71. Tickets Should Have Complete Instructions
All traffic or other tickets issued for violations of the law should have either detailed instructions listed somewhere on them for the options available to resolve the ticket or they should have a website, telephone number or other easily found reference for finding detailed instructions on the options.
17. Weather Lottery & Forecasting
A weather lottery should exist to encourage people to study the weather and create a market for more accurate weather forecasting. (In addition, people’s tendency to waste money on random outcomes could be harnessed for the greater good.) The idea is for people to participate in either the short or long term weather forecasting of single or multiple weather variables. Lottery organizers could choose from any number and combination of variables to make the lottery easy or hard. People who accurately predict that (or those) particular weather variable(s) win the jackpot. Some of the money raised could go to further weather forecasting research. Several varieties of weather lotteries should run concurrently to satisfy the market. Making weather forecasting into a kind of game that is available for everyone to play, would result in the introduction of a huge amount of public information and speculation which may be mined to yield at least some benefits. Perhaps, certain players who tend to be significantly more accurate than the rest, or even more accurate than professional forecasters, could be questioned as to their methods of forecasting and research so that the science of weather forecasting could be improved.
Weather Forecasting Error Bars
Consumers should have the ability to view weather forecasts with error bars that represent the probability that the forecast will be within certain limits. Each future day would have a larger error bar centered on the predicted temperature of the present forecast. For example, let’s say that a forecast given on day zero (0) says that day 3 will have a high temperature of 78° F. Let’s say that a 75% probability figure is chosen. The error bars for day 1 would probably be +/- 1 or 2° F. For day 2, maybe +/- 3° F. Day 3, +/- 5°F, and so on. This way, weather forecasters can compete with each other for accuracy.
Forecasting Astronomical Events
Weather forecasts should also include the forecasting of astronomical events, like significant meteor showers, eclipses, and significant transits. Information on whether the sky will be cloudy or clear at the time should be stated.
15. Contributions to Any Entity
Contributions of any type from any party to any party that can potentially be construed as a potential conflict of public interest or violation of public trust should be required to be disclosed to the public no later than 3 days after the initiation of the transaction.
No contribution or contributor, especially to a public official, should be allowed to be kept secret or to provide a misleading identity.
No significant contribution or gift (valued over $100 per calendar year) should be allowed between any parties if it has been determined by law that justice or fairness is likely to be compromised.
14. Election Turnout Calculations
Election turnout figures should be calculated based on the number of people who voted divided by the total number of people who could have been voters (eligible voters), not just registered voters. Everyone who is a citizen and who is old enough to vote is an eligible voter. Such figures would better represent true voter participation rates.
13. Presidential Primaries
States should hold their Presidential primaries on every first and third Tuesdays in the months of April, May, June, and July. The order in which states hold their primaries is not particularly important under this system, but to keep it simple, less confusing and, perhaps, more exciting, the least populated states could hold their primaries first followed by the more populous states. The least populated states would hold their primaries first, on the first Tuesday in April. The most populated state(s) would hold their primaries last on the third Tuesday in July. In each of the eight primary election dates, around 12.5% or 1/8 of the total population of the United States would vote. This means that for the first few elections, the Presidential candidates would need to campaign in many small states and with each following election, fewer states would need to be targeted, and the last one or two election would only involve one or two of the largest states.
Using this system, smaller states would be given sufficient attention while primary contests would tend to be determined more towards the end of the primary campaigns when the big states weigh in. This plan would make it easier for the candidates to devote more valuable time in states which are closest to their election dates, and would allow candidates to ‘practice’ their message before the big-state elections, and would also allow the candidates more time to raise the money required for the more expensive large-state campaigns.
12. Registering for Elections
After the deadline for registering candidates or ballot initiatives, no more changes, except to correct errors, should be allowed. Candidates and initiatives failing to register in time should be required to wait for the next election. Voters should not be burdened by such things as Supplemental Ballot Pamphlets or similar documents that include information on ballot measures submitted late.
11. Proposals on Ballots
No proposal may get on any ballot for a vote unless it has been proven to be lawful, unless it is a proposal to change the law.
10. Voting Procedures and Instructions
Several Voting Methods
All voters should be able to vote either through the mail (such as through the use of absentee ballots), through the telephone, through the Internet, or by going to an official polling place. Special registration to vote by mail should not be required.
Flexible Voting Schedule
Every person should be allowed to vote on all issues on the ballot up to one month before the regularly scheduled day of the election. If, for example, an election is scheduled for November 7th, then voting should be allowed to begin on October 7th. Voting at the scheduled voting place may not be an option throughout this entire voting window, but voters should be allowed to vote through the telephone, internet, mail, or by going to an official central voting place like city hall, or a police station, etc.
Perhaps an allowance should be made for people who desire to change their vote at any time after they cast their original vote up to election day (because one month is a significant length of time in which people could change their minds), but a fee should be charged for such a service to compensate the government for costs associated with such an option as well as to discourage people from relying too much on this option as a substitute for thinking deeply about how they plan to vote.
Critical Voting Instructions
Voters should never feel as though they are required to vote on every race or issue on the ballot, especially those for which they feel they are not adequately informed or for which they do not have a favored outcome. As part of the voting instructions given to all voters on their ballots and in the voting booth, they should be told that they have the option to vote only on those races on the ballot for which they feel informed enough to make a decision. Voters should also have the option to check boxes marked “No Preference/Abstain” for every race or measure on a ballot.
Disinterested Voters Should Not be Encouraged to Vote
Uninterested eligible voters, especially those who are not educated about the issues, should not be encouraged to vote because they may actually damage the public’s wellbeing. Instead, they should be encouraged to abstain from voting until they become interested enough to become educated on the issues. This way, when they do vote, they would actually benefit society by casting an educated vote and they would be using the voting system as it was intended to be used.
9. Voting Age, Eligibility, Registration & Identification
Voting Age
The minimum voting age should be age 20 (this should also be the age of majority).
Voting Eligibility
Only US citizens should be allowed to vote in US public elections. Lawful permanent residents (who are not yet citizens) or people with any other status should not be allowed to vote.
Voter Registration
Registering to vote should be a high school graduation requirement. Voting should not be mandatory, but everyone should at least be registered.
One Voting Domicile At a Time
College students may only retain one voting domicile at a time, either within their resident political jurisdiction while attending college or within the political jurisdiction of their hometown.
Homeless people, recreational vehicles inhabitants, etc, without a permanent address may register only in the political jurisdiction in which they receive their mail.
Voter Identification
Every voters should be required to have their correct name and address on file with their voting precinct prior to being allowed to vote. Voters with different names or addresses should be allowed to change/update such information at their voting place.
Voters should be notified that their current name and address will be assumed to be accurate. If it is determined that it is not accurate, heavy financial penalties will levied.
8. Election Information for Voters
Individual Candidate & Interviews Debates
Government owned media should air both debates between candidates and interviews with individual candidates for public office to the extent that at least one radio and one television station in each market carries the broadcast. In markets which may not have government owned media, then significantly government funded stations (at least one television and one radio station) should be required to air such broadcasts. If no significant government funded stations exist, then private radio and television stations should be required to fulfill this requirement and come to an agreement amongst themselves regarding which one will provide such broadcasts. All candidates receiving at least 1% of the popular support (determined by taking an average of several recognized polls) should be allowed to be included in any broadcasted debate or interview held for that office. Internet broadcasting and archiving should also be required for all debates so that any person anywhere and anytime can view them.
Such debates and interviews should last for hours, and be comprehensive in nature. Members of the press or other informed people (but preferably not common members of the public) should be the ones asking questions of candidates for state or national office. There should be fewer restrictions on who could ask questions in lower level races. Time limits shorter than 5 minutes should not be placed on responses unless they are filled with political babble (as determined by a poll of the panel of questioners). These formats would afford the candidates less rushed and more relaxed responses. In addition, candidates should be given at least a partial list (a full list would be better) of questions days or weeks ahead of time to allow them sufficient time to formulate a thought-out, structured, and prioritized response. After all, when decisions need to be made in the real world, solutions are hardly ever required within one minute. It would be unwise and just plain wrong to judge a candidate on how he responds to questions if he had only a few seconds to think about it. Truly valuable candidates are often not the ones that can provide the quickest answers; they are usually the ones who think a lot before they talk. If people want well thought out solutions, they should also demand well thought out responses to questions. Other than to provide the candidate with questions in advance, there is no other way to effectively minimize useless political rhetoric during debates and interviews and get an accurate perception on a candidate’s policy perspectives.
Audiences during debates should be kept to a minimum or should be non-existent. Their cheering, jeering and other reactions just add unnecessary emotions to the discussion, and reduce the quality of the debate by consciously or unconsciously encouraging the candidates to appeal to the audience. It also adds an unnecessary element of nervousness to the candidates that can only further reduce the quality of the discussions.
Political Candidate Position Statements
All candidates running for elected office should be required, at a minimum, to state their positions on a variety of topics listed on a questionnaire. They should also be encouraged to thoroughly express their positions, reasonings, and goals in written form as soon as possible so people could begin to make educated decisions. A picture or multiple pictures of the candidate should also be submitted. All of this information should be published on some government election website and candidates should be able to update their information whenever they wish. In addition, a summary of each candidate’s positions, reasonings, and goals should be published and included in official election information materials mailed to the voters to ensure that all voters are easily able to compare the positions of all the candidates.
Accountability for Elected and Appointed Officials
All elected and possibly some appointed officials must have yearly or biyearly (twice a year) progress reports published by an independent government organization, and made freely available to everyone or at least to the people in that elected official’s district. Publishing these reports on the internet on some official government election site would be the best way to go and constituents could request physical copies mailed to them if they so desire. These reports should include a record of all votes submitted by the official, speeches delivered, official meetings attended, and other official business of significant relevance engaged in by that official since the time that the previous such report was published. It may also include certain evaluations made by other significant or important people, including co-workers. The elected official may also include position statements and an unlimited length online essay (10,000 word limit for essays published on paper), also free of charge, so that communications to constituents and everybody else could be made at any time.
The tax returns should also be publicly released because they are documents that effectively contain essential character questions and other fundamental descriptive truths that are beneficial for the public to know.
Ballot Measure Historical Summaries
Voter information booklets and/or sample ballots should include within their descriptions of each measure a section dedicated to analyzing the relevant history of the subject related to the measure. Some examples of useful information to include in these sections would be a list and summary of similar measures in the past, when they were placed on the ballot and whether they passed or failed, relevant legislative action pertaining to the topic, the state’s history of debt and current and past credit ratings, and what its debt and credit situation would most likely be if the measure passes.
Releasing Election Results
In all public elections, no projections should be made and no results (including polling results) should be made known or broadcast through any mass media (including the Internet) to the public beginning at 12 AM on the day prior to election day and lasting through election day up until all the polls have closed in all the jurisdictions participating in that race.
All This Information Made Available On Single Government Website
All the information described above should be made available on a single government website so that any person could go and find virtually all the relevant information they could ever want to know about any candidate or issue in order to make a well informed decision during the election. A user should only need to type in their address and all the relevant elections in which he is eligible to vote in should appear. The voter could then pick one and begin his search for information about a particular candidate or issue.
7. Electoral College
Abolish the Electoral College. Presidents should be elected directly by the people, thus this institution is inherently undemocratic and gives smaller states a disproportionate advantage when selecting a president. The Electoral College also makes possible situations in which the popular majority of the votes went to one candidate while the Electoral College majority went to another candidate, thus overturning the will of the majority of the citizen voters (as has happened in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000).
6. Political Election Districts – Gerrymandering
All election districts should be measured for compactness to ensure that ‘gerrymandering’ is not a real or perceived factor in the district’s makeup. In other words, the ratio between the area of a district to its perimeter should be below a certain threshold. The formula for measuring the compactness of election districts should be as follows: 4 times pi times the area divided by the perimeter squared (4πA / P2) (“The Gerrymandering Index”). This formula yields answers ranging from zero to 1. We could multiply these answers by 100 to give numbers that are between 1 and 100, thus making it easier to discuss. Nevertheless, using this formula to measure compactness, a circle would measure 1, a square would measure .785 and a 3×1 rectangle would measure .589. The greater a shape’s irregularity, the lower its measure of compactness. Perhaps a score of .4 should be set as a lower limit meaning that any district layout with a shape scoring lower than .4 using this formula for measuring compactness, should be required to be redrawn until it scores at least a .4. Irregularities due to natural boundaries, like bodies of water, or unchangeable boundaries, like international borders, should not be counted against a districts compactness.
Furthermore, each district should be allowed to vary in population by up to 10% of the average number of people residing within that type of district. For example, if the average number of people within a Congressional district is exactly 1,000,000 people, then one district should be allowed to have 900,000 people in it while another should be allowed 1,100,000 people. Both would fall within 10% of the 1,000,000 person average. However, district boundary lines should not be redrawn until the decadal census indicates that the numbers are out of balance, regardless of how out of balance they may be before the census.
5. Term Limits
Prohibit term limits for elected, and even appointed, officials. Term limits violate the will of the voters.
The concept itself is an illogical solution to the problem of not getting the right people in the job. The root of the problem lies in the fact that voters are uneducated about the issues, candidates and the policymaking process in general. To impose a blanket prohibition against one group of people with the most experience in the job (namely, incumbents) from running, is a huge disservice to civil society.
4. Election Ballot Counting
Standardize Voting Equipment
All election ballots should be recorded using any pre-approved accurate, practical and reasonably efficient method so that votes can be recorded and counted quickly and efficiently. A political jurisdiction (such as a city, county or even perhaps even a state) should stick to only one kind of voting system throughout an election so that voter confusions about which machine or system to use or how to use them are minimized.
Each Vote Tallying System Must Have Published Error Bars
Nevertheless, regardless of which system is used, all systems should be tested and analyzed periodically by scientists, especially as a system ages or as new technologies are applied. Each system’s vote tallying accuracy rate and error bars should be made available to the public. In addition, clear rules for defining invalid ballots must be published and accepted by the governments using that system. The 99.9% confidence level should be used to determine the minimum error bars allowed for each vote counting method.
Automatic Recount If Votes Lay Within Error Bars
In elections where the margin of victory within that political jurisdiction lies within the published, scientifically-determined error bars of whatever ballot tallying system was used, an automatic recount of all the votes within that jurisdiction should be mandated using a more accurate tallying method. The most likely recount method may be a hand recount of the votes, but it is conceivable for there to be more accurate machine counts that may also successfully do the job. After a recount, if a winner is still not able to be determined due to the vote margin again falling within the error bars of the second, more precise tallying system used, then an even more accurate vote counting system (i.e., a hand recount) should automatically be mandated.
If no more accurate system exists, all remaining questionable or disputed ballots would be disqualified, and the total vote counts would be frozen at the levels determined after the last recount. These election numbers should be affirmed and the election declared over, even if the margin of victory still falls within the error bars.
