2009-12-31

constitutions promoting consensus

12.13: pol/constitution/promoting consensus:
[. we should divide states not only by the constitution one prefers,
but also by issues, so that the states that want a war on
{drugs, christians supporting israel} can themselves pay for such wars;
. this would be a virtual tax state,
whereas the constitutional state would require city-wide approval,
and gated communities would esp'ly be constitution-specific
while cities could have charters that define the range of permitted constitutions .
. the fed constitution would basically say how states define constitution;
with no laws at all .
. what did become fed law -- without constitutional backing --
would simply be the things people could obviously alll agree on,
like the infrastructure projects:
roads, phone, net, finance, and homeland(only) defense .
. that still leaves open
bizarre diff's like slavery and abortion .
. if the fed was designed around negotiation rather than majority
we could have pulled a plan for actually
paying for the slaves we freed .
. abortion is much more subtle and difficult:
there's also a lot of confusion about privacy
the root of most evils -- which both sides cling to .
. we could admit that doctors are not juries,
and every baby deserves a trial by jury;
women deserve a right to health,
and babies deserve euthanasias free from pain .
]

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