Let’s say we wanted to petition the government for a redress of our grievances. What would be on the list?
The OG for reference.
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Which government? I think there might be more than one, but I have been wrong before.
Duh. There’s the Illuminati and the lizard people. He can just print out two copies of the grievances, though.
Are you suggesting I’m some kind of conspiracy theorist for asking what a modern list of grievances would look like?
No, I was making a joke. I know you meant there are other countries besides the U.S.
Man I have got to get offline…
I assumed that would be obvious from my choice of community.
I took back my downvote. I’m sorry.
Many lemmy users outside the US dislike communities that are “US by default.” This is Politics, not USPolitics, but its generally about just the US.
Oh, I guess that’s my fault for actually reading the sidebar.
I’m one of those who dislikes the US defaultism, but in this case you are very correct in assuming the US centric as the description of the community states explicitly that it’s for the discussion of “US Politics”
So I’ll be unsubscribing and subscribing to WorldPolitics instead ;)
If we wanted to be serious about it, the ones that matter are the various ways our voting power has been suppressed. Examples:
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Gerrymandering is legal.
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The Senate exists.
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The Electoral College exists.
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Voting Day is not a Federal holiday.
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The House is substantially smaller than the cube root of the country’s population (approx 692).
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We use First Past the Post. Note: multiple superior algorithms exist, so here are two example options: IRV, Ranked Pairs.
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Votes are counted and partial results publicly released before Voting Day is over, so people in California potentially vote knowing at least some of the results in Florida.
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In many jurisdictions, felons permanently lose the right to vote.
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In many jurisdictions, voting by mail has roadblocks - e.g. in some states, you have to swear under oath you have an excuse on a list of valid excuses, instead of just being allowed to do it.
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Citizens United.
And so on and so forth.
I see every reason to take this perfectly seriously.
I think you’ve made an excellent start here, I would probably list systematic disenfranchisement as problem number one too. Corporations and their lobbyists have enormously much more influence over politics than any one group of citizens.
Re:#5, why is cube root important?
I assume that’s roughly the original ratio, but why does that specific ratio matter?
It’s an observational rule, but basically every democratic government falls close to this line. The US is significantly under it and the UK is significantly over it.
This is a good list, let’s go with it
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Free school breakfast and lunch.
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Term limits for all politicians and judges including the Supreme Court, which needs more than term limits.
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Outlaw stock trading for politicians.
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More protection for unions and unionizing.
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Paid sick time and parental leave
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End prison slave labor
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Require charity tax exemptions to be based on the amount of money is used for actual charity. Essentially require charities to use 70% or more of their money for actual charity work in lieu of wages and promotion. AKA Fuck the existence of DAF tax haven’s.
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Increase the federal minimum wage and include regular automatic increases.
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Reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine with an addendum that any “news” station section that is not purely based on supportable facts have a bumper before and after clearly stating it’s opinion based and not necessarily based in reality.
That’s all my the grievances that you, or someone else, haven’t listed that I would add.
As an addendum to your #17, remove special treatment of churches for tax purposes. If they want a tax break file as the appropriate non-profit and follow the same rules as everyone else, or pay your taxes if doing the appropriate financial paperwork would air too much of your dirty laundry.
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Thank you for not making me think too hard.
I would also offer that nationalized/single payer health care should be a priority, as well as free higher education.
Besides the assurances that your votes are heard, having an educated workforce without the burdens of health care weighing on them is a huge deal in having a stable country and economy.
Excellent list! My biggest issue is that the highest authority in the land is the Supreme Court, which is not elected by popular support. In a proper democracy, the people themselves would be the ultimate authority on whether a law is constitutional, as determined by a popular vote.
That’s because the nature and role of the Supreme Court is skewed. The way it should work is that politicians draft well thought out and specific laws that then get applied by the courts using both the letter and spirit in which it was written. Only if there’s an unusual edge case or ambiguity does the Supreme Court step in and decide based on the intent of the law and the rules as set forth in the constitution both how the law applies or if the law is fundamentally flawed and needs to be reconsidered. In a properly running democracy drafting an unconstitutional law should be a career ending event for a politician, never mind actually passing one.
The way it actually works though is that politicians draft vague and poorly considered laws that the courts then abuse the fuck out of to harass and convict as many people as possible. When the powerful are inconvenienced by a law it’s brought before the Supreme Court which then decide how they’re feeling about that law on that day and pull an arbitrary ruling out of their ass.
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