No time limits or deadlines should ever be set for finalizing the counting of any ballots. Nobody should call for, or have the right to demand, a recount, because the only thing that could trigger a recount is a race in which the margin of victory is less than the statistical error bars of the vote counting method used.
There should always be a paper ballot trail for every ballot cast. Perhaps even two ballot receipts, one for the voter to take home and the other for the official record.
Slightly different rules should apply to elections (such as Presidential elections) in which multiple jurisdictions vote for one race, and the winner of that race is determined by any means other than through a popular vote. In such cases, some jurisdictions’ vote tallies may fall within the statistical error bars of the counting method used. Only in these jurisdictions should a recount using a more accurate tallying system be used. For example, the Electoral College generally awards votes to Presidential candidates based on whether or not that candidate received a plurality of the votes in that state. If a Presidential candidate is the clear winner in 49 states, but the votes in one state fall within the error bars, it should only be that one state that is required to recount the votes. If Presidents were chosen through a direct popular vote and the nationwide margin of victory fell within the error bars, then a recount of the entire national vote would be required, even if all 50 states have each chosen a candidate by a landslide.
3. Survey-Based Elections
Having people vote during very narrow windows of time for their political leaders makes for a system that is too susceptible to various forms of manipulations for the express purpose of yielding short-term gains, enough to potentially influence the outcomes of those elections. Unfortunately, since traditional elections are intrinsically people- and personality-based, candidates and politicians capitalize on the emotions and gullibility of voters is these inherently short-term contests.
It may be better to have a completely new and more stable way of communicating the will of the people to the leadership of a society. This proposal would consist of the requirement for every eligible voter to be required to take a comprehensive, standardized survey every 5 years (20% of the voting population per year) that would ask that voter a series of questions regarding their position on virtually every significant politically relevant policy issue. These questionnaires could be a few hundred questions long and could ask the questions in a random way to minimize the conscious or unconscious influences that a preceding question or series of questions would have on the next. Each of these questions would be reviewed and approved by a representative group of people, including historians, academics, politicians, etc., so that the questions are as unbiased as possible. Such questionnaires could be revised, if necessary, every year on January 1.
People who refuse to participate in these surveys would be fined $250 upon the survey due date. An additional $250 ($500 total) would be charged upon the 1st anniversary of failing to submit this survey, and $750 total would be charged upon the second anniversary, etc.
People would take these surveys in a way that distributes the load throughout the year, much like Driver’s License renewal systems have people’s deadlines spread throughout the year.
Policy implementations should reflect, in large part, the will of the people as communicated through these surveys. However, the government should not automatically allow the will of the people as indicated in these surveys to be implemented so that there could exist a check to overrule the will of the people, when necessary. (We obviously must guard against the majority of the population wanting to segregate populations based on color, or round-up a segment of the population based of race or religion.) These survey results would be published every year, of course without any personal identifying participant information.
Politicians should always refer to this statistical database to inform their policy objectives, not that they need to automatically be guided conclusively by such results, but it is their obligation to know where the population stands on any of the various issues.
2. Government Funding of Elections
To drastically reduce the real and perceived corrupting influences of money on political campaigns, governments should be the sole funding entities for all public election campaigns. No other sources of funding, including personal wealth or donations from family, friends, businesses, etc., should be used for election-related (or any other) expenditures or even given as personal gifts to any candidates or politicians.
Specifically, absolutely no contributions of any kind should be allowed from those lobbying the government, participating in government contracts or otherwise benefiting from public finds.
In addition, any person employed in a significant policy-making occupation (such as federal or state legislator, and even their staffers) should be barred for life from being employed by any business or entity lobbying the government.
Election Funding Formula
The maximum amount of government funding available to all registered candidates from parties that have received more than 10% of the vote in any of the past two election cycles should be based on the estimated total number of eligible voters living within the boundaries of the political jurisdiction where the political contest will be held. Eligible voters are defined as people meeting voting requirements (namely age and citizenship), whether or not they are registered. For example, an election commission may decide that candidates for a House Congressional district may be entitled to spend up to $10 per eligible voter. They would not be allowed to unilaterally spend more than this amount even if they run out of money before the election. Given this $10 limit, if a district has 500,000 eligible voters, each candidate may spend up to $5,000,000. Possibly the costs of living, or more appropriately, the costs of advertising could be taken into consideration when determining the per-eligible-voter limits since such costs often vary between political jurisdictions.
Minor and Micro Party Funding Formulas
Public funding of the minor parties (parties that received between 1%-10% of the vote in any of the last two election cycles) would follow the same principles as above, but the per-eligible-voter limits would be lowered to one-third as much as they would be for the major parties. Micro parties would be defined as parties that have received more than 0.1% but not more than 1% of the vote in any of the last two election cycles. These parties would be entitled to receive 5% as much public financing as would the major parties. Parties having received less than 0.1% of the vote would not be entitled to any public funds.
Additional money could be introduced into campaigns from any source if any one candidate agrees, but only if all the money from each additional source is divided evenly among all the candidates within the same party class (major, minor, micro) for that race and full disclosure is made within 72 hours as to the source of the funding.
1. Election System (Single-Winner & Multi-Winner)
Single Winner Elections
Virtually all public single-winner governmental elections (as well as elections that take place within governing bodies) should be conducted under the ‘Single Transferable Vote’ STV (or ‘Alternative Vote’ AV) system. This is one of the fairest and most streamlined of perhaps all other possible simple election systems because voters rank each candidate (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) on the ballot running for the same office. Alternatively, simple plurality systems (in which the winner need not get the majority but just get the most votes) as well as instant runoff systems (in which only the top two candidates are considered while the rest are eliminated) may too often result in situations in which the candidate(s) holding the most popular views may actually lose the election due to what is called the spoiler effect (when a relatively minor candidate draws enough votes away from a popular candidate to prevent the popular candidate from winning). In STV or AV elections, the preferences of all voters who ranked the candidates on their ballot will be counted and affect the final election numbers and outcome.
Quadratic Voting
Quadratic Voting (QV) systems, although more easily applicable and understood for binary elections, are superior than STV or AV voting systems because it is an even more accurate way of determining the ‘will’ of the voting population because it factors in not only the number of people in favor or against an issue, but also the relative intensities of their support or opposition. Factoring a minority group’s intensity of opinion is very important for maintaining social stability and actual and apparent ‘trust’ in the voting process. However, because Quadratic Voting systems are inherently more complicated that traditional ‘one man, one vote’ systems, and because the vast majority of people are too lazy to make the effort to study the issue, it would be incredibly hard to get the necessary support for the installation of quadratic voting systems.
Multi-Winner Elections
In multi-winner elections, proportional representation election systems should be used because they increase the accuracy, fairness and legitimacy of the election. These types of elections are rare in the United States on the state and federal level, but they should be made the standard by eliminating districts altogether and making all candidates run statewide (or jurisdiction-wide, depending on the elected office being sought).
One possible proportional representation system that could be used is described below.
- First, all political parties who wish to be recognized would register as political parties.
- Then, the members of each political party who wish to run for office under their party’s flag would register as candidates of their respective parties.
- Each party would then determine the popular rank of all its candidates by holding primary elections, caucuses, conventions, sampling of party members, or other methods. Only registered members of a party can vote for or influence the selection of candidates of their own political party.
- General elections are then held in which parties compete against each other. The population would vote only for parties, not individuals. Voters can now vote for any political party, regardless of their own party affiliation. Ballots should include the pictures and names of the individuals running for each party in the order in which they have been ranked by that party.
- Ballots are then counted and parties learn what percentage of total ballots cast have been won by each party.
- Seats in government are then distributed among the parties based directly on the rounded percentage of ballots won by that party.
Eliminate Election Districts
A significant difference between our current election system and this proposal is the elimination of election districts. In races where candidates are elected to serve as part of a larger governing body (such as a Representative who is elected to serve with many other Representatives in the House of Representatives), individual districts for each candidate would be eliminated. Instead, all the voters in all these districts would vote for political parties. For example, let’s say a state is entitled to 10 representative in the House of Representatives and 46% of the people vote Democrat, 34% vote Republican, 14% vote Independent, and 6% vote Reform. Under proportional representation, 5 elected officials would come from the Democratic party, 3 would be Republican, 1 would be Independent, and 1 would be Reform. There would be no districts from which representatives are chosen. Under the current system, if this same population voted in the these same proportions throughout all the districts in the entire voting area, only Democrats would be elected to represent all ten districts, effectively leaving 54% of the people who voted for other parties without true representation. The current system is inherently unfair.
Easily Replace Elected Officials
This system also makes it easier to replace elected officials who have resigned in the middle of their terms or for whatever other reason cannot finish their terms. If a person dies or resigns before finishing their term, the next person of the same political party who received the most votes during the primary election (and who still wants the job) would automatically be the replacement and fill in for the remainder of the term.
In cases where candidates are running for offices which are singular in nature and not immediately part of a larger governing body (President, Vice-President, Governor, Mayor, etc.), voters could vote for either party or specific candidate because they would both be the same anyway.
Vice-presidents should probably be the candidate who received the second largest number of votes from the same political party from which the President was chosen. However, there may be an unhealthy amount of resentment between these top two candidates due to their campaigning against each other during the primary election. So this may not be the best solution. Nevertheless, Vice-presidents should be somehow elected by the people and they should also be from the same party. Maybe Presidents could vote for their own Vice-presidents from among the next top five candidates on the party’s ticket.
12. Last Day of Decade Holiday
The last day of each decade (Dec. 31, 1999, 2009, etc.) should be a national holiday, just like New Year’s Day. At the very least, the last day of each century should be a national holiday.
To give such a day a little more significance than just being a holiday for the last day of the year, perhaps it should be dedicated as a national day for cleaning and organization so that everyone would be encouraged to clean and organize their possessions, such as homes, cars, clothes, equipment, papers, etc., before the year is out and be ready for the new year when it arrives.
11. Halloween Holiday Transformed
There should be a day of the year (preferably Halloween) in which kids can dress up as what they want to be when they grow up while adults can dress up as what they still want to be in the future or as what they wished they would have become as adults when they were a kid. This should not be a work or school holiday, just a recognized day. It would be nice if Halloween could be changed over from a scary kind of event into this type of festivity.
In addition, this same day could be used as a Mentor’s Day in which people of all ages, but especially children dress up as, or at least honor the person or people they most admire and, possibly, hope to be like.
10. Memorial Day/Veteran’s Day/Election Day Holiday
Every national Election Day should be a national holiday. This would encourage people to study election issues and give them more time to vote.
Also, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day are very similar, perhaps too similar to have two separate holidays, even though they fall so far apart on the calendar. Therefore, both Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day should be merged into one holiday. In fact, this combined holiday could be observed on the same day as the Election Day holiday. What better way is there to commemorate veterans than with doing an activity most fought to protect?
If the population just cannot accept the fact that they are losing one paid holiday per year, maybe we can designate the Monday preceding the Election Day holiday as the merged Memorial Day/Veteran’s Day holiday.
9. Weeks Should Begin On Mondays, Not Sundays
Weeks should begin on Mondays not Sundays. This is more logical because then the weekend could accurately be defined as the end of the work week–Saturday and Sunday. Also, it is easier to think about working for the first five days and resting on the last two days of the week. Calendar publishers and others (especially academic institutions) should redesign their calendars and other information and materials to reflect a Monday start day for the week.
8. Before the Present (BP) Redefinition & BC/AD Zero Year Adjustment
Before the Present (BP) is currently based on the year 1950 AD. When they constructed this dating system in the early 1950s, they should have been a little more forward-thinking and should have chosen a much nicer, rounder number like the year 2000 AD to use as a reference point. Using this millennial number as a reference point instead would have resulted in less mental overhead when attempting to accurately perceive an event’s distance from the present.
Nevertheless, a fundamental requirement to creating a timeline is to determine which point on that timeline to use as a beginning reference point. There is nothing particularly special about the years 1950 AD or 2000 AD other than that they are nice round numbers.
It would be logical to use, if one could be found, a single, fairly recent, unique, and instantaneous event in human history as a reference point (zero point) for a timeline on which all other years would be based. No fairly recent, natural events in human history such as the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the development of agriculture or anything else readily appears to qualify as an event fit to function as a precise and unique reference point for the timeline of history. Looking to the supernatural world, something as significant as God intervening in the natural world would definitely be a significant time marker for history. In fact, we currently use a variation of this theme (the birth of Jesus Christ) as the basis of the current BC/AD dating system. Jesus’ birth, however, was only the necessary prerequisite for His ultimate purpose–His death and resurrection. Ideally, Jesus’ resurrection should be the reference (zero) point of history because that event marks the point at which God finished the purpose for His supernatural intervention on this planet. But because there is currently as much confusion about the exact date of His resurrection as there is about His birth, it may not be worth the hassle of shifting our calendar system over by 30 or so years unless we get a higher confidence on a more specific date.
Regardless of whether or not we choose to change the reference point of our current timeline, there is still a significant problem related to the the absence of a zero year on this timeline. Every properly built number line must include a zero point between negative and positive numbers. Thus, when counting years across this BC/AD transition, it is not possible to simply add the BC years to the AD years because the sum would always erroneously include an extra year. For example, 2 BC + 2 AD appears to equal 4 years, but really adds up to only 3 years. To fix this problem and make our timeline a true number line, it would be necessary to add a zero year immediately following the reference point event. Therefore, the 365 days immediately following the reference point (such as the Resurrection) would be called the year zero, or Y 0. The following year would be year 1 or Y 1. And the year immediately preceding the reference point would be year negative 1 or Y -1. All subsequent years would naturally follow a normal number line. In fact, because this new system is basically a normal number line, we could do away with the BC/AD tags and just refer to years by their numbers alone, for example, 2005AD could be the year 2005 or Y 2005 (the “Y” would signify that the following number refers to a year). Counting back in history across the transition would be less confusing than it is currently because it would be a simple matter of adding the negative and positive year numbers.
7. Adopt the 13-Month Calendar
Unfortunately, it seems to be impracticably complex to devise a true lunar month calendar in which each month averages 29.5 days (the amount of time it takes the moon to orbit the earth). In such a system every month would alternate between having 29 and 30 days. The main problems are that there is no clean and simple way to include 12.37 of these lunar months into one 365 day year while maintaining the consistency of season start dates and the simple predictability of constant month lengths. The World Calendar is another attempt at calendar simplification by having the first month of each quarter of the year contain 31 days and always begin on a Sunday and all successive months containing 30 days, respectively beginning on Wednesdays and Fridays. An additional off-calendar day would be added each year to bring the total up to 365 days. However, this calendar would still contain a significant number of the same type of problems associated with our current calendar.
The simplest and next most logical calendar system would be the 13-month calendar. Each month has 28 days (4 weeks) and each year has an extra day not associated with any month or day of the week. It would be an off-calendar day. In addition, there would also be an off-calendar leap day (once every 4 years). Each month would always begin on a Sunday and would always end on a Saturday, exactly 28 days later.
