and focus on needs first. Everyone needs food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and friends. Lets assume robots provide the food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare.

 

1. Everyone has the right to things they carry, and everything else is shared.

2. Everyone has a right to friends.

3. Everyone has a personal robot, and their robots prevent people from killing each other.

4. Robots mediate when more than one person wants a scarce resource, and assure that everyone has fair access.

 

Are we free, or are we in a prison with robot guards?

[Icecreamcon3]

I think your list is too complicated, and some items lead to conflict. For example, right to property. Some property is more valuable than others, and invariably more than one person will covet the best property. Giving everyone the right to bear arms means someone sometime will kill someone else for their property.

The problem I have with what you're arguing is that you're arguing against a system that already exists not any of the newly proposed amendments.... And although the problem does exist, yes, but It's not system destructive and as I've stated I'm not trying to design this perfect utopia free of all crime, I am just trying to design a better system taking the best of the governments and sciences of today and taking those ideas and extending them for tomorrow. Not to say we shouldn't at least try to diminish these kind of problems as much as we can.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[EdEarl]

The problem I have with what you're arguing is that you're arguing against a system that already exists not any of the newly proposed amendments.... And although the problem does exist, yes, but It's not system destructive and as I've stated I'm not trying to design this perfect utopia free of all crime, I am just trying to design a better system taking the best of the governments and sciences of today and taking those ideas and extending them for tomorrow. Not to say we shouldn't at least try to diminish these kind of problems as much as we can.

I think I understood your intent. It seemed you did not consider that technology will affect our culture. When considering the ramifications of technology on society, we invariably cannot imagine them. Thus, I simplified and considered as extreme ramifications as I could; the result is idealistic. Perhaps it sets one limit on what may occur. However, you may also consider the robots as analogs for laws. My question may be restated as, "Are we free, or are we in a prison with laws for guards?"

[Phi for All]

The problem I have with what you're arguing is that you're arguing against a system that already exists not any of the newly proposed amendments.... And although the problem does exist, yes, but It's not system destructive and as I've stated I'm not trying to design this perfect utopia free of all crime, I am just trying to design a better system taking the best of the governments and sciences of today and taking those ideas and extending them for tomorrow. Not to say we shouldn't at least try to diminish these kind of problems as much as we can.

 

Actually, the system that exists in the US is pretty fantastic. What we need to do is to hold our leaders more accountable to that system, and stop electing them without a plan. We need to realize other countries have really successful versions of democracy too, and learn from them. The French wouldn't have elected either Obama or Romney because neither of them had a solid plan for how they would fulfill their promises. They were both empty air, but we've spurned the intellectual approach which would have required them to show more substance. We need to stop electing leaders we could sit down and have beers with. We need the intellectuals back. For that we may need to adopt the school system of Finland, which regularly boasts the best public schools in the world.

 

We need to stop the legalized corruption that is the SuperPAC. We have a decent system for getting things done, but ever since the end of the Eisenhower administration, we've allowed the military-industrial complex to gain more control than is wise. If you let Big Business write the laws, they will always benefit the corporations over People. Corporations already enjoy privileges People don't have, and thanks to Citizen United they also have People's rights on top of that. That needs to stop immediately, and corporate charters need to be re-evaluated. We need the corporations, but we need them to honor the country that issues their charters too, and they aren't doing that currently.

 

If we take every issue and model our "country" on which country deals with that issue best, we should be able to create a fairly effective society. I believe in sharing best practices, and when you find yourself spending way more than someone who is doing the same thing you're doing, maybe even doing it better, you can bet you've got something bad attached to your system that shouldn't be there. Like the US spending twice what other countries do on healthcare, and getting poorer results. That's not smart, something bad has attached itself to our healthcare system.

