Forum Post: Make a new Social Contract: not a list of demands we hope appeals to the 1%
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 22, 2011, 10:07 p.m. EST by russpears
(73)
from Montclair, NJ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Any demand will be reduced to an appeal. the 99% does not need to appeal to the 1%. We should be considering a New Social Contract. One that can be clarified such that no Supreme Court Justice can re-interpret it's meaning. A new constitution that secures the future of the 99% forever and can stand as a model for other countries to reconsider their constitution too and make this movement live in the history books!
An avant garde idea. We need this kind of thinking to bring forth change.
The constitution is anachronistic document written hundreds of years ago by rich, white slave owners who were more interested in making sure they maintained their wealth and power than the constitution reflecting the humanitarian ideals of the Enlightenment.
If the constitution was a document based on the liberal democratic principles of freedom and equality, it would be simple and would enshrine into law the sentiment of the Enlightenment Era and the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence. It would read something like:
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"Everyone has a birth right to the equal freedom to act - to pursue their happiness however they define it - without political coercion or restraint and without economic coercion or restraint so long as they do not reasonably violate that same right in others. Every citizen gets an equal freedom to act, speak, and think; equal treatment under the law; equal votes; and equal income for equal effort."
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That would be the whole constitution. That would be the supreme law of the land. It would not say how a government should run.
Running any organization, including government, is a technical matter and should evolve and improve over time as we get better at managing things. The running of the government should be subjected to science, peer review and democratic vote. It shouldn't be run by the unscientific scripture written in some founding bible several hundred years ago.
And the democratic principles of freedom and equality should be the permanent law. It shouldn't be a political football constantly debated and interpreted.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/are-you-rebels-or-revolutionaries-choose-revolutio/
The idea of the General Assembly can replace many of the branches of government. We need a horizontal government by the 99% for the 99%.
You are ABSOLUTELY correct. I wish I had the brains to do it. I sure miss Thomas Paine.
Sounds like any other dictatorship to me...To bad it always leaves the country in ruin.
Dude you got any ideas? Or are you getting paid off from the .01%....? How is this like a dictatorship and what is it that we have now?
If you got paid for stupidity you'd be in the top .00001% Capitalism works. Socialism just sucks.
You assume I care for socialism. I want democracy and that means that the 99% has a say over the 1%. Capitalism does not work-it sucks!
That's what all the dictators over the last two centuries have said. To bad it always goes bad from there. And under your communist ideas, there is no freedom, no motivation to be prosperous, and no hope for anyone.
If you could think about this one second you might realize you have a very motivated working poor hoping for access to accredited degrees. If we give them a free online university I do not think the softer privileged would be able to truly compete in a really open job market. My bet is on the poor shocking the hell out of the now softer privileged class!