A huge benefit resulting from this calendar system is that each numerical date will always be the same day of the week. Never again would anyone need to ask, “What day of the week does the 12th fall on this month?” Countless missed appointments, misunderstandings, confusion and frustration could be avoided. The largest potential drawbacks are that each year would have an uneven number of months, possibly making multiplication and addition a little more confusing and, with 13 months, such an ‘unlucky number’ may make many people feel uneasy. Each month would also contain a Friday the 13th. But people should ‘grow up’ and get used to it. Or, to avoid the Friday the 13th dilemma, we could have the months begin on a Monday and end on a Sunday. This way, there would always be a Friday the 12th and a Saturday the 13th. An additional benefit is that Saturdays and Sundays could then be accurately called the “weekend”.
6. Redefining & Simplifying Units of Time
Decimal Metric Time
The most logical division of time would be decimal metric time with its divisions of deciday (2.4 hours) and centiday (14.4 minutes). A decimal second (0.864 second) or 100,000th of a day, would also be used.
Swatch Internet Time
As an alternative. with some modifications, Swatch Internet Time could be adopted as the global standard method of time keeping, for both international and local usage. The next best thing would be to at least adopt it as the standard international time used worldwide instead of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or Zulu Time (Z) systems. Swatch Internet Time (or beat time) divides the day into 1000 parts called “.beats”, each beat lasting 1 minute 26.4 seconds. Because this form of time keeping is decimal based, subunits such as centibeats could easily be created. Time keeping and calculation is greatly simplified because there are no hours or minutes with their non-logical, non-decimal numerical nesting. There are only beats and their decimal derivatives.
Additional simplification could be realized because time zones everywhere would be eliminated since no geographical area on the planet would ever be at a different time under this system. Furthermore, a thoroughly universally established time-keeping system would be immune to pressures to institute concepts like Daylight Saving Time since it would be counterproductive to people in the opposite hemisphere and the rigid nature of such a system would make it impractical to make local exceptions.
One major modification needed to make this a more thoroughly logical system would be to move the reference point for 000 .beats from the Central European Time zone (or UTC+1) to the International Date Line running down the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The International Date Line is the most logical place for beginning global reference systems due to the relative lack of closely neighboring, highly populated areas that would fall immediately to either side of the divide.
A couple of minor modifications to the Swatch Internet Time formatting may make it less confusing. Instead of writing the time as @730 or 730 .beats, for example, it may be better to use T 730 (the “T” being an indicator that the following number is a time) or 730 beats (without the “.” immediately before the word “beats”). Perhaps an entirely new symbol for “beats” could be developed so that just that symbol could be displayed, serving a purpose much like the $ sign for US currency.
5. Countdown Clocks
Countdown clocks for space shuttle and rocket launches should smoothly and continuously countdown without any planned pauses or stoppages. If something unexpected occurs or a problem is found, then pausing or stopping the countdown clock would be understandable. But stopping the clock at T-3 minutes, for example, for a planned 5- minute hold and a routine systems check is not understandable.
4. Simplify Time Zones
All non-standard time zones should be eliminated. Also, in the US, all of Oregon should be on Pacific Time, Idaho on Mountain Time, all of ND, SD, NE, KS, and TX should be on Central Time, and every state entirely east of the Mississippi River should be on Eastern Time.
3. The International Date Line Should Also Be the Prime Meridian
The Prime Meridian should be placed at the International Date Line. The International Date Line/Prime Meridian would then be redefined as 0° longitude. Greenwich would be at 180° longitude.
2. Abolish Daylight Saving Time
Daylight Saving Time should be abolished.
1. 24-Hour Time Should Be Standard
24-hour time should be the standard form of time kept worldwide. The AM/PM system should be abolished due to needless confusion.
25. Tax Grammatically Incorrect Business Names Or Other Commercial Usages
There should be a tax on the commercial uses of incorrect spelling and grammar. For example, Krispy Kreme should be required to pay a tax for using these incorrect spellings. Another example would be when names and proper nouns are not capitalized on commercial products (books, movies, etc.). Written names like “adam smith” should be taxed, for example. This type of tax would help discourage incorrect uses of language and slow down and help prevent the corruption and evolution of the English language.
24. Electromagnetic Frequency Tax
The governments of all political jurisdictions (city, county, state, country, etc.) may regulate, tax and sell electromagnetic spectrum frequencies for active use. However, all levels of government (with permission from higher levels, if necessary) should have the right of eminent domain to any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum so long as they notify users with plenty of time and compensate them fairly for the costs and inconveniences involved in the transitions. Passive use of the spectrum (ex. telescopes, radio receivers) would not be taxed or regulated.
23. Penalty Tax On Vehicles Not Meeting US Safety Or Pollution Control Standards
Safety Standards
All foreign vehicles entering US territory must meet minimum US safety standards. Such vehicles must be registered annually with US authorities to receive the proper approval. The same regulations and penalties should apply to foreign vehicles as apply to domestic vehicles, and the fees charged should cover all costs related to enforcement. Major safety concerns should result in grounding, but minor concerns should be fined sufficiently, varying based on their severity.
Pollution Fines
The fines for vehicle pollution should use the same regulations and penalties in effect for domestic vehicles, namely a fine for each unit of pollution of each type emitted. Perhaps odometer readings, hours of run time, or other measures could be taken both while entering and exiting the country to determine the total cost for such fines.
22. Aesthetic Penalty Tax
A fine for aesthetic deficiency should be levied on properties that appear considerably unaesthetic in relation to the surrounding neighborhood and significantly below the community’s ‘average look and feel’. After a complaint about an unaesthetic property has been submitted, a group of trained, qualified evaluators, probably composed of community representatives, the city council, and/or others not directly acquainted with the parties involved in the dispute, would compare that property to others in the neighborhood and then assign an aesthetic grade to the property in question. Photographs of the offending property and other neighboring and similar kinds of properties in the neighborhood would be taken for reference purposes and to allow all members of the deciding committee to make comparisons. If the property is given a passing grade, no fines or any other action would be taken. If the property is given a failing grade, a fine would be applied that is proportional to the degree to which it failed. The minimum fine should be $100 for extremely minor offenses, like leaving a garbage can out past the allowable time. Furthermore, a notice would be issued to the property owner and occupant (if they are different people) requiring them to fix the aesthetic pollutant within one month or within another reasonable time period, at which time their will be another aesthetic inspection. If they fail this second inspection regardless of the degree to which they fail, the same time frame for compliance would again be issued but the original fines would be doubled.
Any individual may submit an aesthetic complaint concerning any kind of property, whether it is private, public, commercial, or anything else. Complaints about unsightly infrastructures, telephone poles, cell phone towers, poorly maintained landscaping, graffiti, illegal signs, and anything else could be allowed. However, any person submitting a complaint must be required to pay a $25 filing fee. Such a fee would help filter out trivial complaints. If such complaints prove valid, the fee would be returned. In addition, if a fine is assessed to the property owner, the original informant(s) who submitted the original complaint would be entitled to receive a significant portion of that fine as compensation and reward for informing authorities about the aesthetic violation.
21. Lottery & Gambling Tax
Lottery sales (and all gambling with a completely random chance of winning based on pure luck) should be levied special gambling taxes so that every level of government having jurisdiction over the location where the sale was made should each receive 10% of the purchase price of the ticket. For example, if a $1 lottery ticket were purchased in the city of Los Angeles, 10% of $1, or 10 cents, would be given to the federal government, 10 cents would be given to the state of California, 10 cents would be given to the county of Los Angeles, and 10 cents would be given to the city of Los Angeles. In other words, there would be a 40% gambling tax on the purchase price of that ticket in the city of Los Angeles. If any jurisdiction chooses not to levy their 10% tax, then the federal government should receive that share, as well. In addition to these gambling taxes, regular sales taxes would be added to the cost of the gambling ticket. Thus, in order for a consumer to purchase a $1 lottery ticket in the city of Los Angeles which has an 9.75% sales tax rate, that consumer would be required to pay a total of $1.50 for the transaction (40 cents for the gambling taxes plus the regular sales tax). If a $1 lottery ticket were purchased in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, then the gambling tax would be only 30% because no incorporated city exists at the point of sale to receive its 10% share.
The reason for this tax is to help prevent people from wasting their money on gambling. However, if people choose to gambling, governments should use it as a fundraising activity, namely, taxing such behavior for the benefit of reduced taxes for the rest of society.
20. War Tax
A war tax should be instituted for a specific purpose, like when the United States is engaged (or plans to be engaged) in a significant military intervention or war. This would be a a tax (like a sales tax) that would be imposed for a specific purpose and would expire once the conflict has ended.
This same principle could be applied for other purposes like Superfund cleanup site funding, nuclear decommissioning, etc.
19. Weapons Environmental Tax
All military weapons or munitions that have any measurable or significant negative environmental effect when used (such as bullets, bombs, and almost everything else), even if such an effect is merely inert litter, should be assessed an environmental tax based on the degree of their negative environmental impacts. Almost by definition, such munitions will ultimately end up as litter in the environment.
Assess Tax On Purchase, Refund If Necessary
Ideally, these taxes should only be imposed when these weapons are used in war, during practice, or lost or destroyed by accident resulting in munitions polluting the environment (due to plane crashes, ships sinking, etc.). However, such records would be too difficult to maintain, so imposing this tax upon purchase would be much easier. Then, the military purchaser could receive a full refund of this tax when they decommission and recycle those weapons that were never used and properly disposed. This way the military would have a small economic incentive to use less polluting weapons when they become available.
Tax Components
Some factors to be considered when determining the proper level of the environmental tax for each weapon or munitions should include the absolute quantity of pollution released by the weapon, the scale of environmental contamination (esp. what fraction of all contaminants has been injected into the ground and/or water, with less of an emphasis on air pollution), persistence of each pollutant in the environment, harmfulness or toxicity of each pollutant to the biosphere, etc. Every part of the weapon/munitions should be considered, including chemicals (and their common chemical descendants in the natural environment), explosion gas products, shrapnel, and any other debris directly originating from the munition. This tax could be itemized for each pollutant (regardless of weapon type) so that the military knows exactly how much each weapon will be taxed and how such a tax breaks down per component. For example, if one munition has 2 ounces of mercury, 10 ounces of lead, and 50 pounds of steel, and assuming that the tax for mercury is set at $10 per ounce, and for lead it is set at $5 per ounce and steel’s tax is .10¢ per pound, it could be determined that the total environmental tax for that weapon would be $75. These tax rates could obviously be refined and updated as new information warrants. Even pollutants like steel, though not really chemically harmful to the environment, does litter the landscape with often sharp shrapnel and so should be charged a small environmental tax. Even though the same weapon may have significantly different environmental effects depending on the type of environment in which it is used, the differences being essentially wet or dry environments, only one tax rate should be applied to each pollutant for simplicity’s sake.
Benefits of This Tax
Apart from the clear environmental benefits, an additional significant benefit to such a policy is that this would indicate to our enemies and others that we are interested in minimizing the long-term negative environmental effects of war and that we are willing to take significant measures to protect their environment. Environmentally friendly weapons would send one, if any, positive message that an enemy could receive from its opponent during warfare, working to soften the rage, to various degrees, that an enemy population would have against its opponent.
18. Bycatch Penalties
To reduce the amount of collateral environmental damage during harvesting activities, fines should be imposed for each biological organism that is unintentionally killed, harmed, captured, or otherwise negatively affected during the process of normal fishing or environmental harvesting activities. The amount of such fines may vary with each species to reflect each species’ environmental value to its ecosystem, its rarity or legally protected status, or its risk of extinction.
For example, a dolphin becoming entangled and injured within a tuna fishing net would result in a $50 fine. If the dolphin were to die because of the entanglement, the fine could be $100. Another example is shrimp harvesting which results in large amounts of collateral damage occurring to the biology of seafloors. In case like this where it would be prohibitively time consuming and expensive to count all the species affected, other methods can be used, such as imposing a penalty based on the percentage of bycatch to total catch. The higher the percentage of bycatch, the higher the penalty.
Such a policy would encourage the development and adoption of technologies that increase the accuracy of targeted harvesting methods while minimizing damage to fisheries and other parts of the ecosystem.
If the penalties were set to correct levels, the free markets would function to adequately enforce such regulations. For example, one possible easy solution would be to require the video recording of every catch as it is hauled onto the boats. Such videos would be reviewed either in real time or later by inspectors and fines would then be determined. The penalties associated with violations for failure to adequately record the catches, either due to forgetting to turn the equipment on, equipment malfunction or whatever other reason, should result in penalties sufficiently higher to make the fishermen wish they had not forgotten to turn on their equipment, had installed fail-safe technologies that would have warned them about malfunctioning equipment, or taken whatever other measures would have been necessary to avoid the penalties.
17. Foreign Sales Revenue Tax
Businesses or corporations based or headquartered in one country, but with significant sales in a foreign country, should have those sales in that foreign country treated, for tax purposes, as if they were revenues generated by independent businesses within that foreign country.
For example, Sony Corporation is a Japanese-based business having total global sales revenues (2008) of $79 billion including US sales revenues of $20 billion. For Japanese tax purposes, Sony should be taxed on its total income of $79 billion. But for US tax purposes, Sony should be taxed just as though it were a $20 billion US-based business. These US tax revenues should be paid to the US government.
This would provide a significant economic disincentive for producers operating in foreign markets. It would also help discourage companies with large US-based operations from moving their headquarters offshore just to get away from paying US taxes.
16. Junk Food Tax
A junk food tax of at least 15% should be levied on ‘junk foods’ that exceed a certain calorie-to-nutritional value ratio as determined by an unbiased organization of food and health professionals. Generally, foods containing excessively high amounts of saturated fats, salt, fat, carbohydrates and/or sugar would be classified as junk foods. Soda and French fries would fall into this category. Although each country should, at the very least, develop its own ratio which would define the boundaries of junk food, the ideal approach would be to work towards developing a global standard definition of junk food by agreeing and adhering to one common ratio. Therefore, a United Nations body or another reputable international health organization should eventually be responsible for developing the definition of junk food and coming up with a calorie-to-nutritional value ratio. Nevertheless, it may not be practical to have just one ratio applied to the definition of junk food globally due to the infeasibility of applying the same standard to dramatically different cultural dietary norms.
Salt and Sugar Tax
Additionally, salt and sugar packages intended for human consumption should also have special taxes imposed, but only at the wholesale level. A retail level tax would be too labor intensive logistically and overly complicate the tax system at the retail level. This wholesale tax should be set perhaps at around 15%. This tax would naturally be reflected at the retail level to contribute to the desired effect of reducing the human consumption of salt and sugar.
Liquor and Tobacco
Liquor products should also fall under this junk food category and be levied this tax. Tobacco, although not a source for any significant amount of neither calories nor nutritional value, nevertheless should also be defined as a junk food.
15. Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax
A tax should be charged on all vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, etc.) for every miles (or kilometer) traveled. These vehicles, which almost exclusively benefit from and use these road, can be reasonably required to pay for their construction and upkeep. A variance should be allowed in the rate of this tax so that heavier vehicles, like trucks, pay proportionally more than lighter ones due to the greater damage they inflict on roadways under normal operations. Motorcycles should pay among the lowest tax per mile.
The ultimate level of this tax would be set so that it is sufficient to cover all costs associated with roadway infrastructures.
Related Taxes?
Additional types of vehicle use taxes could be constructed to address other concerns, although additional software and infrastructures would be necessary. For example, congestion pricing could impose a tax on driving during times of high congestion so as to encourage people to drive at off-peak hours. Road pricing could impose a tax on vehicles using certain roadways, such as express lanes, or even commonly congested routes to encourage people to use alternative routes.
Bicycles
Perhaps bicycles should be exempt from these taxes because they are so light, they do not necessarily require the infrastructural investments of heavy roadways for their operation, because they would require the installation of odometers and because it would require a system of annual (or periodic) registration to enable an effective enforcement. All of this is doable, and perhaps should be done, especially if bicycle ridership increases to become a major mode of transportation. If bicycles are imposed this tax, they should obviously be the lowest of any other vehicles because of their minimal demands of infrastructure.
14. Natural Environmental Harvest Tax
To minimize human induced pressures on natural ecosystems as well as to encourage greater recycling efforts, a natural resource extraction tax of between 10-15% of the raw material’s value should be levied on all biological (fish, trees, etc.) and non-biological (coal, oil, iron ore, etc.) virgin extractions from the natural environment.
13. Pollution Tax
Every unit of pollution released into the environment by human activities, beginning with the first unit, should be taxed or penalized. Whether the pollutant is emitted as a natural part of the production process or as a result of an accident, each unit should be taxed at the same rate. Generally, penalties should be directly proportional to the amount of pollution and penalizing each unit (of any given pollutant) at the same rate is the fairest, simplest, and most effective way to reduce pollution from all sources, whether they be point, non-point, or mobile sources of pollution. Each type of pollutant should be penalized at different unit rates because each pollutant negatively impacts the environment in a different way and to a different degree. The per-unit penalty for each pollutant should be set through agreement between scientists, government and industry, perhaps during discussions taking place during industry congress meetings.
There should be no such things as allowable emission levels, mandatory pollution caps, emission permits, emission trading, pollution credits, etc. Everybody should be allowed to pollute as much as they want, so long as they pay the fixed penalty for each unit they release. If the penalties for each unit of pollution are set correctly, there would be no significant pollution crisis. If there is a pollution crisis, we can simply increase the per-unit penalty for that pollutant or, only with extremely valid reasons, we could use an exponential pollution fine structure (where a higher rate is paid for each additional unit of pollution released) as opposed to a proportional one.
Each unit of natural gas that is flared should be charged a tax as should also each component of the various pollutants discharged with that natural gas. The idea is to encourage the capture and sale of this non-renewable resource, because we are definitely going to wish we hadn’t wasted so much of it so frivolously when we are on the down slope of the global production curve.
12. Profit tax
A progressive tax specifically on profits should be levied on businesses with total revenues that exceed $1,000,000 per year, and whose profits exceed 1% of total revenues. To calculate this tax, each qualifying business would need to multiply its rate of profitability (total revenue minus all expenses, including taxes) with the actual amount of profit.
Profit Tax Example
To see how such a tax would affect profits, let’s use the example of a business which earned a total revenue of $2 million, $1.8 million of which went to pay all business expenses and the remaining $200,000 being profits. Since this profit amount is equal to 10% of its total revenue, then 10% of this $200,000, or $20,000, would be required to be paid to fulfill the profit tax. If instead of $200,000 this business had only a $20,000 profit or less, it would fall below the 1% profit threshold for this tax, thus no profit tax would be owed. On the other hand, if this business had a $1 million profit, this would equate to a 50% profit. Therefore, 50% of this profit, or $500,000, would be owed to fulfill the profit tax.
Purpose For This Profit Tax
The reason for such a tax is that extraordinarily large profits for one or a few companies indicate an imbalance in the market, namely not enough competition. When one company can consistently earn large profits as a percentage of its revenue, that means that its price for the product or service offered is too high. Such a tax as this would further encourage other companies to enter the market and operate successfully at lower profit margins. It is not the government’s place, nor would it be fair for it to set absolute targets or limits on any business’ profitability, however, a general structure of discouraging super large profits could and should be created. This type of system would also help discourage price gouging and would help make the economic environment a little less favorable to giant, super-profitable businesses, increasing the economic space for smaller, mom-and-pop businesses.
11. Market Share Tax
Businesses should pay a progressive tax based on their market share (new sales only, not existing products or services in circulation) so that as their market share increases, the rate of this tax increases. The market share of each business would be determined for every political jurisdiction in which that business operates or to which it sells (city, county, state, national, and perhaps even international). Due to different markets having significantly different characteristics such as the number of suppliers and consumers, types of products sold, and other market particulars, it is reasonable that each market should have slightly different progressive market share tax rate schedules. A company that sells one or a few products or services can determine its market share within a political jurisdiction by dividing the number of products it sold in that jurisdiction by the total number of same or similar products sold by all other suppliers in that same jurisdiction. For companies that sell a wide variety of similar products, market share would be determined by grouping their sales into categories and dividing the number of products they sold within each category by the total number of products sold by all other suppliers within the same category. The government, in cooperation with the market participants, would be responsible for defining such categories and would also be responsible for compiling the final sales figures for all market participants for each product or category of products for all relevant political jurisdictions to use in determining their market share.
To prevent this tax from becoming a burden and aggravation to clearly small businesses that do not significantly threaten market stability, all companies who comprise less than 15% of the market share should not be required to pay any of this market share tax.
Constructing the Tax
The rule of thumb should be that a larger number of providers would lower the market share threshold for triggering this specific type of tax. The table below describes the tax rate structure for markets with different numbers of suppliers.
Market Share Tax Rate Proposal
Number of Suppliers | Proportional Market Share | Allowable Market Share – Market Share Tax triggered at these rates |
Difference between Proportional and Allowable Market Share Rates Before Tax is Triggered |
1 | 100% | 100% | N/A – No Tax |
2 | 50% | 85% | 35% |
3 | 33.3% | 60% | 26.7% |
4 | 25% | 40% | 15% |
5 | 20% | 30% | 10% |
6 | 16.6% | 25% | 8.4% |
7 | 14.3% | 22% | 7.7% |
8 | 12.5% | 20% | 7.5% |
9 | 11.1% | 18% | 6.6% |
10 or more | 10% or less | 15% | 5% or more (theoretically up to 15%) |
We will use the airline industry to show how such a tax may be implemented. Airlines, like many companies, often use cross-subsidies to enhance their position in markets where others may have the natural advantage. The amount of such a market share tax could vary widely but should always be determined after factoring in all relevant variables, namely the number of producers/suppliers in the specific market and the degree of market share attained by each supplier.
The actual tax amount would be determined by multiplying the degree (in percentage points) that a company exceeds its allowable market share on a specific route by the total revenues that company generates on that route. For example, if a total of three airlines offer 20 daily flights between two cities, and airline #1 has 14 of those flights, that would constitute a 70% market share (let’s assume that each plane has the same number of seats). Let’s say airline #2 has 4 daily flights and airline #3 has 2 flights. Under the rules of this proposal, airline #1’s 14 daily flights would constitute a market share of 70%, thus triggering this tax. Thus, the airline exceeded this limit by 2 flights (equivalent to 10% of the market). Assuming that each flight grosses that airline $10,000, a total of $140,000 would constitute its daily revenues. The actual dollar amount of this market share tax would then be determined by multiplying the $140,000 total revenues generated by participation in the market in which it exceeded it allowable limit, by 10% (equivalent to the excess participation rate in the market). Therefore, this airline’s market share tax would be $14,000 per day. The airline could avoid this tax by reducing its flights to a maximum of 12 per day in this market.
Purpose For This Market Share Tax
The purpose of this tax is to help ensure stability, fairness, competitiveness, and opportunity within markets, mainly by making it more difficult for any one or a few companies to control the vast majority of the market. This tax is also designed to help ensure that if the top market supplier is suddenly eliminated from the market due to some crisis such as a strike, bankruptcy, destruction of production facilities, or other occurrence, there would be enough excess production or service capacity among all the rest of the market suppliers to help the market weather the crisis without society suffering significant product or service shortages and without precipitating acute price volatility or sending destructive price shocks throughout the market or wider economy. Market share dominating suppliers could also potentially cause havoc by making certain business decisions such as drastically increasing prices, lowering production levels or lowering the quality of production. By progressively taxing businesses that increasingly dominate market share (thus increasing their operating costs), they would be discouraged from ever attaining such large sizes that would inherently result in the creation of potentially unfavorable or even disastrous market conditions.
In some industries, especially electronics and computing, an additional benefit of such a market share tax may be to encourage market participants to engage in greater cooperation to design standards that would benefit the industry (and society) as a whole since it would be harder for any single company to gain and maintain such a large market share to make it profitable for it to maintain its own proprietary standards and/or infrastructures.
10. Income Tax & Negative Income Tax
Income tax rates (for all entities, including individuals and businesses) should be progressive but calculated using a smooth algebraic formula rather than inherently unfair tax brackets and should be based on total gross yearly earnings before any deductions for retirement contributions, tax payments or anything else are made. Income from all sources, including labor, investment income, gambling winnings and punitive awards, should be included, except income meant as direct compensation for a loss (such as compensatory insurance monies). Gifts, tips and inheritances are also not required to be included.
Since income is an active economic activity, the sales tax would be applied to it. Everyone, including the very poor, must pay the standard sales tax rate on the income they earn. This sales tax, in effect, would be their income tax. A specific income tax would be levied on any individual making more than $50,000 per year.
Negative Income Tax
A negative income tax (NIT) would be paid out to all adult citizens (any citizen 16 years and older will qualify, but at a half rate until age 18, when full rates are provided) to dramatically simplify (or in some cases eliminate) the administrative costs associate with a plethora of other welfare programs. In addition, an NIT would eliminate the perverse incentives, known as the ‘welfare trap’, that often result within other aid programs, when the consequences of earning any relatively small income cause the recipient to become ineligible for continued aid payments, which, in effect results in a significantly smaller overall income.
The formula used for calculating personal income tax rates will be higher than that used for calculating business income tax rates in order to better fit each category’s revenue ranges.
Instead of using tax brackets, a much fairer way to charge income taxes is through the use of a smooth algebraic formula that generates a slightly higher tax rate for each additional dollar of income. The charts below give examples of various income levels and the tax rates that would be associated with those levels according to this smooth algebraic formula.
Individual Income Tax Rate Proposal
Tax Rate | Total Income | Taxes Paid | Net Income |
0% | $0 | -$12,500 | $12,500 |
0% | $10,000 | -$10,000 | $20,000 |
0% | $20,000 | -7,500 | $27,500 |
0% | $30,000 | -$5,000 | $35,000 |
0% | $40,000 | -$2,500 | $42,500 |
0% | $50,000 | $0 | $50,000 |
5% | $100,000 | $5,000 | $95,000 |
10% | $250,000 | $25,000 | $225,000 |
20% | $500,000 | $100,000 | $400,000 |
30% | $1,000,000 | $300,000 | $700,000 |
40% | $5,000,000 | $2,000,000 | $3,000,000 |
50% | $10,000,000 | $5,000,000 | $5,000,000 |
60% | $50,000,000 | $30,000,000 | $20,000,000 |
70% | $100,000,000 | $70,000,000 | $30,000,000 |
80% | $1,000,000,000 | $800,000,000 | $200,000,000 |
90% | $10,000,000,000 | $9,000,000,000 | $1,000,000,000 |
95% | $100,000,000,000 | $95,000,000,000 | $5,000,000,000 |
99% | $1,000,000,000,000 | $990,000,000,000 | $10,000,000,000 |
Business Income Tax Rate Proposal
Tax Rate | Total Revenues | Taxes Paid | Net Revenues |
0% | $0 | $0 | $0 |
0% | $1,000,000 | $0 | $1,000,000 |
10% | $10,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $9,000,000 |
20% | $100,000,000 | $20,000,000 | $80,000,000 |
30% | $1,000,000,000 | $300,000,000 | $700,000,000 |
40% | $10,000,000,000 | $4,000,000,000 | $6,000,000,000 |
50% | $100,000,000,000 | $50,000,000,000 | $50,000,000,000 |
60% | $1,000,000,000,000 | $600,000,000,000 | $400,000,000,000 |
70% | $10,000,000,000,000 | $7,000,000,000,000 | $3,000,000,000,000 |
80% | $100,000,000,000,000 | $80,000,000,000,000 | $20,000,000,000,000 |
90% | $1,000,000,000,000,000 | $900,000,000,000,000 | $100,000,000,000,000 |
95% | $10,000,000,000,000,000 | $9,500,000,000,000,000 | $500,000,000,000,000 |
99% | $100,000,000,000,000,000 | $99,000,000,000,000,000 | $1,000,000,000,000,000 |
9. Export Taxes
As a general rule, special export taxes or tariffs (as opposed to standard Political Boundary Taxes) should not be levied, although each country has the right to impose whatever level of export taxes or other restrictions it wishes on any of its exports.
Export taxes should ideally be levied on products which the national government may want to reserve for domestic supplies or use for other internal purposes. Petroleum and other mineral reserves are perhaps some of the clearest examples. High-end computing equipment, and other advanced technologies are other examples.
Export taxes should also be levied on products or services (mainly military) which may negatively contribute to political or military stability elsewhere around the world. Such a tax may help slow the speed of military escalations and reduce the intensity of arms races. A ban, rather than export taxes, may be the better option for many categories of military equipment.
8. US Territories and Possessions: Representation and Taxation
US territories and possessions should be guaranteed one seat in the House of Representatives for every twice the average number of people represented by each Representative of the 50 states. For example, if 600,000 is the number of people represented by the average member of the House of Representatives, then, for a US territory or possession to be allowed a representative, it would need to have a population that rounds out to 1.2 million (2 x 600,000) instead of rounding to zero. In other words, territories and possessions would be entitled to one representative for every 1.2 million people. Thus, they would be required to have a population between 600,000 and 1.8 million to get one representative. To get two representatives, their population would need to average to 2.4 million, or fall between 1.8 and 3.0 million people, and so on.
Under this formula, only Puerto Rico would be eligible to elect a Representative, in fact, it would be entitled to three Representatives because it has a population of nearly 4 million. All other territories and possessions would not be eligible because of insufficient populations.
Because these territories and possessions are not fully permanent members of the US, they should not be entitled to full representation. But because they are part of the US, they should be entitled to some representation. Half as much representation compared to the regular US population seems fair.