[Pétur]

what i like about this thread is the drive to improve the current situation, also the idea of trying out a new way of doing things, i believe that's perfectly possible in a limited setting, as a sort of experiment... what strikes me as absent in the various ideas for a constitution are the duties to go along with all the rights... just as important if not more so, i believe. regarding the organisational structure of a better society, i think today's technology would allow for a different, more direct input of all citizens in the decision making process, as far as everybody would have the same access to that technology but also to the information needed to make a decision. this forum made me think about identifying and describing the main problem(s), not so easily done. i find that a lot of problems can be traced back to the individual attitude of each and every human, but also how we - culturally - see this relation between "me" and "them" ("them" referring to either a group within which the individual functions, or a whole society, or - as i would prefer to look at it - all of humanity. thus i am comparing human society to e.g. a society of bees or ants. we should be developed enough to copy the processes useful to us - as a species - without copying the ones that we're supposed to have evolved beyond. going more specifically into politics, this dilemma between "me" and "them" can be seen e.g. in the individual "struggle" (probably a serious overstatement...) of a politician pondering a decision from the angle of society against that of his personal benefit or the benefit to his political party (which in the end often translates back to his personal benefit)... each system we develop, even novel ones, are just as strong as the individuals carrying it out... so for our experiment we'd need not just good ideas for structure and system and technology, but also individuals who can turn that internal "switch" and move to thinking and acting outside of their own ego... and that in itself is quite a challenge...

[Delbert]

All I could read was all about rights, I couldn't locate anything about duties and resposibilities.

 

It seems to me you've just listed a number of wants.

 

Selecting one or two.

 

What would happen if you got the wrong individual for number 10? I think recent news reports a country where a percentage of the population has taken the view they've chosen the wrong one.

 

Who pays for number 16? And why should they?

 

I think you're forgetting we'll all be in different jobs, and that alone will create inequalities. Why should I be digging the road in the cold and frost while perhaps you're sitting in a comfortable air conditioned office pressing a few keys on a keyboard? And once you've got inequality you'll have discord and all the other things that will develop from that - in other words the system we have today.

[Phi for All]

All I could read was all about rights, I couldn't locate anything about duties and resposibilities.

 

It seems to me you've just listed a number of wants.

 

Very good point. We often disconnect ourselves from the fact that the money used to run the country comes from us, and we elect the representatives we believe will represent our wishes on how tax dollars are spent. It's our responsibility to fix it if the system gets corrupted.

 

Who pays for number 16? And why should they?

 

We need to be reminded (kicked in the head) every few years (every day) that allowing a fraction of our tax dollars to be spent educating our population is the cheapest, most effective investment we can ever make. No sentiment attached to that, just fact. We reap the benefits of a well-educated population every minute of every day (and could do much, much better with the same funding if we could scrape off the barnacles).

 

Some things are best funded by taxpayers, plain and simple. Sometimes the goal is not to make a profit, like with the prison system, but to reduce the number of criminals going through the system. Again, something like 1 out of 4 prisoners on the planet are housed in US jails and prisons. That's what happens when you make a business out of it, it starts growing, that's what businesses do. That's why we spend so much on healthcare; make a business out of treating the sick and you're going to find yourself knee-deep in sick people. Just don't cure anyone, that would be bad for business.

 

Ultimately, we have to decide, as a nation, if we have enough value as citizens to pay for each other's healthcare, or road system, or welfare project, or security measures, or unemployment compensation. It's not the government who does this, it's us as taxpaying citizens granting the government the power to do these things. We need to decide it's time to start caring enough to hold our representatives accountable for letting in the ticks and leeches who feed off the system without helping the host.

[EdEarl]

IMO the reason people have lost the power to control government is their incessant squabbling over a morass of issues. When people unite on an issue they can encourage law makers to act. Unfortunately, some choose to fight the right-to-life battle with others who choose to support euthanasia, capital punishment, abortion, among other issues. Some focus on animal rights and battle with farmers, hunters, fishermen, and researchers who experiment on animals. Various people select as most important diverse issues such as climate change, gun control, libertarianism, conservatism, liberalism, immigration, war on drugs, creationism, etc.

 

On the other hand, corporations focus on relatively few issues, and they have money to win friends and influence people. It is no wonder they control all three branches of the US Federal Government and all the states. Their friends in the media whip out one story after another to fan the flames of one issue and then another; thus, keeping the population divided.

 

I am very pessimistic about any cooperation except after a crisis, when the cost and effort of meaningful change is much greater than it would have been earlier with prudent planning.

[Phi for All]

Their friends in the media whip out one story after another to fan the flames of one issue and then another; thus, keeping the population divided.

 

One correction: since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the media isn't the friend of the corporations, the media is their employee. And they all must be taking advantage of this, since the fact that Bain Capital, Romney's former company, owns over 800 radio stations and this was never an objection for the other side during the election.

