Civil Rights:
These shall be extended to every citizen of the United States and visitors who are in possession of a duly obtained visa or a green card. Any other persons shall be repatriated by/to their home country or may purchase a ticket to any country of their choice that is willing to grant them a visa.
Citizenship and Voting Age and Drugs:
Those who may be required to serve in the military have full rights as a citizen. That includes the right to operate vehicles, conduct or open a business, consume lawfully obtained substances, or participate in any other lawful activity.
Education:
It is the role and responsibility of the family to educate their child. If families band together in a community to fund education, they may tax citizens within their jurisdiction to do so. Because there is a common benefit to citizens being educated in a common language and across group identities; the national government may set standards for education in civics and for using English. To encourage a common national identity, the States may impose taxes to provide infrastructure through building of schools and universities.
If taxes have been imposed upon a citizen by the State or the Federal government to fund education by any means other than local taxation, any funds not invested in the common educational infrastructure should be returned to the citizen in the form of a voucher to donate to any educational method or process or organization of their choosing. The federal government shall not play a role in education other than to fund or sponsor education in civics and English, fund research related to national security or the common welfare, and to provide information on comparative educational achievement across jurisdictions and populations to enable parents to assign their voucher funds in the context of full information and full transparency.
Comparative Information versus Regulation:
Public transparent user friendly disclosure of methods and findings from comparative research in areas relating to the public welfare shall be posted and readily available to all citizens for them to determine choices and decisions based on sound and vetted information. This shall include information and comparisons relating to public health, education, environment, utilities, financial services and fees, and any other information that would serve the public welfare through sound information rather than imposing regulations or creating bureaucracies and institutions that interfere with the free market.
Monopolies and Markets and Regulation:
Any organization or business with the potential to monopolize a market or a commodity or a method of communication (This can include banks, press outlets, political parties, vendors of financial services, insurers, and others) is subject to regulation or controls sufficient to ensure that a market exists for the services or products. A market is assumed to have at least 3 actors in competition without collusion. If exceptions emerge, the reasons and rationales for those exceptions where more entities or fewer entities are indicated should be determined by Congress. The Federal government is accountable for regulating and/or closing down any business or entity that violates the rights of citizens by polluting their environment or creating heath or safety hazards that could cross state lines. (See the centrality of contracts outlined in the first paragraph.) The State is accountable for regulating and/or closing down any business or entity that violates the rights of its citizens.
Infrastructure and Taxation:
The purpose of government is to provide for and maintain infrastructure to enable communication, commerce, public safety, national security and the exercise of rights of citizenship. The government may tax citizens to fund this infrastructure or may charge proportional usage fees for users of this infrastructure. To the extent possible, the government should impose usage fees, rather than impose a general tax. If a tax is imposed, it shall be a fixed percentage in direct proportion to the income of the taxed individual. If a company or other entity is using commonly held infrastructure, that company or organization shall be charged fees in proportion to its usage of resources.
If the government contracts for services or products, the process and method for delivering the service or product – (i.e. road construction, sanitation) shall be delivered at the same price and with the same care it is delivered to any other purchaser with a sound contract, so citizens are not unduly disadvantaged by noise, traffic obstruction, variances in quality, or other exceptions to best practices.
The Use of The Census to Discourage and Obviate Gerrymandering:
The census shall be used to allocate percentages of taxes to be returned to the states for infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance, and to determine the number of members of the House of Representatives. The census bureau shall apply rigorous statistical algorithms to calculate population distribution and shall apply a grid to each state and each jurisdiction within that state, even to the level of counties, cities, towns, and precincts and map an ideal mathematical apportionment of population to ideal voting districts. The algorithm will not include or consider political party affiliation, race, ethnicity, income, or any other demographic feature other than population density and infrastructure access and availability. While states and localities may choose to gerrymander, citizens are entitled to be fully informed of what would be a fair (non-gridlock – non-two party vesting) distribution of voters. This shall be communicated to every citizen who participates in the census as part of the feedback of information relevant for their decision making as citizens with an overlay of the current gerrymandered district and an estimate of the percentage of distortion as against fair and equitable voting districts. Convenient links to this information should be provided on all websites that contain government information. The proportional allocation of tax dollars per location shall also be posted and readily reviewable by citizens in order to expose the inequity of earmarks and other allocations of national resources for the advantage of some citizens at the expense of others.
Parties and Donations and Free Speech:
Profit making corporations that advocate for or against positions or persons shall be subject to audits to identify funds expended in political advocacy. A corporation may appeal any designation of political advocacy through the courts. If a corporation determines that it should advocate for a position or a person, the shareholders of the corporation shall verify their endorsement of that expenditure prior to the expenditure. No groups or corporations may make political or campaign contributions to other groups – only individual citizens may do so. In short, the link between the contributor and organization or person receiving the contribution shall be direct and transparent.
Citizens are entitled through the constitution to advocate and to band together to advance their interests through any combination of persons, parties, or advocacy groups. Only an individual citizen may contribute his resources and funds, and these funds are subject to limit on the amount in support of a single candidate. Any groups or parties that donate funds to candidates for public office will be required to register as advocates and be subject to an audit of the sources of their income and expenditures of their income. This information shall be conveniently linked to all websites that contain government information. This includes lobbyists, political parties, religious and other not-for-profit entities.
Social Conservatism, Right to Life and So Forth:
Citizens are entitled to believe and relate to one another as free people within free markets. They may not interfere with those rights for other people. A socially conservative agenda is sometimes a code term for attempting to use means other than the criminal code to regulate beliefs or behavior. It is profoundly un-American. Any individual or family or reference group or social network or religious community is entitled to be as socially conservative or as socially bizarre as they choose; provided that they operate within the law.
The severing of the umbilical cord entitles a child born to a citizen of the US to be considered a citizen of the US. Prior to the actual birth, the only citizen involved is the mother. Religious and ethical agendas and moral suasion can and should be brought to bear on all decisions of free people in free markets, but these are not the province of the government, but the family, religious traditions, and other social networks.
The odd position that abortion should be criminalized except in cases of incest or rape illustrates the hypocrisy of a socially conservative position. If life is sacred, why would life resulting from rape or incest be less sacred? The embryo resulting from rape or incest may be just as viable and the person that embryo might become could potentially contribute as much as any other person. This silly and distorted thinking was at the foundation of eugenics.
Contracts:
An enforceable lawful contract has the features of mutual consent (this implies transparency), competency or ability to provide those products or services involved in the contract, fair exchange where reasonable fees or benefits accrue to each participant in the contract, and a lawful objective or outcome of the contract. When any entity, including individual citizens, engage in a contract, they are entitled to refund or compensation when conditions of the contract are not met or fulfilled. This applies to the expenditure of tax revenue, relationships between and among businesses and consumers, relationships between employers and employees, borrowers and lenders, representatives and their constituents, and so forth. Contracts are not enforceable if they violate any requirement for viability. No entity or person shall be able to immunize itself from liability, including governmental institutions or agencies.
Arms:
Citizens shall have the right to bear arms. Therefore, confirmation of citizenship should be required for anyone who wants to own a weapon – at least a valid voter’s registration card. This means that people who are not citizens, (i.e. illegal immigrants), may not bear arms within the US.