However, because these areas are part of the US, and because these territories do receive half as much representation (regardless of whether or not they actually have Representatives due to rounding), all territories and possessions should be subject to half the federal tax rates charged in the US. For example, if a federal tax on something is 2% in the mainland US, then these territories and possessions would be levied a 1% tax.
7. Distinct Nested Entities Treated as One for Tax Purposes (Revenue, Market-Share, Profit Taxes)
Corporations, companies and other business entities as well as their wholly-owned subsidiaries or portions thereof should be treated as single entities for purposes of tax law. A corporation, company or other business entity which has acquired, merged with, or otherwise controls one or more other corporations, companies or business entities, should be treated as one entity referred to by the name of the top controlling economic entity within which all these other entities are nested. Revenue taxes, market share taxes and profit taxes would all be based on the combined revenues, combined market shares (within each market category), and combined profits of all of these distinct nested businesses.
If a daughter company is owned only partly by a parent company, say 60%, then only 60% of this particular daughter company’s revenue, market share figures, and profit should be added to the parent company’s figures to determine the parent company’s tax obligations. Conversely, the daughter company would only have to pay these same kinds of taxes based on only the 40% of its own company which it owns.
6. Buyer’s & Seller’s Sales Tax Charged On All Transactions
When buyers and sellers, who are each located in different political jurisdictions, engage in an economic transaction (the buying and selling of goods or services), the sales tax rate in each, the buyer’s and seller’s political jurisdiction, should be applied to the transaction. The buyer should be required to pay the sales tax rates for both jurisdictions in which the transaction is taking place.
For example, if someone in the city of Los Angeles, wants to buy a $20 book from a company in New York City, the buyer would be required to pay both the 9.75% sales tax rate of Los Angeles plus the 8.875% (for example) sales tax rate of New York City. In other words, the buyer would be required to pay a 18.625% sales tax on this purchase, bringing the cost of this transaction to $23.73. The seller would be responsible for distributing the collected taxes to the appropriate governments.
Some states charge ‘use’ taxes which are rarely collected because of the often self-reporting nature of the tax, lax enforcement and general ignorance about this tax. This proposal would standardize this tax principle for all transactions, wherever buyers and sellers reside.
Such a tax structure would tend to encourage more local economic transactions, thus favoring smaller, ‘mom-and-pop’ businesses as opposed to larger, more efficient business.
Sales Tax Apply to Portion Actually Paid
A sales tax should be applied to only the actual price paid for a product or service. When there are special discounts, coupons, promotions, 2-for-1 offers, rebates, contracts, etc., the sales tax should only be based on the actual price that customer ended up paying. If a merchant gets reimbursed by a third party (like the manufacturer) for the value of the rebates or discount, then it should be the merchant that would be required to pay the sales tax on the portion for which they reimbursed the merchant.
For example, tax regulations concerning a cellphone (e.g., $600 full value) sold at a discounted price (e.g., $200) as part of a contract for one or two years, should only only require the customer to pay a sales tax based on the actual price the customer paid ($200) for the phone.
5. Tax Trade Across Political Boundaries
Trade across political boundaries should be taxed. Generally, the more significant the political boundary, the higher the tax rate (tariff). This tax wouldn’t apply to people who buy things within the same jurisdiction or who travel to one political jurisdiction and buy things within that same jurisdiction. It would only apply if the seller ships the item to the customer in a different jurisdiction. Trade across city boundaries would be lowest (perhaps 1%), counties would be higher (perhaps 3%). Interstate trade would be taxed at an even higher rate (perhaps 5%) while tariffs of at least 10% should be levied on all imported goods and services which cross an international border. These taxes would tend to prevent the formation of large super-efficient businesses which often gain very large portions of market share. These taxes would also make it easier for smaller, ‘mom-and-pop’ businesses to open up and succeed.
For countries with human trafficking or other forms of immoral behavior that is not tied to a specific product, import taxes (tariffs) should be levied on all imports from that country so that there is an effective economic incentive to cease such practices.
4. Ban Tax Deductions, Credits, Exemptions, Pre-Tax Money, & Other Tax Tricks
As a rule, all of these tax reducing methods should be eliminated. The tax code should be kept simple and any exceptions to the code should be kept to a bare minimum, be temporary, and have very valid justifications. Thus, things like charitable giving should not be allowed tax deductions, neither should the depreciation of any assets qualify for tax credits. Under the closing of these loopholes, child tax credits would also disappear, as would tax-free retirement contributions. The tax-exempt status of all non-profit organizations should also be eliminated so that they are required to pay the normal tax rates required of all other economic entities.
All these tax reducing tricks make the tax code too complicated, and this complexity directly causes the following negative effects:
1. Taxpayer frustration due to too many rules to follow and things to research to make sure they are not missing some ‘hidden’ benefits that apply to them
2. An increase in the taxpayer’s amount of time and/or money necessary to figure out and prepare taxes, or to pay to have someone else prepare them
3. Such complexity produces a regressive tendency to the tax code because the wealthy can afford to find the tricks to reduce their tax liabilities while the person holding two or three jobs cannot afford the same luxury
4. Increases the need for completing complicated yearly tax forms that serve as a functional framework allowing all these complex tax rules (tricks) to be woven together with some sort of coherence
5. Increases the ability of special interest groups to dramatically warp (and complicate) the tax code
6. Increases the general lack of faith in the fairness of the tax system
7. Wastes paper, postage and labor
Why have a complex tax code, if a simple one will do the job? The complex one will have higher overhead costs and, because of its complexity, will be perceived (whether correctly or incorrectly) as being inherently unfair. In the end, whether the tax code is simple or complex, the government is going to collect all the money it needs to operate. On average, tax incentives for whatever causes do not result in tax savings, because that just means that everything else will be taxed more to make up for the difference. In addition, these tax incentives work to create unbalanced, unnatural market places. A properly constructed simplified tax code could provide many of the benefits that tax incentives were created to provide. The tax code needs to be consistent and everything needs to be taxed according to the same rules. Otherwise, the free market will not be truly free to function as intended.
Individual/Joint Tax Return
There should be no such things as joint tax returns. Everyone should file his or her taxes individually and separately.
3. Progressive Taxation
The tax code should be progressive for two main reasons.
#1 Same Basic Needs For Everyone
First, because everyone has basically the same biological needs, thus roughly requires the same amount of physical necessities to live at a basic level of comfort, it follows that everyone requires a certain amount of resources (usually denominated in currency) to provide for these necessities which they have little to no choice (little or no discretion) but to purchase. The lower the income level of an individual, the higher the percentage of their income is dedicated for such basic, non-discretionary needs. As income levels rise, a smaller percentage of such income is dedicated to meeting the basic needs like food, clothing and shelter. Conversely, as incomes rise, a larger percentage of that income is classified as discretionary, meaning that the earners can relatively easily choose to spend it on things other than essential elements.
#2 Those Who Benefit More, Pay More
Second, because governments have the responsibility to create and maintain stable social and economic environments that facilitate economic activity, thus higher standards of living (namely, greater discretionary income), it is reasonable to require those who have successfully worked to enjoy a greater realization of these potential benefits, to pay a higher tax rate as a form of compensation, acknowledgement and gratitude to the government and by extension to the greater society from which the government was formed.
Income Tax Makes Tax Code Progressive
Income, both for individuals and businesses, is the best single variable to target in order to make the tax code progressive. If done correctly, this should be the most significant manipulation of the tax code for purposes of making it more fairly progressive. However, another tool could be a luxury tax applied on luxury items, such as personal yachts and airplanes, mansions, high-end jewelry, etc.
2. Tax Only Active Economic Activity
Tax Active Economic Activity
Since governments are the primary parties responsible for creating and maintaining an environment where fair economic activities are free to take place, it is reasonable to fund this effort and compensate governments by allowing taxes to be charged upon each economic transaction that takes place. Governments should raise the vast majority of their revenues through the taxing of active economic activities (namely, sales taxes on all goods and services).
Proportional Sales Taxes On All Transactions
As a rule, a proportional sales tax should be levied on all active economic activities. Active economic activities would be defined as any activity in which a good or service was exchanged for another good or service. In other words, virtually every good or service sold would be subject to a sales tax.
To adequately illustrate the pervasive nature of this type of sales tax, examples would include labor (wages/income), food, rent, real estate purchases, gambling purchases, stock and bond purchases, investment income (such as stock dividend payments, real estate income, interest income, etc.), utility purchases (water, electricity, natural gas, etc.), business-to-business sales (when sold to distinct economic entities), purchases by non-profits, purchases by governments, and all other goods and services at the point of sale regardless of who the parties to the transaction may be. The sales tax applied to all these transactions would be the same. If governments need more money, they would raise the rate, or if they need less, they would lower the rate. Never should different sales tax rates exist for different goods or services within the same political jurisdiction. That would inevitably lead to unnecessary complexity of the tax code.
Non-Profit Organizations Should Not Enjoy Any Tax-Exempt Status
These organizations (churches, charities, educational, etc.) should pay taxes at the same rate as everyone else.
Passive Economic Activity Should Not Be Taxed
Passive economic activities, which are activities that do not include the buying or selling of a good or service, should not be subjected to any form of taxation. Examples of passive economic activities include the appreciation in the value of goods (capital gains), merely owning goods (such as property), gifts (including tips (gratuities), etc.) under $500,000, inheritance or estate transfers under $500,000, compensatory payments (such as insurance payouts for damages), catching a ball that was hit into the stands or other sports memorabilia gained in such manner, and other such instances in which economic activity takes place without a corresponding exchange of goods or services.
Any gifts, inheritance or estate transfers with a cumulative value of over $500,000 should have this excess value treated as income taxed accordingly.
1. Tax System Fundamentals
No Tax On Tax
Taxes should not be charged on taxes within the same transaction. All percentage-based taxes should be based only on the actual pretax cost of the good or service at the point of sale. For example, it would be wrong if a $10 product is charged an excise tax of $2 as well as a sales tax of 10% that is based on a $12 cost of the product. If the 10% sales tax is based on the $10 cost of the product, there would be no violation because the $2 excise tax would not be included in the factoring of the 10% sales tax. The correct cost of the product would be $13. If a purchaser (such as a retailer) who bought this product for $13 and resold it for any other amount, say $20, then $20 would become the new base price. If a 10% sales tax is applied, the product would then cost a buyer $22. All previous taxes charged during that product’s history would be irrelevant since this is a new transaction.
Party Receiving Payment Must Pay Tax
The party receiving the money in exchange for a good or service should be responsible for paying the taxes on that transaction. This is normally what occurs when people buy things at a store–the customer pays for the items and all applicable taxes, and the store is responsible for properly distributing those tax dollars. This principle should apply to all tax payments. Nobody should ever be reimbursed for any extra costs they incur for collecting taxes, unless that entity was unjustly required to go through an extra expense of time, money or other resource.
Payroll Tax
For example, all payroll taxes should be paid by the employee–the person receiving the payment. Employers buy labor from employees, so employees are the people receiving the money and they should be the people responsible for paying the taxes. The employer should not be required to pay any portion of these taxes. Although the employee can request that the employer pay these taxes from the employee’s pay to make life easier, the employer could refuse to do so, or the employer could charge a fee in order to do so. It is the employee’s responsibility to make sure that the tax is arranged to be paid and is actually paid.
Barter Tax
The market value of bartered items should be taxed at regular sales tax rates. Each party to the barter arrangement would be responsible for paying the tax based on the estimated market value of the bartered items. Receipts for bartering transactions would be created, as they should for all transactions, and they should state the estimated market value as well as the sales taxes due.
Estimated Tax Payments Should Never Be Required
Nobody should ever have to pay an estimated tax. Only known tax bills should be paid. By definition, an estimated tax is one which nobody really knows the amount, because it is too early to have finished all the calculations necessary for a definitive determination. If the people charging the tax can’t wait until a final tax amount is determined, they’ll need to speed up the process used for finding how much tax is owed. The best way this could be done is by dramatically simplifying the tax code so that people could more quickly determine any tax obligations and by charging taxpayers as they earn their income throughout the year.
8. New Reference Unit for Measure of Energy
The standard unit for the measure and comparison of energy (including work and quantity of heat) should be a new unit (though still could be called a ‘calorie’) which is equal to the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one liter of water 1˚ Celsius. Such a standard unit of energy would be much simpler to visualize than the current standard because a much more common volume of liquid is used (1 liter) as the basis for determining this unit.
Another option may be to define this new unit according to the energy required to raise the temperature from 0˚ C to 100˚, but this is a relatively large amount of energy and may result too often, perhaps, in the uncomfortable use of centi-, milli-, etc., in the laboratory and when measuring the energy/calories in foods, among other things. Also, defining the new unit as a measure of a 100˚ C change, even though it’s from the freezing point to boiling point of water, may not be as logical as a one-degree change because everything related to the standard would be at the single unit level.
7. Earthquake Description Standards
All earthquakes should be described with two sets of numbers, each based on the widely accepted Richter scale, at least for public discussions. The first set would be the moment magnitude, indicating the actual energy released by the quake. This number would be the most important number for identifying the quake. The second number would be a measure of the intensity of the earthquake at a given spot on the earth by measuring the local intensity of the shaking (i.e., centimeters of ground movement, velocity of ground movement (units of length divided by units of time, or acceleration as a percentage of gravity). Such numbers plotted on a map would give the most accurate representation of the relative shaking experienced throughout the affected area.
6. Lumens – Light Bulb Comparison Units
Light bulb descriptions should be standardized through the use of lumens as a measure of light intensity. Energy usage (wattage, for example) and quality of light are also very important factors in describing light bulbs, but the primary descriptive feature of light bulbs should be light intensity.
5. Redefining and Simplifying Units of Angles and Degrees
Angles and degrees should have their units redefined so that they will be logically simpler and easier to learn. Angles could be redefined so that there would be 100 degrees in a circle, 100 minutes in a degree and 100 seconds in a minute. Maybe a circle could have 200 degrees so that a semicircle would have 100 degrees and a quarter of a semi circle would have a nice, round 25 degrees. In many or even most applications, semicircles have more importance or relevance than do full circles.
4. Adopt the Metric System
The Metric System of measurements should be used universally. This includes the use of the Celsius temperature scale. Also, rainfall, snowfall, and other precipitation should be denominated in terms of centimeters, not millimeters.
16. Lottery Winnings Limit
Individuals should not be allowed to win more than $1,000,000 at a time through a lottery. Lotteries should be designed so that either more people win and split the jackpot evenly or so that more successively placed winners (2nd, 3rd, etc.) are chosen to share in the winnings. More winners could be made by any number of ways, including reducing the number of digits that players would need to pick and dividing the jackpot evenly among all these winners, or by increasing the number of digits players need to pick and then choosing the several people who came closest to the final number and declaring them winners.