[Icecreamcon3]

All I could read was all about rights, I couldn't locate anything about duties and resposibilities.

 

It seems to me you've just listed a number of wants

.

Perhaps you're right, but the reason I listed things such as the right to mass communications technology is that if your government is outlawing them, like how the middle eastern countries are outlawing certain websites, it's definitely not a good sign, and at least then you will be able to hold them accountable saying "Hey, these are our rights you can't take them away!".

 

 

 

What would happen if you got the wrong individual for number 10? I think recent news reports a country where a percentage of the population has taken the view they've chosen the wrong one.

 

Well that's the reason democracy is based on the opinions of other people too, although yeah I have seen the statistics on how many people think evolution is true... it's kind of depressing. I think the use of direct democracy should be limited, of course, and only used on things that a Representative democracy just can't handle, such as where tax money should go. that way money is kept out of the hands of the individual and is directed by the people themselves, which are a tad bit harder to corrupt.

 

 

 

Who pays for number 16? And why should they?

 

Are you seriously asking why we should have a well educated electorate in a democracy...?

Edited August 7, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[Iota]

1.Freedom of religion,assembly,speech, and of the press

Also importantly, freedom from religion, e.g. keep it out of politics (as best as possible), out of education (in worship and fictional sense) etc... keep it on a personal level. The written rules of religion often inhibit of people's freedom of speech, assembly, press etc.

2.The right to bear arms

I think the only reason this one appears so often as a fundamental freedom is because USA has an outdated article in its constitution. This arguably conflicts with your desire for peace.

3.The right to due process and trial by jury

Agreed.
4.The right to face one's accusers

-
5.The right to be free of arbitrary arrest or long imprisonment without trial

Yeah.

6.The right to own property

This one is an issue in the UK, where lots of people have the 'right' to have somewhere to live, but also express no desire to pay for the place where they live, and so live off tax payers money. Unless we adopt some form of communism where it's all provided to everyone by default, and everyone has to settle for what's given to them, determined by what the government is able to provide; as opposed to what you've worked to afford.
7.The right to be free from slavery

Agreed.
8.The right to equal protection under the law regardless of race, creed , color or country of national origin

Y
9.The right to equal opportunity regardless race or sex

Yes to the race part. As for the sex part, I think some prejudice is inevitable in some places. Women and men are equal, but people confuse that with 'men and women are the same', which is obviously not true. Being a woman, in reality, for whatever reason, may restrict your ability to take up certain jobs- or at least in the same proportion as men in the profession. At the same time being a man might affect your chances of taking up certain employment.
10.The right to self-government by direct voting

-
11.The right to access to mean of mass communication

-
12.The right to all scientific knowledge

Y
13.The right to knowledge of all government activities

Idealistic but unrealistic, by the very nature of a government. The only way I could personally see this working is if all governments by some miracle all cooperated with each other and didn't conspire in secret, or a world government- but that comes with a huge risk.
14.The right to be free of involuntary military service

Y
15.The right to emigrate or immigrate

If the people of a given country have the right to directly vote, and they vote in a majority to stop immigration, there's conflicting freedoms. If this was put in place governments worldwide would fail and immigration would literally become an invasion, as people flood into countries without any realistic hope of finding a job or a home. Theft and crime would sky rocket, economies would collapse.
16.The right to free education

Definitely
17.The right to practice any profession

Only if you're qualified surely? Do we not already have the right to this so long as we're qualified?
18 .The right to opportunity for useful employment

Again it's not so much about right, arguably in a free market and free country you make opportunity for yourself. If a government said to its peoples "you have the right to opportunity" it would be meaningless. Availability of opportunity renders this redundant.
19.The right to initiate enterprise

So a free market economy? If so I'd argue for some regulation still.
20.The right to invent and implement new technologies

Sometimes this right comes a cost, when these things become patented. This could potentially conflict with your 'right to all scientific knowledge', if someone won't share the science behind their technology because it's been patented because they have the freedom to in a free market economy.
21.The right to build and develop natural resources and improve nature

The right to do so, implies they also have the right not to. This one should definitely be mandatory, not a right.
22.The right to have a child

And then who pays for the child when it's born into a family with no money? How about the right to provide for your own child if you decide to have one?
23.The right to a comprehensible legal system based on justice equity

Y
24.The right to be free from extortionate lawsuit

Who decides what this is? Who's the ultimate authority on what's extoirtoinate and what isn't.
25.The right to privacy

I agree, but what do you think about those people who demand safety, and the only way to achieve safety is to take out privacy?

