I propose we Americans design a new political party, say the Constitution party or the Freedom party.
Suggested Principles:
- Everyone must obey the rule of law
- Corporations are not people
- Rescind the law that allows the US government to propagandize its citizens
- Uncoerced informed consent is inviolable
- No illegal search/seizure/surveillance without a warrant
- No digital passports, vaccine passports, digital funds can be required for travel or business transactions
- Emergency edicts end after 7 days: emergencies require laws passed by a legislature, after hearings, with expiration monthly
- No military offensive without a congressional vote
- No international organizations may have authority over sovereign nations
- All international treaties must be open for public review
- Pharmaceutical price controls
- Fair taxation, simplify tax codes, guarantee fair corporate and death taxes
- Money is not speech
- In person education is a right, as is home-schooling
- Establish limits on government taking on more debt
- Freedom of speech without any form of censorship by government and industry
- Freedom of assembly
- No cruel or unusual punishments; judicial review of solitary confinements
- Being guilty of malfeasance or corruption by public officials, or by corporations doing business with government, should require minimum mandatory prison sentences, without the possibility of a plea bargain that only leads to a fine
- There is a right to self-defense, using weapons of appropriate power (need help from those more knowledgeable for this principle)
- Enshrine the right to bodily autonomy--as the Supreme Court ruled in 2013, "
- “this Court has never retreated from its recognition that any compelled intrusion into the human body implicates significant, constitutionally protected privacy interests…”’
- Our intention is to return the US to a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world.
- End the use of contractor companies performing government business, with specific exceptions like construction businesses.
- Strengthen the Freedom of Information process so that all documents, apart from those classified by the state department, DoD or intelligence agencies, are open to public inspection. Review the others for declassification. Impose a 20 year expiration on classification.
- Every agency must publish a yearly public audit, and classified audits must be available to members of Congress who have received appropriate clearances.
- No electronic ballots; auditable paper ballots must be used
- Strong whistleblower protections
- Strong insider trading protections, with mandated prison sentences for guilty elected officials and public servants
- Equality for all under the law, regardless of religion, race, gender, sexual preference, political beliefs
- You can sue the government. New laws will create a method to do so.
- Public officials will be held personally accountable for crimes committed while in office
- Public financing of elections
- New lobbying limits and laws
- Return police to policing; new police training; no transfer or use of military equipment to/by police forces
- The prison system must be changed to become primarily a system for rehabilitation
- Military servicemembers will have the same rights as civilians
- Everyone must vote or pay a $25 fine. Polls will be made accessible to all with 5 miles of employment or home, with extended voting hours.
*Help add more principles!
If a foreign national gives birth in the USA, that does not automatically qualify the baby for US citizenship, as in birth tourism.
ReplyDeleteWe need to do something to safeguard our elections.
Government officials should not be allowed to have a financial interest in companies that could benefit from that official's position, such as officials in the FDA having financial ties to drug companies.
(Dr. Nass, if you don't like any of the above, just don't post them or edit them as you see fit.)
Greater protections for Whistleblowers would be a substantive addition. Thank you for this wonderful post (as well as all the others)! I especially appreciate addressing corporate personhood as well as international organizations such as the TPP, WHO, etc...
ReplyDeletePharma has too much power. Pharma buys influence everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWe need a way to clean up the significant fraud in the medical literature. The medical literature is a joke.
We need to eliminate conflicts of interests in the healthcare system.
We need advisory boards with NO conflicts of interests.
We need advisory boards that are "blinded' - where no one knows who is one the board, so those board members cannot be pressured by pharma.
I agree with most.
ReplyDeleteI oppose #10, term limits. Term limits mean the people with the most power would become long-term staffers rather than elected officials because the long-term staffers would know where "the bodies were buried."
#3 "No government propaganda" appears difficult to properly define. One current problem at certainly the federal level is the laws are much too long to be read by legislators. The public has a right to know what is in any given bill, law, or edict. We know the term "spin" because proponents and detractors of any given situation will describe the same situation differently.
In addition, control of the press by those with real power, whatever you want to call them, is a bigger problem than government lies.
A side anecdote here: One time I was leafletting deception dollars in the DC area. I would say this," The government is lying about 9/11." A young man of about 20 responded." That's their job." I expect he was the son of 1 or 2 government officials and was probably treated well by his parents. I've assumed for decades that whatever the government says is a lie. It might not be. Depends on the evidence. I wouldn't want the public to cease being skeptical.
#15 Government debt is also a conundrum. It may not have to be if the military was not so bloated and the US wasn't an empire. However, much of the public thinks the empire serves them when it is really there to guarantee superprofits for the US-based corporations. Those entities prefer to mine and manufacture in countries where there are weaker laws protecting labor rights, human rights, and the environment. In addition, if human civilization is threatened with its very existence by the climate crisis, it's better to spend money now to avoid higher spending later. In addition, the huge current federal debt may have been achieved only because the US can threaten or destroy any country or entity that attempts to replace the US dollar as the currency of choice.
11. Pharmaceutical price controls are also a conundrum. Big pharma, of course, is the villain in this pandemic, but their claim that the cost of development of a given drug has to be worth the investment implies many drugs that would be of value may not get developed. The alternative of communist-style government decisions on what can be developed and manufactured hardly implies an end to corruption. Government price negotiation with the manufacturers is probably the best we can do but hardly would have prevented the current pandemic crisis.
The problem with plea bargains is that they are needed to get one conspirator to flip on other conspirators.
ReplyDeleteCensorship by private companies may be the greatest current threat to our freedom, but that creates a slippery slope where smaller employers could take the brunt of the change. Breaking up Big Techs under anti-trust provisions should be a considered alternative.
Suing the government appears to be contradictory to government debt limits.
Sen. Angus (I) King declares Nine Dragons LLC a Maine citizen in the following article.
ReplyDelete“King gets first hand view of the opioid crisis in the Rumford area” June 29, 2019
https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/06/29/king-gets-firsthand-view-of-opioid-crisis-in-rumford-area/
NIne Dragons LLC makes for a lousy citizen in my opinion.
https://bangordailynews.com/2020/10/22/news/bangor/old-town-paper-mill-spills-30000-gallons-of-pulping-chemicals-into-penobscot-river/
Not our saviour.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/maine-mill-china.html
I am a registered voter in Maine. Looking fwd to the day that I can stake signage in district 2 that reads Dr. Meryl Nass for governor!
ReplyDeleteIf corporations were people they could surely be successfully prosecuted. I have never seen a corporation prosecuted in a way which affected its ability trade. I have never seen sanctions against executives which would deter them from making criminal decisions, none have gone to prison, lost their position, or even their bonus. But of course when it comes to their feelings they are lie the Princess and the Pea.
ReplyDelete