15. Illegal Gambling Regulations
Illegal gambling activities should be defined as activities requiring the wagering of money or something of material value on an event in which purely random mathematical probabilities determine the outcome. An exception to this rule could be any purely random mathematical lottery in which a cumulative total of at least 50% of all revenues go to an approved charitable cause, towards the funding of an advertised public good (such as K-14 education, universal healthcare, transportation, etc.) and to the payment of taxes of any level government. Sports gambling should also be exempted because the involvement of elements of research move such activities away from purely random mathematical probabilities. Legitimate investments, speculation, stock/commodity trading, etc., should not be considered gambling. Charitable raffles and such games should also be allowed.
Any purely random mathematical lottery in which at least 50% of all revenues go to an approved charitable cause or towards the funding of an advertised public good (such as K-14 education, universal healthcare, transportation, etc.) should be allowed.
All financial transactions due to illegal gambling would be treated as illegal exchanges of money to which all parties involved are guilty. The winners would be required to forfeit all of their winnings to the government. As a penalty, the winners must pay out an additional amount equal to their winnings. In cases of illegal gambling, both parties (the one that owes, and the one that is owed) should each be required to pay a penalty to the government equal to 100% of half the gross gambling wagers made between them, totaling up to $10,000 each. For example, two people, who each agreed to enter into an illegal $10,000 bet, would each be required to pay $5,000 to the government as a penalty for engaging in this illegal activity. As total gambling wagers increase, each party should be required to pay a progressively smaller percentage than 100% of half the gross gambling wagers made between them. For example, gross wager amounts of $50,000 could require each party to repay 75% of half this amount ($18,750 each), wager amounts of $100,000 could require each party to repay 50% of half this debt ($25,000), and wager amounts of $500,000 would require repayment by each party of 25% ($62,500) of half the net gambling debts. A smooth algebraic curve should be fitted through the percentages used in these examples in order to find the proper percentages to apply to wager amounts other than the ones used in the examples. The revenues generated from these fines should be distributed equally to state and local governments (state, county, and city).
If parties to the illegal gambling lie about the amounts of money wagered or won, the difference between what they say they wagered or won and what they actually wagered or won will be treated as theft and the penalty for this additional crime will be a fine equal to the difference plus a multiple of the difference.
The reason people are required to pay progressively less than half of larger gambling debts is because such people are much more likely to have lost self control over their gambling activities (i.e., are addicted to gambling) and could have easily allowed their debt numbers to get out of hand. Since agreeing to engage in a gambling bet is fairly effortless, being mainly a verbal commitment, and since such activities usually affect only the individuals involved (namely, the money wasn’t stolen from anyone else), it would make sense to somewhat soften the massive liability of such debts (while still making them painfully high) and give gambling addicts some hope by creating for them a greater chance of recovering financially from such losses. By setting these gambling fines at high dollar amounts (though far below what each gambler would likely have been required to pay had they lost), ‘losing’ gamblers, especially addicted gamblers, would suffer the consequences of gambling while at the same time the ‘winners’ would be required to pay the same amount as the ‘losers’, thus decreasing the incentive for all sides to participate in such activities. This would give potential ‘winners’ pause and hesitation before entering into a bet because the ‘losers’ could reduce very large gambling liabilities (while imposing significant liabilities on the ‘winners’ at the same time) by just informing the authorities of their involvement in illegal gambling.
If the original winning party still tries to force the original losing party to pay back the debt or any portion of it, that action of forcing or attempting to force payment should be treated as theft or attempted theft requiring restitution plus a punitive multiple.
All parties caught illegally gambling amounts under $10,000 should be required to enroll in a short educational course that explains how gambling works, the principles of mathematical probabilities, and other relevant topics related to gambling as well as the hardships and difficulties gamblers can cause themselves and those around them. Part of this course should include watching personal testimonials or documentaries on the subject. All participants should be required to take and pass a test to prove that they have a functional understanding of the materials in the course. Gamblers illegally gambling amounts in excess of $10,000 would be required to take a much more intensive gambling education course.
14. Legal Gambling
There should exist a nationwide (worldwide would be better) database of individuals who are identified as regular gamblers. Every gambling facility (casinos, card clubs, bingo parlors, horse racing tracks, lottery ticket sellers, etc., both physical or on the Internet) should be required to ask all customers for some type of identification and then instantly check this database for an indication that any such customer may be a habitual or potentially addicted gambler prior to that facility’s approval of the gambling transaction with that customer. This database would be required to compile, for each gambling customer, a continuous average monthly gambling expenditure chart with their histories being kept for a maximum of the past 5 calendar years. A national gambling agency would be charged with running this database and this agency would also have the authority to enforce any restriction on gambling activities engaged in by potential problem gamblers. Any person under 15 years of age would be prohibited from participating in any form of gambling.
Any person which this database indicates as having gambling expenditures of less than $200 per month averaged over the last five years or since the beginning of their current gambling phase (a new phase begins after a 24 month period of gambling inactivity), whichever is shorter, would be listed as a safe, no-risk gambler. No restrictions would be placed on these kinds of gamblers until their monthly average rises to exceed $200 per month.
Gambling Restrictions Begin at $200/month Average Expenditures
Gamblers whose monthly average exceeds $200 will be listed as monitored gamblers. People under 20 would be prohibited from continuing to gamble until either their average falls back down to below $200 or until they request and are granted an exemption by the national gambling agency from this rule based on their high income or large individual net worth and with written permission granted by their parents, guardians or other adults with legal authority over them. Such permission would need to be re-granted every 6 months in order to continue gambling. People over 20 years of age who exceed this $200 monthly average would be reminded that they are monitored gamblers prior to every gambling transaction they engage in, unless they have provided proof to this national gambling agency that they have a sufficiently high income, large individual net worth, and are not financially endangering any dependents.
If a gambler’s monthly average rises to above $400 per month, that person would be listed as a habitual gambler and placed under probation. Gamblers under 20 years of age who exceed this limit would be prohibited from further gambling until their monthly average falls to below the $400 mark. Other gamblers who are 20 years old or older and who exceed this $400 limit would be required, in order to continue gambling, to supply proof of a high enough income, large individual net worth, or have otherwise provided proof that such high levels of gambling would not financially hurt him or those for whom he is responsible (i.e. spouse, family, etc.). This national gambling agency may or may not choose to approved continued gambling for this individual until his monthly average falls below the $400 level. Any person who is approved for further gambling must first be required to take and pass a short educational course that explains how the gambling industry works, the principles of mathematical probabilities and statistics, and other simple, relevant topics related to gambling before final approval is granted. These courses could be taken either entirely at an approved educational facility or at home (at the gambler’s leisure) with tests administered at an approved educational facility.
Gamblers whose monthly average rises to over $1,000 would be classified as serious gamblers and would be required, in order to continue gambling above this level, to provide proof to the national gambling agency of a high enough income level or net worth, and proof that continued gambling will not result in the jeopardy of either their own financial well-being or the financial well-being of any dependents such as spouses, children or other individuals. Permission to continue gambling at levels above the $1,000 mark would need to be applied for, reviewed, and re-approved every 12 months.
Gamblers who wish to receive permission to exceed this $1,000 monthly average gambling expenditures would be required to enroll in rather more intensive gambling counseling and educational classes for every year that their total expenditures remain above the $1,000 per month average. These counseling classes should place a heavy emphasis on statistics, probability, and how these games of chance are designed to work. Psychological tests as well as tests measuring a gambler’s understanding of how the gambling industry works should be administered.
While observing all of the rules above, gamblers should be allowed to spike their gambling expenditures up to 5% of their average yearly income or $2,000 per month (whichever is larger) without restrictions. However, to continue gambling beyond these limits, gamblers would be placed on probation and would be required to provide proof to the national gambling agency that they could adequately afford continued losses in order to be allowed to continue gambling.
This gambling agency would have the authority to prevent any person from gambling at any level if the agency has reason to believe that continued gambling would harm the gamblers themselves or the people for whom they are responsible.
This database and each individual gambler’s monthly average would be updated at the end of each day in order to prevent gamblers from gambling a lot of money away at one facility and then going to another facility the next day and gambling away a lot more. However, more frequent updating of the database would be more beneficial in catching people before they have an opportunity to gamble everything away within one day. Monitored and habitual gamblers should be watched for extremely rapid rises in their gambling expenditures.
This entire database and enforcement system would be funded completely internally through fees (a percentage, such as 1% or whatever is necessary for proper funding) levied on all gambling transactions. The gambling industry would be required to pay at least some of the costs associated with rehabilitating problem gamblers. The whole idea is to make the gambling industry check up on and prevent gamblers from gambling beyond their means.
People who have engaged in legal gambling activities, should be required to fulfill all such financial gambling obligations regardless of whether they have later moved into a political jurisdiction which defines such activities as illegal within its borders.
Gambling facilities that knew or should have known about compulsive gamblers going deeper into debt, should be required to forgive the debts of that gambler and pay the equivalent of at least twice as much as that individual’s total lifetime wagering amount to the government as a penalty for not preventing this problem. The onus should be on the gambling facilities to ensure that problem compulsive gamblers are not gambling to a degree that destroys their lives.
13. Media Coverage Contracts
Ideally, there should be no exclusive contracts handed out for coverage of the Olympic Games, but if that is not possible, then the exclusivity of these contracts should be limited as much as possible, such as only to a category of sports or perhaps even one sport. For example, one broadcast company could obtain the exclusive right to cover track and field events while another could obtain the right to cover swimming and diving.
Perhaps there should be a requirement, however, that all contract winning broadcasters make their Olympic broadcasts available for free to the public. They could choose to do so through commercial funding (as is conventionally done) or through any other means they see fit.
12. More Olympic Chances
In certain short duration (2 minutes or less) sport competitions in which athletes perform individually (such as diving, high jump, etc.) and not in sports where athletes compete with others at the same time (such as swimming, running, etc.) the athletes should be given the chance to try the same event as many times as they would like only if the first or successive attempts went terribly bad, such as falling down a ski slope, slipping off the diving board, falling during a high jump attempt, etc. However, for each successive attempt, the maximum score possible for that athlete should be reduced by a certain small amount (like 1/4 or 1/2 a point on a 10-point scale). The athlete should then have the option to choose which of the two, or multiple, performances they would like to submit for purposes of scoring.
11. Scheduling Sports’ Seasons to Harmonize with the Olympic Games
All sport and talent competitions should generally be structured and scheduled with an eye towards standardizing and scaling the sport so that it could be somewhat seamlessly merged with the schedule and spirit of the International Olympic Games. Ideally, such sports would climax within or just before the month that the Olympic Games for that sport’s season are held. Although the final competitions for each sport would be played each year at the closing of the regular season, during the years in which that sport participates in the Olympic Games, the finals competitions would be held under the auspices of the Olympic Games. During non-Olympic years, these sports would normally compete nationally unless they already have or choose to develop their own international competition systems independent of the Olympic Games.
10. Olympic Games Should Last One Full Month and Occur Every Year on a Rotating Schedule
The Olympic Games should occur more frequently and should be more distributed throughout the seasons to allow for the inclusion of a wider range of sports. The Games should occur at intervals of 15 months and, to keep it simple, the Games should always begin on the first day of the month and continue through the last day of the month. This would mean that the Games would be held in each of eight years out of every decade. Years ending with the number one or six would be the years of the Winter Games which would be held during the entire month of February. Years ending with the number two or seven would be the years of the Spring Games which would be held during the entire month of May. Years ending with the number three or eight would be the years of the Summer Games which would be held during the entire month of August. Years ending with the number four or nine would be the Autumn Games which would be held during the entire month of November. Years ending in zero and five would be off years for the Games. Thus, though each season would have its Olympic Games at intervals of four years (as is currently the case), each session of the Olympic Games would allow much more time for a far higher number of sports to be played as well as expand the rest time for the competitors and slow down the general pace of the Games. The various sports chosen to be included in the various Olympic Game seasons should be, as close as possible, the natural sports that climax during that season. For example, skiing is a natural sport to be played in winter. Track and field is normally played during the summer. Gymnastics could be played during the spring (since competitors practice indoors during the cool of winter). Shooting and equestrian competitions could take place during the Autumn Olympic Games.
9. Olympic Games to Include Virtually All Competitive Sports, Not Just Athletic Sports
The Olympic Games should not be limited to only athletic sports but should be broadened to include virtually any competitive sport in which the human participants play the leading athletic, thinking, training or engineering role and which at least has a significant international following. Included in this list could be technological competitions as well. For example, remote controlled airplanes, cars and other such ‘toys’ could compete with other such ‘toys’ of the same category. Real auto racing could also be allowed. Additional activities that could be included as competitive sports include singing and the playing of instruments. Any sport that is perceived as a recognizable demonstration of talent could potentially be included into Olympic competitions.
8. Hosted by Country Instead of Cities
Instead of the Games of the Olympiad (Summer Olympics) and the Olympic Winter Games being held in and around a chosen city, they should be held throughout a chosen country or, if the country is very large, throughout a region of that country. This way, not only would the Games produce less of a stress on any host city (and by extension, its country) by not requiring them to construct venues all within a relatively short distance of the host city, but it would also benefit the country and Games organizers by enabling them to choose facilities from a much wider area that would serve as the best venues for certain sporting events as well as give tourists and viewers worldwide a broader, more extensive and perhaps finer view of the host country.
7. Jumping Sport
There should be a new sport whose goal is to jump the highest from a standstill. The winner would be the person who is able to successfully jump onto the highest platform. Maybe the participants could hold 10 or 20 pound weights in each hand and use them for leverage in jumping to greater heights.
6. Encouraging Competition
Educational institutions, hobbyists and perhaps some government agencies should help encourage and organize competitions in every field of science (especially material sciences and engineering). The purpose of such competitions would be to help create a greater public interest in finding new and perhaps better ways to design things. For example, these competitions could have rules that artificially limit one or more variables while requiring the same task to be accomplished by working with the other variables. For example, instead of trying to build the fastest remote controlled airplane or the highest flying remote controlled airplane, it would be more exciting to build the fastest airplane with a length of 10 feet or the highest flying airplane with a wingspan of 15 feet. Radio controlled planes made from ice (flown in freezing temperatures, of course) or concrete would be another interesting possibility.
5. First Place Winners
First place winners generally get too big of a prize in lotteries and most other types of competition, especially in comparison with what second, third and other successively placed winners receive. The mere fact of placing first should be a far more significant part of the prize. Prizes and financial rewards for first placed winners could still be the most valuable, however second placed winners should generally receive between 50-90% of the value of the first placed prize. Third placed winners could generally receive between 25-50% of first placed winnings. All these numbers would depend heavily on the size of the total prize giveaway and the number of people participating in the event. The larger that either number is, the more equivalent the winning prizes should be. In groups where 20 or more people compete against each other, second place winners are just about as good as first place winners and third placed winners deserve far more attention and/or prizes than they are getting now, especially when it comes to lottery winnings.