[EdEarl]

Whatever this list becomes, it cannot be complete. The US constitution and amendments are augmented by over 200 years of case law, which will forever change. That is the fate of all such documents in all countries. All documents of this type must contain a method of changing them and establish a legal system to augment them with statutes and case law.

[Pétur]

i find this forum more and more drifting towards the existing systems and their pro's and cons. why not imagine we could start from scratch and try to describe how we would do it. let's think boldly : if we were to colonise a planet and had to set up a form of government not linked to any of the existing nation-states, and not a copy-paste of the present constitutions...

wouldn't the first point be the right to live and linked to that the duty to save every fellow human's life (this is not meant to be a statement on abortion or euthanasia, just a legal version of "thou shalt not kill").

as to property ownership : that's the really tricky one : do we need some sort of currency, and how do we fix its value and thereby the value of all our possessions, our work, our time, etc... What have we learnt from the present situation on the consequences of having different currencies, their value decided by political and economical forces and finally also by speculators. in several cities in europe (which has a common currency) there are local currencies popping up again in several european countries (e.g. the "Bristol pound") to offset some of the disadvantages of an international currency and a globalising economy...

another very important point would be the right to (correct) information, which has implications towards education (i agree 200 % with icecreamcon3 on this) but also towards transparency of government, and towards the role of media, and should be linked to the duty and responsibility to also be truthfull ("thou shalt not lie"), because in this issue also the citizens in the present systems are to blame. we are living in a world where a large part of our citizens do not refrain from tax evasion, insurance fraud, etc... - which of course is blamed on the "systems" taking too much, or on the fact that "everybody else does it". still whether it is the "chicken" or the "egg" doesn't really matter, the question is how to avoid this when we start setting up a system from scratch...

several of the points raised in earlier posts regard freedom of one sort or another. i would put these under a general header of the right to live in complete freedom (all equal rights can fall under this) but also the duty/responsibility to respect the freedom of every fellow human being. and this i would base on the principle that one person's freedom ends where another one's freedom begins. i.e. that freedom is not unlimited, by the very fact that we are not one being but a whole species of individual beings. therefore the important thing here is equality ("all men are created/born equal")...

then finally i would very much like some sort of "linking" factor, because after all we are not just all "equal", but we are the same species and we can only survive and pursue some form of happiness if we live "together", we are social beings, so that would need to be addressed as well somewhere along the way...

[Icecreamcon3]

 

i find this forum more and more drifting towards the existing systems and their pro's and cons. why not imagine we could start from scratch and try to describe how we would do it. let's think boldly : if we were to colonize a planet and had to set up a form of government not linked to any of the existing nation-states, and not a copy-paste of the present constitutions...

Yeah I do think we need to start talking about it in terms of designing something new but you cannot advance the current state of things without taking the very best that we currently have and going a little bit further.

 

1.Freedom of religion,assembly,speech, and of the press

Also importantly, freedom from religion, e.g. keep it out of politics (as best as possible), out of education (in worship and fictional sense) etc... keep it on a personal level. The written rules of religion often inhibit of people's freedom of speech, assembly, press etc.

 

and if it were up to me religious institutions would have to pay 100% taxes ... I mean Their god can finance them, right?

 

 

13.The right to knowledge of all government activities

Idealistic but unrealistic, by the very nature of a government. The only way I could personally see this working is if all governments by some miracle all cooperated with each other and didn't conspire in secret, or a world government- but that comes with a huge risk.

Well then I guess we will have to put a lot of effort into designing the most transparent design feasible . At least with its own citizens, we would wan't to have anything like what the NSA's been doing now would we...

 

17.The right to practice any profession

Only if you're qualified surely? Do we not already have the right to this so long as we're qualified?

 

That was implied, but maybe I made these to vague..

 

20.The right to invent and implement new technologies

Sometimes this right comes a cost, when these things become patented. This could potentially conflict with your 'right to all scientific knowledge', if someone won't share the science behind their technology because it's been patented because they have the freedom to in a free market economy.

 

Wouldn't any new technology to be patented be engineering information... I mean technology is intimately connected with science but it isn't science itself, it's taking scientific knowledge and applying it. Not to say I completely agree with the idea of "intellectual property" either.

