We should include subversion in the Constitution as an equal to treason. Treason is to move against your country in a way that aids another power. Subversion is to move against your country that damages your country without directly aiding another. There's really no difference, and any act of subversion should be grounds for immediate removal from office for any elected or appointed official.
This should also include sanctions against politicians who refuse to honor the Constitution.
State and local politicians constantly subvert the 14th Amendment by going after "illegal aliens" even though the 14th supposedly guarantees "equal protection of the laws" to "all persons" within a state's jurisdiction. Last anyone saw, an "illegal alien" was a person and has the same rights as everyone else under state law, but not under federal law where there is no equal-protection clause governing federal actions. Solutions to the "undocumented immigrants" problem now being whacked around are unworkable and appear to be only political posturing by some wanting to make a reputation for him or herself. Perhaps the profits-tax proposal would ease the problem because when businesses must pay a living wage and a specific percentage of their profits to those creating the profits there is no incentive to hire "illegals" just to drive labor costs down.
Federal politicians continually enact unconstitutional laws, forcing the courts to negate them, then campaign against "activist judges." That practice should be stopped. There are conditions such as age, residency and citizenship one must meet in order to hold public office. Perhaps mastering the Constitution should also be included.
6) The death penalty:
This barbaric practice should be eliminated. It is applied unfairly, it costs too much and wastes too much time. It appeals to sadists and allows those such as George W. Bush to take glee in its application. Some people have been sent to death row after their court-appointed defense lawyers fell asleep during the trial, or didn't put up any form of defense, have been convicted on the testimony of one witness who claimed to have seen the crime from several hundred feet across a parking lot in the dark of night, have been convicted on the testimony of a jail-house snitch who was looking for a lighter sentence for himself and on many similar dubious "facts".
Many politicians build their reputations on how "tough on crime" they are. In doing do, truth and justice are less important than are convictions. We have seen thousands of convictions overturned years after an innocent person was sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. But prosecutors or police who submit false or misleading "facts" are seldom held accountable. In one recent case, the famous Duke University rape case that turned out to be no rape case at all, the prosecutor was punished and lost his license to practice law. Similar actions are never taken against those in power who send innocent men and women to prison. The difference: in the Duke case the three lacrosse players falsely charged were rich privileged young white men while in the majority of cases of miscarriage of justice the wrongly convicted are poor and mostly of a racial minority.
If total elimination is not acceptable, we need a special court that is entrusted to review every death-penalty decision in the nation to assure fairness and unquestionable guilt.
7) Leaving the union:
This does not need an amendment or a law; it just needs understanding.
People, not states, created America, therefore states cannot leave of their own accord; one state cannot uncreate what the whole of the people created. To get into the union, states followed a well-defined approval process. States first needed permission from their citizens, then needed permission from US citizens to join them in the union, which was granted by the peoples's agents, the United States Congress. That means to leave, states need permission of their own people then permission from all other Americans through that same Congress. Article IV, Section 3, says no political alterations allowed without both state and congressional approval.
All states have considerable federal property (buildings and courthouses, national parks, forests, monuments, highways, military bases, ports and airports, etc.) which can be disposed of only by acts of Congress. So, if a state wishes to leave the union, it must petition its residents to get permission, then petition the residents of all other states for their permission. Those steps being done through the state legislature and then through Congress. After that it must get Congress to authorize disposal of territory and property belonging to the United States as Article IV, Section 3, states. So, if Texas wished to be an independent republic again, it would have to buy all federal property in the state; a $9 trillion bill to pay for the Reagan-Bush-Bush fiscal insanity might be a good price. Besides, now that Ann Richards, Molly Ivins and Lady Bird Johnson have departed, who needs Texas anymore?
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This should also include sanctions against politicians who refuse to honor the Constitution.
State and local politicians constantly subvert the 14th Amendment by going after "illegal aliens" even though the 14th supposedly guarantees "equal protection of the laws" to "all persons" within a state's jurisdiction. Last anyone saw, an "illegal alien" was a person and has the same rights as everyone else under state law, but not under federal law where there is no equal-protection clause governing federal actions. Solutions to the "undocumented immigrants" problem now being whacked around are unworkable and appear to be only political posturing by some wanting to make a reputation for him or herself. Perhaps the profits-tax proposal would ease the problem because when businesses must pay a living wage and a specific percentage of their profits to those creating the profits there is no incentive to hire "illegals" just to drive labor costs down.
Federal politicians continually enact unconstitutional laws, forcing the courts to negate them, then campaign against "activist judges." That practice should be stopped. There are conditions such as age, residency and citizenship one must meet in order to hold public office. Perhaps mastering the Constitution should also be included.
This barbaric practice should be eliminated. It is applied unfairly, it costs too much and wastes too much time. It appeals to sadists and allows those such as George W. Bush to take glee in its application. Some people have been sent to death row after their court-appointed defense lawyers fell asleep during the trial, or didn't put up any form of defense, have been convicted on the testimony of one witness who claimed to have seen the crime from several hundred feet across a parking lot in the dark of night, have been convicted on the testimony of a jail-house snitch who was looking for a lighter sentence for himself and on many similar dubious "facts".
Many politicians build their reputations on how "tough on crime" they are. In doing do, truth and justice are less important than are convictions. We have seen thousands of convictions overturned years after an innocent person was sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. But prosecutors or police who submit false or misleading "facts" are seldom held accountable. In one recent case, the famous Duke University rape case that turned out to be no rape case at all, the prosecutor was punished and lost his license to practice law. Similar actions are never taken against those in power who send innocent men and women to prison. The difference: in the Duke case the three lacrosse players falsely charged were rich privileged young white men while in the majority of cases of miscarriage of justice the wrongly convicted are poor and mostly of a racial minority.
If total elimination is not acceptable, we need a special court that is entrusted to review every death-penalty decision in the nation to assure fairness and unquestionable guilt.
7) Leaving the union:
This does not need an amendment or a law; it just needs understanding.
People, not states, created America, therefore states cannot leave of their own accord; one state cannot uncreate what the whole of the people created. To get into the union, states followed a well-defined approval process. States first needed permission from their citizens, then needed permission from US citizens to join them in the union, which was granted by the peoples's agents, the United States Congress. That means to leave, states need permission of their own people then permission from all other Americans through that same Congress. Article IV, Section 3, says no political alterations allowed without both state and congressional approval.
All states have considerable federal property (buildings and courthouses, national parks, forests, monuments, highways, military bases, ports and airports, etc.) which can be disposed of only by acts of Congress. So, if a state wishes to leave the union, it must petition its residents to get permission, then petition the residents of all other states for their permission. Those steps being done through the state legislature and then through Congress. After that it must get Congress to authorize disposal of territory and property belonging to the United States as Article IV, Section 3, states. So, if Texas wished to be an independent republic again, it would have to buy all federal property in the state; a $9 trillion bill to pay for the Reagan-Bush-Bush fiscal insanity might be a good price. Besides, now that Ann Richards, Molly Ivins and Lady Bird Johnson have departed, who needs Texas anymore?
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