4. Venue Pricing and Seating Policies
Venue facilities and performers should agree to a set of seating arrangements for the performance as well as the rules governing the setting of seat prices for each seat within the venue. They should also agree to policies governing the pricing and reservation of seats for either special guests or for ticket sales at a future date. All information concerning seating arrangements and the pricing for each seat as well as reserved sections in the venue should be made available to the public prior to selling the first tickets for the event.
Ticket prices could be set according to how both the venue managers and performers agree, including having ticket prices float on the market, determined by supply and demand, with no upper limit on price. Tickets would only be originally sold by approved ticket sellers. After people buy tickets from approved ticket sellers, they could sell them again to anybody only for up to the amount they paid for it. Or they could sell the tickets back to an approved ticket seller for up to 10% more than what they paid for it. Approved ticket sellers would then be allowed to sell these tickets at market rates or according to whatever pricing structure had been agreed to by both the venue managers and performers. It should be illegal to buy tickets for the purpose of selling them later.
3. Specialty Parks
The government should take it upon itself to build specialty parks (skateboarding parks, rollerblading parks, model rocket parks, remote/radio control airplane parks, model car racing parks, etc.) on public lands to satisfy the desires of people to do such things and even to increase the capacity of the local recreational infrastructures to allow and encourage more people to take up such fun hobbies.
Several of these places could serve dual purposes so that multiple activities could be accommodated at the same time, such as skateboarding and rollerblading. Other activities could be accommodated in the same space but at different times. For example, remote controlled airplanes could be flown every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while model rockets could be flown every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Some parks could also be placed in small nooks and crannies even around very built up landscapes. For example, skate parks with ramps and all relevant equipment could be placed at the bottom of concrete lined storm drain channels. Dry storm drains and other river beds could be used for many other recreational purposes, like playgrounds, bicycle and pedestrian paths, tennis, basketball, and other sport courts, off-road vehicles, farmer’s markets and other business or social events, and many other purposes. Of course, during times when rain is threatened, or whenever the storm drain is expected to significantly increase its flow, such parks would be closed and the ramps and other equipment would be permanently hooked up to cables connected to some kinds of winch lifting system so that the equipment is lifted and suspended clear above the channel until the threat of rain or channel flooding has passed.
The government should bear no liability for injuries due to the use or misuse of such equipment unless those injuries were due to construction failures.
Shooting ranges could also be a type of specialty park that can be located within highly developed areas by locating them within storm channels. There are already practically two bullet proof side walls that exist, it would only be a matter of enclosing both remaining ends and the top. The top could be a permanent roof structure that would not ever need to be moved. The two ends of the enclosed room could be built of bullet proof walls that could be raised when ever needed so the flood control channel can serve its purpose. Schedules could be enforced by personnel that after every 45 minutes of shooting, 15 minutes would be reserved to place, checkup, and remove targets and debris.
Race tracks and off-road courses for full sized automobiles should also be placed throughout urban and suburban areas. Long straight race tracks and drag strips could possibly be made within storm drain channels, while shorter ones could probably be scheduled for use on local airport runways during one or two days a week or during predictable slow air traffic periods such as midnight to 6 AM.
Certain segments of beach shorelines should also be reserved for wave surfing.
Fees could be charged for the use of such park facilities so that, ideally, all the money spent on construction and maintenance could be recovered from the users. Several such parks may need to have personnel there to supervise the activities (especially the shooting ranges). Video cameras could be installed to monitor and record all activities so that any illegal activities (especially vandalism) would be recorded and the perpetrators caught and made to pay.
2. Sport Player Exemptions from Embargoes
International embargoes should not prevent, inhibit, or negatively affect the playing of professional sports or the travel of professional sports players and teams into or out of embargoed countries.
1. Making Sports More Interesting
One possible way of making both professional and amateur sports more interesting to follow throughout the season could be to change the way in which teams are composed. In effect, teams would change constantly throughout the season based on which team won who. In essence, every season would begin with each of the smallest political jurisdictions (i.e. cities) composing a team and competing against teams formed by jurisdictions in the same class. The winning team’s coach would then have the privilege of choosing which members of his own team as well as which members of his defeated opponent’s team to choose to play in the next round of competition. Higher level teams cannot choose a player unless they have won the team of which that player is a member. Players chosen by the winning team’s coach would have the option of declining the privilege of joining the new team but not the option of remaining on the team without being specifically picked by the coach. These players would also have the option of moving to another same-level or lower level team if the coaches of those teams approve the change.
After all the city teams play it out and each county has formed one team that is superior to all others in the county, then counties could begin to play it out among themselves with the same rules applying. After all the counties have played it out and each state has composed a superior team, then the states could begin to play it out with each other. After all the states have played it out, the winning team would be the national champions. If the process continues and participation at an international event like the Olympic Games is desired, then either the same members of the championship team could play other countries or the coach of the winning team at the national finals could form a new team composed of the best players from both his team and the team he defeated at the national finals.
Having so many teams from so many different political jurisdictions playing against each other would probably take so much time that one season may not be enough to accommodate all the games necessary to be played to reach the national finals. A solution may be to require two seasons for a team to rise from a city-level team up to a national finalist and champion. The first season (year) can be referred to as a primary season (where cities and counties compete) and the second year can be referred to as a secondary season (where state and national competitions occur).
To make it more exciting while at the same time increasing the capacity of people to directly participate in professional sports, primary and secondary seasons can completely overlap each other and be played in the same year but on two separate and parallel tracks. While the cities and counties are playing against each other, the states and nations are also playing against each other during the same season.
At the close of each year’s season, primary season players graduate into secondary season players for the next year, if these players are chosen by the winning team’s coach. If players are not chosen onto a higher level, they could stay on their current team or move around to other equivalent or lower teams (for example, a county team member could move to another county or down to a city team) if chosen by the respective coaches. Secondary season players who graduate from competition in the national championship must go down a minimum of two levels (to the county level teams) and play on teams whose coaches have asked them to join. The rest of the secondary level players, those who did not make it to the championship finals, could remain on those teams if their respective coaches ask them to remain.
This system would allow many more people to participate in professional sports. It would also act to depress the wages of professional players because they would be moving around from small town teams to major teams and back again to small town teams every two years.
21. Official State Religions
No country or government should have an official or state religion. All governments should be secular.
20. Rejoining Communities Split by International Borders
‘Twin communities’ (communities that were split up by the imposition of the international border) should be united through the creation of a political enclave that encompasses a small territory (such as a town or small city) on both sides of the border. These enclaves would allow, for example, Americans and Mexicans to cross the true international border with little or no restrictions to do business with people or visit relatives on the other side, or just to travel around. The perimeters of these free crossing zones would be completely surrounded with an impervious boundary and lined with checkpoints. It is these perimeter boundaries that would take on the full responsibilities associated with the true international border. Essentially, all people within these enclaves, even American citizens residing on the American side of the true international border, but on the inside of these special enclaves, would need to go through a full customs search before they are allowed to enter the US mainland through one of the perimeter checkpoints. However, US citizens within these enclaves need not apply for a travel visa or any other entry related documentation that is not required of regular American citizens.
These special enclaves would need to have their own emergency vehicles because vehicles from the mainland will not be able to get through the perimeter border quickly, due to security checks, etc.
Taxes would be collected and funds would be distributed in the same way as before, with the true international border being relevant for tax purposes. If needed, there may possibly be a small additional tax on businesses and all people living within the enclave to make such a setup financially self-sufficient.
The above model should be used around the world because many countries have far more seriously disrupted ‘twin communities’ than does the United States.
19. International Districts
There should be at least one, but better yet, a series of international districts with sizes of up to 100 square kilometers each that would serve as locations in which to headquarter international organizations such as the UN, WTO, the International Red Cross, international courts, and others. Each of these districts could be located in different major geographical/cultural regions of the globe (North America, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa/Southwest Asia, Europe, Asia, Oceania, etc.).
In addition to each location perhaps headquartering different international organizations, they could also serve to headquarter regional organizations, like the OAS, CIS, OAU, APEC, AL, ASEAN, etc.
Organizing such significant international institutions in this manner would diminish the perception of inequality, and even racism, among various global groups than would otherwise be the case if such organizations were based almost exclusively in the United States, Europe or other areas historically viewed as being large scale domineers.
18. Assassinations of Foreign Leaders
Assassinations of non-elected and repressive foreign leaders should be an acceptable and legal option for the US government/military.
17. Water Rights
Consumptive water rights for each country (as well as any other political jurisdiction) should be based upon a calculation of an amount of water precipitating over that county’s watersheds in an average year, minus the estimated evaporation and transpiration. In other words, countries would be able to consume a volume of water equal to the total volume that falls within their territory minus that portion which naturally evaporates or transpires into the air. Said another way, every country could consume a volume of water equal to its naturally occurring runoff. Water which is not consumed (i.e., injected into the atmosphere by any means) but used for any off-stream or even in-stream purposes, must be equivalent to the quality of the water that was withdrawn.
Countries which do not consume all of their allotted water should have the right to sell their unused water to downstream countries which have already exceeded their natural allotment of water, but they should not be allowed to artificially reduce or cutoff natural flows to raise prices or otherwise threaten downstream users.
Perhaps the rate of the consumptive increase of water (including water withholdings to fill reservoirs) in countries which share watersheds with downstream neighbors should be limited to a maximum annual increase of 10%. This would help reduce the potential for strife induced by dramatic reductions in water flow to downstream countries within relatively short periods of time.
Evaporation from artificially increased water areas (such as artificial reservoirs created behind dams) should be treated as consumptive use by the state or political jurisdiction in which these artificial water surface areas are located. A certain amount of water from the Colorado River, for example, is allocated to each state in its watershed. Therefore, each state should count the volume of water that is evaporating from artificial reservoirs along the Colorado River towards its allowable quota for consumptive use. (Idea from ML Rudee 1-1-01 Letter to the Editor, LA Times.)
After this fundamental principle of water rights is understood and implemented, countries can then negotiate with each other about whether or how much they are willing to trade, sell or negotiate their water resources with their neighbors.
16. Aid for Poor, Undeveloped Countries
Macro-Scale Economic Stimulus Package
Advanced, industrialized and developed countries (esp. the US and European Union because of their big markets) should either individually or as part of a group of nations, attempt to create a temporary (20-50 years, perhaps longer) economic trade structure (tariffs) biased to benefit one or a few undeveloped/poor countries that agree to abide by certain principles and rules concerning important aspects of democracy, human rights, law enforcement, economic policy, anti-corruption, etc. Only countries that agree to abide by such important principles should be chosen (adopted) to participate in such programs, otherwise the effort would be largely wasted. Adoption periods would vary with each case, but they should last on the order of decades, with maybe 100 years being an upper limit.
One way (perhaps the best way) developed countries (esp. former colonizers) could help bring this about (simultaneously helping to rectify their past abuses) would be to institute temporary, but long-term trade tariff schedules with poorer countries so that trade goods from the developed/sponsoring countries entering the selected underdeveloped/poor country would be assessed the full tariffs, whereas trade going in the opposite direction would either be tariff-free or have reduced tariffs assessed. The spreads in these biased trade tariff schedules would gradually be reduced to zero at the end of the adoption period, at which time, it is hoped, the formerly poorer countries would have developed their economies and societies to the point where no further unfair economic benefits are needed to keep their economies stable and healthy.
The main goal of this proposal is to better the economic situation as well as other general social and civil aspects of the populations in these selected poorer countries so that domestic production in these countries are better able to compete globally, or at least not be hopelessly wiped out by super-efficient imports from more developed countries. The overall goals of this proposal are geared towards allowing poorer countries the time and economic cushion needed to educate their populations, develop the necessary infrastructures, learn and implement the appropriate means of production, and grow their economies in a healthy fashion in order to create sound, well-rounded, largely domestically supplied economies that would be able to permanently endure a normal integration into the global economic system.
This same principle could also be used to help political jurisdictions of any size and within any country recover more quickly from the effects of any man-made or natural disaster, as well.
Debt Payment Options for Countries
Countries holding foreign debts should be given the opportunity, with the creditor nation’s permission, to pay off some or all of those debts by agreeing to set aside lands, at market prices, for environmental preservation to various degrees. These governments should be encouraged to use this opportunity to preserve natural and historical sites and/or restrict and regulate industrial, commercial, and residential developments on them.
Creditors Required to Naturalize Some of Their Projects
A partial solution to Third World debt could be to require the creditors of projects (such as dams) with negative environmental and/or social impacts to pay for their ‘naturalization’ or the removal of those projects they had funded, and change the area back to how it was before that project was constructed. In addition, the creditor country should pay back to the poor country an amount equal to the amount the poor country agreed to take out as a loan to fund a project. In addition, all the interest charged on that loan since the year the loan was made should be paid back. The estimated positive and negative economic effect of a project should also be factored into the final payment amount.
Countries Assume Debts and Require Justification by Creditors
Another way indebted countries could lighten and even potentially eliminate their debt loads would be to have very respected, powerful, and influential countries like the United States, European countries, Japan, etc., assume part or all of the indebted countries’ debts and then hold hearings with all parties to the debt (creditor and debtor countries) inquiring about the nature and the details of the loans. If it is determined that the creditors made these loans while ignoring blatant warning signs related to whether the loans are justifiable given the lack of infrastructures to support productive economies, the lack of an educated population, a thoroughly corrupt leadership (often under military rule), etc., or if the projects that were advertised by the creditors were not really necessary, adequate, or feasible under the circumstances, or if an indebted country had a record of wasting money on projects the common people would likely never benefit from, all the while knowing that these same people and their future generations would bare the burden of repayment, with interest, then the original creditor country would be required to cancel all such loans it has made to that country. Since a third country bought the loan from the indebted country, they would be the people to whom it would need to be paid back (at current, inflation-adjusted, dollars). In addition, that original creditor country should be required to pay a multiple on such loans (perhaps 150%) in order to make the whole process worthwhile.
15. Economic Sanctions
Comprehensive or even targeted economic sanctions or embargoes are generally too blunt an instrument and too passive in nature to be relied upon as an effective long term (greater than 5 years) policy of discouraging or rectifying the various ‘inappropriate’ policies that may be implemented by dictators or other governments that are particularly unresponsive to their own domestic public pressures. The long-term affects of broad economic sanctions are felt most severely by the general population and have far less of an impact than desired on their real targets – government leadership. Economic sanctions in general are most useful when placed upon countries whose governments are responsive to public pressures.
The first step in addressing any conflict (whether it be a dictatorship or true democracy) will, often correctly, be the imposition of certain economic sanctions. Simultaneously, however, when we are dealing with dictatorships or other such relatively insensitive forms of government, preparations and firm plans should be made for further, more intense actions (namely, internationally supervised military intervention) designed to permanently resolve the situation and enforce compliance with international rules. All the while, hope should be held that economic sanctions would have the desired effects and that these further military plans would not be needed. Economic sanctions should be targeted towards the specific goods and services that directly support the dictatorship or enemy government. Sanctions targeted towards dual-use goods could also be implemented if deemed necessary, but since this is a category of goods that also most often penalizes the general population more than it hurts the government, international policy makers should insure that plans are being made for a rapid resolution of the crisis so that such sanctions, especially for dual use items, need not be implemented for a long-term basis.
