So since some of you seem so confident you can fix the American system...

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Amendment XXVIII

The rights enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the people, and are not granted to any organizations including government and commercial entities. Congress may grant individual rights, in whole or in part, to any or all such organizations only by two-thirds of both houses concurring in two successive Congresses, no less than three years apart, and no more than seven years apart.


======
So many of this country's current problems (e.g., campaign finance, copyright, workers' rights, corporate malfeasance) stem from the legal fiction that corporations are individuals with Constitutional rights.

There's not much point in posting pertinent replies here, is there?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: Sahakiel

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Too many Laws.

A Nazi, Police State does not breed good Morale or a Strong Country.

I would propose a complete re-definement in streamlining every Law as well as streamlining the so-called Judicial system itself, it's self corruption and overload is causing it to fold over on itself anyway. This broken chain goes all the way to the top.

Wow, you really have a knack of taking a single point with which you disagree and distorting it beyond the boundaries of the original context.

That's our dave

CkG

"You assume that a police state does not breed good morale, nor does it allow a country to remain strong. Actually, some of the strongest nations in history have been police states or maintained the best armies of their time."

Wow the guy LOVES a Police State, had he been a live this time last Century he would be working along side Hitler to have the U.S. part of the Third Reich, Wow, Just Wow, so sad.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: Sahakiel

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Too many Laws.

A Nazi, Police State does not breed good Morale or a Strong Country.

I would propose a complete re-definement in streamlining every Law as well as streamlining the so-called Judicial system itself, it's self corruption and overload is causing it to fold over on itself anyway. This broken chain goes all the way to the top.

Wow, you really have a knack of taking a single point with which you disagree and distorting it beyond the boundaries of the original context.

That's our dave

CkG

"You assume that a police state does not breed good morale, nor does it allow a country to remain strong. Actually, some of the strongest nations in history have been police states or maintained the best armies of their time."

Wow the guy LOVES a Police State, had he been a live this time last Century he would be working along side Hitler to have the U.S. part of the Third Reich, Wow, Just Wow, so sad.

Gee, I think you ignored the part where I explicitly stated that I was not advocating converting the United States into a police state.

Just because I have something good to say about something you seem to vehemently despise does not mean that I wholly advocate it. Perhaps you should try to avoid jumping to conclusions every time someone disagrees with you.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The American system is fine, it is just that some use it perversely to their own gain at the expense of worthy principle.

 

[Ldir]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Amendment XXVIII

The rights enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the people, and are not granted to any organizations including government and commercial entities. Congress may grant individual rights, in whole or in part, to any or all such organizations only by two-thirds of both houses concurring in two successive Congresses, no less than three years apart, and no more than seven years apart.


======
So many of this country's current problems (e.g., campaign finance, copyright, workers' rights, corporate malfeasance) stem from the legal fiction that corporations are individuals with Constitutional rights.

There's not much point in posting pertinent replies here, is there?

No

 

[Cerb]

1. Either uniform income tax or sales tax, not both, and no taxing everything a little bit.
2. Pay government officials twice the average income for their state, and twice the national average income for national offices.
3. Get rid of government help for corporations.
4. Really, leave welfare alone. There are abusers, but the vast majority of studies show that people generally use it as it is meant to be used.
5. Get health care together. Force a profit margin for drugs, but increase the time before generics can come out.
6. Have a quiz for a prerequisitefor voting. If you don'tknow your senators, governor, the president, vice president, and the Pledge of Allegiance, you can't vote.
7. Blow up the headquarters for CNN and Fox News, then blame it on Canadians.
8. End empirial actions. The government should not hinder, but also should not aid, corporate colonialism.

 

[HardWarrior]

Start at the top and begin to square the federal government activities with the constitution. All activites that fall beyond the clearly authorized constitutional mandate would the be struck down. As for the more thorny issues lke social security, send them to the states for ratification. Considering that the overwhelming majority of federal activites can be classed as unlawful, we'd end up with a much smaller, less envasive, less arrogant and more responsive government.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Amendment XXVIII

The rights enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the people, and are not granted to any organizations including government and commercial entities. Congress may grant individual rights, in whole or in part, to any or all such organizations only by two-thirds of both houses concurring in two successive Congresses, no less than three years apart, and no more than seven years apart.


======
So many of this country's current problems (e.g., campaign finance, copyright, workers' rights, corporate malfeasance) stem from the legal fiction that corporations are individuals with Constitutional rights.

I am really disappointed no one on either side responded to this, pro or con. I see it as one of a handful of fundamental flaws in our current system that facilitates America's steady regression from the representative democracy envisioned by our founding fathers. "We the people" has less and less place in today's burgeoning corporatocracy.

IMO, of course. I am curious whether people agree, disagree, don't care, or don't understand the issue.

 

[Engineer]

Make the government live like the rest of us...within a budget. Mandatory Balanced Budget!!!

