Forum Post: Four things that 99% of us can agree on
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 15, 2011, 5:49 p.m. EST by mrZ
(8)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
i've already been to the wall st, boston, and st louis occupations. many people have expressed interest in coming together around a set of specific proposals in a way that is actionable. i've suggested these four at all three places, and i have received very positive feedback about them. what does everyone think?
1) #1) Use instant-runoff voting with a paper trail.
http://www.instantrunoff.com/why-use-irv
The two-party system has weakened our nation, as our founders predicted it would.
2) Minimum boundary districting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Minimum_isoperimetric_quotient
Voters choose their representatives, not vice versa.
3) Require that all elected officials disclose all income and all assets, as well as all contributions and all contributors. Income, assets, or contributions not declared shall be forfeited. Any official intentionally
hiding income, assets, or contributions shall void her or his office.
There are some similar rules already in existence, but they lack teeth.
and #4) Pass an amendment to the Constitution:
“Corporations are not people. They are property. As such, they have no rights. They have no right to free speech, nor any right to participate in the electoral process. Those rights belong to American citizens."
the idea is to go for the source. fix governance, and the rest will be fixed eventually by a more effective and representative government. we won't all agree on solutions to health care, education, financial etc. reforms, but these basic good-governance measures are something we can all agree on. once our government works again, then we can have a meaningful debate about the best way to solve these other problems.
I like your ideas and I would like to comment about the first one. I live in Washington state and as of last year we finally became a full state of vote-by-mail only. There's your paper trail and it seems to work. Any discrepancies or close elections are recounted.
not just paper trail, but instant runoff voting. that is as important as the paper trail. it will effectively end the two party system.
be thankful 50% of the world lives on $2 a day or less. People in Africa are starving. In some countries like England they spend tax payer money on a King and Queen that did nothing to earn their title. Mexicans die trying to cross our border just to work hard and make less than 90% of the Americans. People have family members dying of cancer, and you consider taking money from the rich instead of being thankful for how good the US really is.
The US is good but shouldn't we try to make it better?
Why aren't the rich donating more money to cancer research?
how do you know they aren't, why would I want to give my money to some one who makes $600 a year than some one who makes $30,000 who decided to buy a house they couldn't pay for, and smoke cigarettes
I didn't say they aren't donating money. I said why aren't they donating more.
Dick Cheney had a well-documented $50 million sitting in off shore accounts. Shouldn't he have done something with that money?
there is a tax to bring it in the country so he couldnt do too much with it
So why did he put it outside the country in the first place?
because it was a smarter investment than investing it in the country
what is wrong with that he made his own money he can do with it what he wants
But isn't that anti-American?
A hash mark at the beginning of a line makes it a header, FYI
thanks
no problem! Look up "Markdown" for more...
Thank you, VeteranWarrior...very well put. I really like the ideas presented and just would like to add a few...
Term Limits
Cut Off Congressional Pensions
Ban lobbyists
I love the irv point, we so need that!
absolutely. it's an easy thing to do, and it'll give us more options when we vote
I 100% agree with paper trail voting. Don't know enough about district voting yet. I definitely agree with public officials disclosing finances.
I would like to see you add, in your own words, these same proposals to this wiki: http://declarationof99.wikidot.com/ Clearly you've put a lot of work into reaching a consensus on some intelligent opinions, and so have many others, but what use is that if we don't have a common location to collect and express all of those ideas? I don't want to see a fleeting forum post fade away containing what could have been hope for our country becoming a better place for everyone to live.
thanks. i looked at that document, and while i approve of a lot of what it says, i think the key is to fix governance. from there, good governance will fix all the other issues. although we represent the 99%, there is no way that fully 99% of us have been to liberty plaza, and we need to protect the voice of those 99%ers too.
How will the government change the system if we don't change ourselves? We are the ones who allow these shit-bags into office. We are the ones who buy into this economy. It's easy to blame everyone else but ourselves. When will we accept that we're just as much to blame for all of this?
vetwarrior-
some is our fault, as we have been lulled to sleep and are now waking up.
at the same time, we've allowed these shit-bags, as you call them, into office, because we're using a voting system that forces us to choose between the lesser of two evils rather than ranking many options according to preference. google and read about instant runoff voting. i think you'll like it.
also, we can have people start going around, signing a petition to get these proposals on the ballot.
I completely agree. Take this survey to see other things we agree on and create a unified voice: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JWPJM3N
sorry about the formatting :P