 

 

 

24.The right to be free from extortionate lawsuit

Who decides what this is? Who's the ultimate authority on what's extoirtoinate and what isn't.

I agree this one is just too subjective and I'll remove it.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[Delbert]

 

We need to be reminded (kicked in the head) every few years (every day) that allowing a fraction of our tax dollars to be spent educating our population is the cheapest, most effective investment we can ever make. No sentiment attached to that, just fact. We reap the benefits of a well-educated population every minute of every day (and could do much, much better with the same funding if we could scrape off the barnacles).

That's not what he said. Free education for all was the clear implication.

 

So everyone gets a free university education, so I'll do the road digging, road sweeping and all the other things including paying for said free education. Because that's the reality. Like a friend of mine who has a university education was asked by his boss to do the sweeping - he refused to do it because he's a graduate.

 

Lets not beat about the bush, a university education is sought to obtain a better paid job.

 

Yes, of course we need a cohort of suitably educated individuals to do certain jobs, but it is plain that we all can't have such jobs. So presumably there has to be some sort limitation. Yes, I know such might be controversial in todays politically correct society, but there has to be something.

 

Well that's the reason democracy is based on the opinions of other people too, although yeah I have seen the statistics on how many people think evolution is true... it's kind of depressing. I think the use of direct democracy should be limited, of course, and only used on things that a Representative democracy just can't handle, such as where tax money should go. that way money is kept out of the hands of the individual and is directed by the people themselves, which are a tad bit harder to corrupt.

A limited democracy?

 

How limited is limited one might ask, and who decides? Muddying the waters already.

 

Perhaps you are thinking of Voltaire, who I understand said: The best form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

 

Anyway, how about number 14? Presumably that means not willing to defend all those 'rights' you list against the enemy on the doorstep with his guns brought to bear. If one is not willing to bear arms against to protect one's freedoms, then such freedoms are an illusion.

 

If you want peace prepare for war - Aristotle.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Delbert

[Phi for All]

That's not what he said. Free education for all was the clear implication.

 

I took it to mean publicly funded, since it HAS to be paid for somehow, and we're not naive enough to believe it can happen magically. Many people refer to public education as "free" as opposed to private education where you have to pay directly.

 

For these purposes, we should drop the term "free" and substitute "publicly funded".

 

So everyone gets a free university education...

 

Leave that goalpost where it is. Free education doesn't automatically imply a free university education. That's not even practical, since there are many people who would want to study for a trade instead, and wouldn't necessarily benefit from higher education. There should be mechanisms in place to allow for low-cost loans for both those who want to go to university and those who want to study a trade.

[Icecreamcon3]

Anyway, how about number 14? Presumably that means not willing to defend all those 'rights' you list against the enemy on the doorstep with his guns brought to bear. If one is not willing to bear arms against to protect one's freedoms, then such freedoms are an illusion.

All it means is no drafts, you know like Vietnam... you are still perfectly permitted to volunteer!

 

A limited democracy?

How limited is limited one might ask, and who decides? Muddying the waters already.

A limited direct democracy... key word there. Direct democracy would be used on a few permanently assigned, fixed set of political economic issues of central importance, while the current representative democracy would cover the rest(or preferable we would design an alternative system.)

 

I took it to mean publicly funded

Yes that's exactly what I meant but I seem to be unable to edit my original post... and on that tangent I would like to correct myself, the list in the original post is not supposed to be the whole constitution merely the bill of rights.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[Iota]

 

 

and if it were up to me religious institutions would have to pay 100% taxes ... I mean Their god can finance them, right?

Christianity and Islam especially with their billions of members worldwide, I'm sure if they all chipped in a little to their community they'd manage alright.

[Phi for All]

Christianity and Islam especially with their billions of members worldwide, I'm sure if they all chipped in a little to their community they'd manage alright.

 

Except that if you tax them, they get to use their influence in government, something they aren't supposed to do now.

[Icecreamcon3]

they get to use their influence in government

 

Like paying taxes gets you seats in government...

Edited August 8, 2013 by Icecreamcon3

[Iota]

 

Except that if you tax them, they get to use their influence in government, something they aren't supposed to do now.

 

They already do.

[EdEarl]

You can copy, edit, and make another post.