 

[AlienCraft]

Naturalized Citizens must swear to an Oath of Loayalty when receiving their citizenship. Natural Born citizens are imbued with certain responsibilities, required by law.
CORPORATIONS should be required to sign a similar "Oath of Loyalty" when incorporating. These are needed in order to protect our economy and further the welfare of the citizens who would patronize or staff the CORPORATION.
Corporations could only take jobs offshore if they did not adversly affect workers in the Home Nation.
Corporations could not deducte themselves into a TAX REFUND situation. They could only "Zero-Sum" their Tax liability. Multi -National Corporations could not produce article for National Defense. They must sign and abide strictly to HOME NATION Corporation laws.
Any Corporation violating US Employee law in another country would not be allowed to sell their wares in the US. Why should we subsidize slave labor in another country, yet disallow it here, and yet STILL profit from the fruits of human misery?? Why should workers in America have their jobs given to foreign workers and then be forced, through reduction of selection for choices, to purchase items made outside of protections afforded workers here??
There are no simple , easy answers to those questions, I fear.
Greed for Corporate profits at the expense of American Ideals and Standards, will be the downfall of this Nation.
BUY AMERICANMADE PRODUCTS. The way of life you save may be your own. BOYCOTT WAL-MART's Chinese Slave Labor Goods.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

I am really disappointed no one on either side responded to this, pro or con. I see it as one of a handful of fundamental flaws in our current system that facilitates America's steady regression from the representative democracy envisioned by our founding fathers. "We the people" has less and less place in today's burgeoning corporatocracy.

IMO, of course. I am curious whether people agree, disagree, don't care, or don't understand the issue.

I see it as a flaw that extends from the fundamental structure of our nation's government as a democratic republic. The trend is towards a nation of citizens who don't really care what goes on unless it affects them personally. There are more laws than any one person can learn in two or three lifetimes and more are getting added to the books every day so it becomes quite difficult to keep track of which laws are "good" and which are "bad." The result is a nation of citizens who know less about the law then their legal representatives ( That's why we had the Miranda case ) which means the individual citizen becomes a less important factor in governing the nation.
The fact is corporations are actually in a better position than the average citizen, especially larger corporations with larger payrolls. Entire teams of legal experts can do more than a single lawyer on average. This is why the nation is leaning towards a government ruled by corporations than by the people. The average citizen doesn't know how to govern and quite frankly, doesn't really care. Corporations do care and do have the ability to do so.
Perhaps the only way to truly rid the government of corporate influence is to have a small population where votes really do matter and government really affects each individual profoundly. With any large population, you eventually get a majority of peope disinterested in government at which point other entities (corporations, political parties, reactionaries, etc) wield a greater proportion of political power despite having a smalle number of people.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: AlienCraft
Naturalized Citizens must swear to an Oath of Loayalty when receiving their citizenship. Natural Born citizens are imbued with certain responsibilities, required by law.
CORPORATIONS should be required to sign a similar "Oath of Loyalty" when incorporating. These are needed in order to protect our economy and further the welfare of the citizens who would patronize or staff the CORPORATION.
Corporations could only take jobs offshore if they did not adversly affect workers in the Home Nation.
Corporations could not deducte themselves into a TAX REFUND situation. They could only "Zero-Sum" their Tax liability. Multi -National Corporations could not produce article for National Defense. They must sign and abide strictly to HOME NATION Corporation laws.
Any Corporation violating US Employee law in another country would not be allowed to sell their wares in the US. Why should we subsidize slave labor in another country, yet disallow it here, and yet STILL profit from the fruits of human misery?? Why should workers in America have their jobs given to foreign workers and then be forced, through reduction of selection for choices, to purchase items made outside of protections afforded workers here??
There are no simple , easy answers to those questions, I fear.
Greed for Corporate profits at the expense of American Ideals and Standards, will be the downfall of this Nation.
BUY AMERICANMADE PRODUCTS. The way of life you save may be your own. BOYCOTT WAL-MART's Chinese Slave Labor Goods.

Even if you just think about this for a second, I'm sure you could see that buying only goods which were mined, manufactured, marketed, and sold within the border of the United States would be economic suicide. At the very least, the US would run out of raw material very fast. A prime example is the raping of US forestry with something on the order of 80% of the forests from only 150-200 years ago already razed and plowed over by the end of the last century. Imagine what would happen if the US suddenly had to rely on its forests to provide for all paper products. Plastics and petroleum based goods would require the expansion of oil drills and depletion of US oil reserves not to mention the gasoline in US cars. US uses a few million barrels of oil each day just to drive to work. The electronics industry would probably collapse because the extra costs suddenly imposed on them would lead to skyrocketing consumer products nobody would buy because they can't afford them. Food would probably be one of the few industries relatively unaffected along with other industries which rely on freshness.
So, perhaps you should think a little carefully about closed economies. Unless, of course, you wouldn't mind paying higher prices for just about everything across the board and doing without certain luxuries because the supply became so low only the uber rich can afford them.


Oh, one more thing.
Naturalized citizens already swear an oath of loyalty upon receiving their citizenship. Naturalized citizens are often more educated about the US government, politics, and history than natural born citizens.
Also, what makes you so sure swearing an oath of loyalty actually prevents dissention?

 

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: AlienCraft

BUY AMERICAN MADE PRODUCTS. The way of life you save may be your own. BOYCOTT WAL-MART's Chinese Slave Labor Goods.

Originally posted by: Sahakiel

Even if you just think about this for a second, I'm sure you could see that buying only goods which were mined, manufactured, marketed, and sold within the border of the United States would be economic suicide. At the very least, the US would run out of raw material very fast. A prime example is the raping of US forestry with something on the order of 80% of the forests from only 150-200 years ago already razed and plowed over by the end of the last century. Imagine what would happen if the US suddenly had to rely on its forests to provide for all paper products. Plastics and petroleum based goods would require the expansion of oil drills and depletion of US oil reserves not to mention the gasoline in US cars. US uses a few million barrels of oil each day just to drive to work. The electronics industry would probably collapse because the extra costs suddenly imposed on them would lead to skyrocketing consumer products nobody would buy because they can't afford them. Food would probably be one of the few industries relatively unaffected along with other industries which rely on freshness.
So, perhaps you should think a little carefully about closed economies. Unless, of course, you wouldn't mind paying higher prices for just about everything across the board and doing without certain luxuries because the supply became so low only the uber rich can afford them.

Manufacturing an item here does not preclude obtaining the resources somewhere else. Nowhere in my statement did I allude to anything as radical as you have postulated. I simply feel that moving our manufacturing base offshore is a grave error. I neither suggested a closed economy, nor an Isolationist Foreign Policy. I simply said we, as Americans, should buy American made products and not simply the cheapest item. Cheap does not equal good value. If the tool breaks during use, my time to replace or repair that item is time I am not being productive. Cheaper is not always better.
Furthermore, our Nations dependance on Foreign Oil is our Achilles Heel. There is absolutely NO GOOD REASON our nation hasn't embrace BIOMASS Generation and Solar Generation of electricity, other than our Nations "uber rich elite" is in bed with the Saudi's over Oil. They have been since the 70's and they are the lap dogs of the Saud and Bin Laden families.

Oh, one more thing.
Naturalized citizens already swear an oath of loyalty upon receiving their citizenship. Naturalized citizens are often more educated about the US government, politics, and history than natural born citizens.
Also, what makes you so sure swearing an oath of loyalty actually prevents dissention?

You miss my point entirely. Where HUMANS are required to swear loyalty to the Nation, CORPRORATIONS are simply given free rein to rape our economy for their own profit margin. NOWHERE are corporations held responsible for the loss to the Nation by their greedy actions. There are no "Corporate Police" to enforce the laws of the Nation on the Corporate Vilolators. They are only held accountable in the most heinous of instances. The ENRON CFO's wife who absconded with MILLIONS of employee money is only serving 5 months for her part in this multi - million dollar theft. Have any of the employees whose retirements were drained been made whole? When these thieves replace the money that they stole from the employees whose fiduciary interests they were obliged to protect, that will be time to reduce their sentence. Until then, they should be PUNISHED.
If you or I had stolen that money, we would still be in PRISON. They are afforded special treatment, so they can "give testimony against others yet to be indicted". Let's see some indictments FIRST, then let's see some restitution, then perhaps some time off, but a sentence of 5 months is ludicrous. There are single mothers who serve more time for shoplifting to feed their families, let alone lining their pockets to the tune of a few Million dollars.
This is not about protesting unfair government policies. Studies show that Naturalized citizens vote more regularly than "born here" citizens. Perhaps it's because they appreciate in a different way, the freedoms we have here.
Dissention is not precluded by any citizen. It is our right, our DUTY even, to protest that which we feel is unjust.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Amendment XXVIII

The rights enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the people, and are not granted to any organizations including government and commercial entities. Congress may grant individual rights, in whole or in part, to any or all such organizations only by two-thirds of both houses concurring in two successive Congresses, no less than three years apart, and no more than seven years apart.


======
So many of this country's current problems (e.g., campaign finance, copyright, workers' rights, corporate malfeasance) stem from the legal fiction that corporations are individuals with Constitutional rights.

I am really disappointed no one on either side responded to this, pro or con. I see it as one of a handful of fundamental flaws in our current system that facilitates America's steady regression from the representative democracy envisioned by our founding fathers. "We the people" has less and less place in today's burgeoning corporatocracy.

IMO, of course. I am curious whether people agree, disagree, don't care, or don't understand the issue.

I actually liked your idea, I just haven't been around to post about it. It's something I've tossed around with others frequently, though not so well formed.