14. Foreign Intervention – Some Justifications for Intervention to Prevent Childhood Prostitution, Female Circumcision & Corruption
An international governing body should demand that each individual country, with a significant prostitution industry, especially involving child or forced prostitution, and/or countries with significant female circumcision activities, take aggressive action to arrest and punish all individuals working in or otherwise associated with such industries.
If a nation does not act quickly enough, and if no other relatively quick or effective way of dealing with these situations proves worthwhile, external military or police intervention, should be an option for stopping such practices. This international governing body should coordinate or authorize any such military or police actions. Military or police actions could be undertaken either under the direct managerial control of the international governing body, or the international body could give its permission to one or a group of willing nations to undertake the military or police actions, but always under the direct and unimpeded observations and plenary veto powers of the international body.
Such soldiers or international police could go into the target country either in uniform or undercover and arrest and capture the individuals involved. If the arrested people cannot get a fair trial in their own country, they should be taken to a country who is both willing to try them and capable of providing a fair trial. Their punishment should include restitution set to recover all costs associated with their specific crimes. These costs would include a penalty for enslavement, minimum wage for duration of enslavement and cumulative total earnings by the prostitute (such earning would be treated as theft). In addition, a punitive multiple, determined by the courts, but up to several times the restitution amount, would be applied.
In any case, a clear majority of the population of the country or area targeted for intervention must express consent towards the country or coalition that will intervene.
When the proper international military authority finds that corruption within a country has become so widespread and systemic that the rule of law is effectively nullified, this would constitute another valid reason for international military intervention.
13. Resources in International Waters, Airspace & Territories
Commercial parties involved with fishing, harvesting, or gathering any natural resources in international waters (or international airspace or astronomical object) should be required to obtain permits from an international organization that is responsible for regulating all activities taking place in international spaces. Income generated from such activities should be taxed at a rate equivalent to the business income tax rates proposed elsewhere in these Policy Proposals. The revenues generated would mainly go towards funding this international organization with smaller portions being given to countries ecologically nearer to or surrounding the specific bodies of international water or airspace in which the activities are planned.
Resource distribution between territories should naturally be based on where the resources are located.
This principle often seems to be the most difficult to apply on the contentious issue of water rights because of its fluidity and rapid natural transport. The most logical way to resolve these issues is to define ownership largely as to where the water originally fell from the sky.
For example, in Egypt and the entire Nile River watershed, as in most parts of the world, water falls in vastly different amounts throughout the watershed. Just like any natural resource distribution, territorial ownership of vastly differing amounts of a resource must just be accepted as a natural fact. Thus, Ethiopia, which is responsible for the generation of nearly two-thirds of the the lower Nile river’s flow, should be entitled to use virtually this entire amount. Egypt, on the other hand, contributes very little precipitation within the Nile watershed, and thus, is entitled to use very little. All the water that flows in from upstream neighbors should rightly belong to the country into which it flows unless the upstream country has explicitly reserved the right to designate that water for some restricted use, such as in-stream, non-consumptive environmental uses. Egypt’s creation of facts on the ground (large population size, irrigation infrastructures, or other water dependent activities) should not be regarded as valid reasons to claim a larger amount of water than rightfully falls on its territories or flows freely into the country.
12. Political Asylum & Enclave Creation for Persecuted Minorities
Political asylum
Political asylum, using a relatively slightly more narrow qualifying criteria (i.e., if a person’s life or physical safety is severely threatened due to circumstances completely beyond that individual’s control), is a human right.
However, the primary method of dealing with situations that produce significant numbers of political asylum seekers should be for the appropriate international authority to intervene within the asylum seekers’ country to rectify the situation, as discussed further below.
For asylees seeking entry into the US, but also more generally for asylees seeking entry into any other country, the following rules should apply. Political asylum, when granted, should always be granted for a temporary stay. Granting asylum claimants ‘green cards’ or other permanent documents should be prohibited. Political asylees should be granted protection for as long as necessary but ending when the offending condition(s) that lead to their seeking asylum have been corrected. The case of each asylee should be reviewed every one or two years, or at any time in between, if needed, or as conditions warrant. Asylees would have up to 12 months to return to their original country once conditions have been deemed acceptable.
In order for the controlling international authority to authorize/mandate the transfer of the asylees back to their country of origin, the offending country must formally accept the return of the refuges, and promise to abstain from persecution which caused them to seek asylum.
The qualifications for granting asylum to individuals who may be related to a person who has already been granted asylum should not be changed or reduced. Each person must be granted asylum based on his/her own merit.
A fee of perhaps $100 should be charged with each application submitted. Upon approval of the application, the asylee should be charged a few hundred dollars more to cover (or help cover) the cost of processing his/her claim. Payment would not be due until the claim has been processed, at which point interest would begin to be charged. The opportunity to work must be provided to each asylum seeker who has been relocated to another country and who cannot otherwise find employment.
Enclave Creation for Persecuted Minorities
An international political organization with binding authority should have the right to create small enclaves within the territory of a member state (preferably along its periphery) if a significant number of individuals who emigrate from that state claim political asylum and are found to need protection for life and/or property due to violations of fundamental human rights by the government or any other entity within the offending country.
However, necessary co-requisites to the creation of enclaves by an international organization would be the following. Upon recognition that a significant exodus from a country is taking place due to some unreasonable persecution that the government of that country either performs or does not adequately prevent, the international organization should take it upon itself to investigate and assess the situation. If the members of this organization find (through a vote of all member states or by the conclusion reached by a special task group that has been elected by the members and charged with investigating the matter) that, indeed, people are leaving that country due to some form of persecution or harassment by either the government and/or other groups, then the international political organization should have the obligation to require the offending country to correct its behavior. If such appeals fail to bring about the required changes, this international body should authorize the use of any means necessary to bring about the required changes, including sanctions followed quickly by the use of military force and invasion, if necessary.
The preceding steps should be the first course of action. However, if for some reason these measures fail or are not utilized, but more likely, until these measures work and bring about the required change, land, ideally within the boundaries of the offending states or perhaps land within member states who are nearest to the source of asylum seekers, should be temporarily set aside and its borders should be treated as new, temporary international borders. These enclaves would serve as the places of refuge for the emigrants. In essence, the offending country would have lost its entitlement to control these enclaves created by this international organization and set aside for protecting these refugees.
The international political organization would bear the ultimate responsibility for governance including organizing for the provision of work, food, and other necessary goods and services for these people. These people would be required to build their own shelters, or at least pay for their building. The ultimate responsibility for governance of these enclaves belong to the international political organization, but much political authority should be given to the asylees. They should hold their own elections and decide their own rules, as long as those rules lie within the general framework of respect for human rights, the environment, and general fairness and justice. The surface area of these temporary enclaves should be sufficient to allow a fairly comfortable living space for the asylees. It should at least be equivalent to half the per capita area available in the asylees’ region of origin. If possible, land suitable for farming could be supplied if farmers are a significant percentage of the asylee inhabitants, but it should not be mandated.
When the offending country corrects its behavior, these people would be required to go back to their places of origin, being allowed, of course, to take all their belongings, including their houses if they so desire. Or they can leave their houses there and the international political organization would compensate the owners, at market prices, for their houses (i.e., improvements on the land), but not the land.
These enclaves should last only anywhere from a few months to a few years. Any length of time longer than 5 years means that not enough is being done to rectify the original situation. After their use as enclaves for this purpose is finished, the international political organization would be required to clean up the land according to the standards set forth by the country that is the original owner of the land, usually the formerly offending country. Then full control of the land would be returned to its original owner and the original international borders would be recognized again.
11. Recognition of Governments
No national government, especially the US government, should ever object to recognizing and having diplomatic relations with any foreign government (or group in control) regardless of whether or not we agree with whether or not they are the legitimate government, how they came to power, or what their policies may be. The reality is that such governments, regardless of what we think or what we wish may be the case, are, in fact, the ruling government of that country or portion thereof. To cut off diplomatic relations, a significant channel of public communication, with such regimes is childish and foolish. Talking and holding open any regular channel of communication does not mean that we approve of their policies. There are other, far more effective ways to bring about the desired change.
10. Territorial Waters & Airspace
Territorial Waters
All countries bordering the ocean and other large, natural bodies of water should be entitled to own and claim territorial waters up to 100 kilometers from their shores.
If there are bays or gulfs or other such bodies of water where their entrances are narrower than 200 kilometers, then the boundary should be drawn in the middle of the passage halfway between the two shores.
Countries with shorelines along straights or entirely inside bays or gulfs or other such bodies of water but with no territorial water directly connected to international waters, should be given the right to access international waters by establishing a semi-international corridor through the middle of the passageway with a width of no less than 4 kilometers to be jointly managed exclusively by the countries from which the waters in this corridor were taken and the country for which this corridor was created. None of these countries would be able to veto the other from using this waterway. If the narrowest point between dry land along this passageway is less than 10 kilometers wide, the international passage at that point should be 2 kilometers wide, and if the straight it is between 2 and 5 kilometers wide, the international passage should be 1 kilometer wide. If the natural passage at its narrowest point is less than two kilometers wide, then there should be no special jointly managed corridor and any country on the inside of the bay or gulf would be considered landlocked and would need to seek permission from either of the countries owning the territorial waters in order to pass through the passage. Furthermore, if the width of the passage is less than 2 kilometers wide, the country or countries bordering this passage should not be required to yield anything less than 100 kilometers of territorial waters to any ‘landlocked’ third country. International waters should never be closer than one kilometer from land above sea level at its lowest natural tide.
If bays, gulfs or other bodies of water with entrances narrower than 200 kilometers but with pockets inside which are farther than 100 kilometers from the nearest land, and if the land around the bay or gulf is surrounded entirely by only one country, then that same country can claim the entire bay or gulf as its own sovereign territory. If two countries surround the same type of bay or gulf, then the entire bay should be divided proportionately between the two countries according to their shorelines.
Manmade canals should not be forced into being classified as international waterways against the will of the canal’s owners because they are artificial waterways and usually too narrow. However, special treaties could be entered into voluntarily permitting passage through such waterways (either for a fee or for free) to countries which would otherwise be landlocked.
Territorial Airspace
Every country should be entitled to the full, sovereign control of all airspace located over its territory, including over its territorial waters, up to a height of 100 kilometers above sea level. Airspace above this altitude should be open to everyone.
9. Defense & Sovereignty
Abstract
Independent nations should voluntarily enter into a treaty obligating themselves to shift their authority and ability to wage military war to an international military organization that is itself committed to enforcing the simple principle declaring the right of significant culturally distinct groups of people to independently govern themselves. The actions taken by this international military organization would be both in accordance with this principle and decided by a democratic vote of a proportionate number of representatives from each of the member states to this treaty. This treaty would also set up an international territorial court so that a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes exist.
For its success, it is imperative that this treaty and the international military organization it creates be limited to defending the member states against all military threats (both internal and external) as well as enforcing progress on only these stated principles relating to the self-determination for distinct people groups existing within the member states. Every other sphere of human activity including political, economic, social, etc., must not be infringed upon. For example, trade wars, the closing of borders, etc., should all be permitted without any interference by this organization. This international military organization would only interfere if a military threat exists against any member state.
Adoption of this treaty would impose limitations on the nature of the approved weapons that member states can own without any restrictions.
This would result in a much lower potential for violence, especially across international borders, between member states as well as between member states and non-member states. The ability to carry out surprise inspections is the most critical enforcement tool that would help put the rest of the world at ease. By the member states pooling together all of their intelligence, military, and financial resources, this international military organization can threaten or actually carry out more accurate, more forceful, and all-together more effective enforcement efforts and military campaigns than any state individually could possibly have hoped for doing on its own.
Treaty Principles
No state should be admitted into this treaty unless it first agrees to abide by and support the following several points inherently related to the fair treatment of significantly distinct cultural groups and, ultimately, to a peaceful coexistence among nations.
- Agree to Principle of Self-Governance
Member states must agree, in principle, to the idea that distinct cultural groups (as defined below) must have the right to independent self-governance exercised within their historical territories.- The potential separatists must possess a culture which is distinctly different from that of the rest of the population of the country. Possible cultural differences may include one of the following: language, religious history, political evolutions, etc.
- The potential separatists must be native to the land which they wish to form into their country.
- The potential separatists must have been living on the land which they wish to form into their country continuously for at least the last 200 years and must not have forcibly displaced the previous population.
- The potential separatists must win at least 50% of the votes cast by all permanent residents which live on all parts of the land which the separatists wish to incorporate into their country. Forced immigrants and their descendents within the last 200 years may not vote. Forced emigrants and their descendents within the last 200 years may vote. Immigration resulting from government policies expressly designed to encourage people to settle on lands currently in dispute would be classified as forced immigration. (People with a native blood quantum of at least 1/4 qualify as voters.)
- The potential separatists, including emigrants, must currently number at least 250,000 people of any age.
- Territorial Dispute Court
Member states must agree to resolve any territorial disputes within the assembly of representatives of this international military organization. They must also agree to take concrete steps to resolve any domestic independence movements or separatist activities and, whether a decision is for or against independence for any particular group, convincing reasons must be given for such a decision. - Offensive Military Ban
Member states must agree to relinquish their sovereign right to offensive military capabilities. Maintaining an army, navy, air force, etc., would only be allowed if, in the eyes of the other member states (through the assembly of representatives), they do not constitute a significant offensive military force. States may retain such forces which could primarily serve other important social purposes like security during civil unrest, support aid operations during times of emergencies, etc. Member states would be allowed to possess sufficient small arms, riot gear, police aircraft, and any other weapons which are designed for policing its own population, including under conditions of mass uprising. - Delegates
Member states are entitled to send one delegate for every 10 million residents of the state to the international military assembly to take part in the proceedings. Each member state, regardless of how small its population, will be entitled to have at least one delegate. These delegate would not be chosen by a direct vote of the people, but by the national legislative branch, or it’s equivalent, of each member state’s government from a pool of people deemed qualified by that government to work in such a capacity. These delegates would also function as treaty compliance inspectors, so they would need to be professionals in the fields of history, weaponry, and diplomacy so that they would be able to quickly and accurately understand territorial disputes, identify potential violations, and communicate effectively with their colleagues and the public, when necessary. This job would be a lifetime appointment and these people would need to agree to live under constant surveillance due to the sensitive nature of the job. The penalty for spying or divulging unauthorized information should be death. - Allow Inspections
Member states must agree to allow a team composed of any number of members of this treaty’s governing body (inspector representatives) free, unrestricted, and unannounced visits to every square meter of its territory and at any time, including all research labs, manufacturing facilities, storage locations, and all other places such a team may wish to visit. Though every representative of every member country would be eligible to go on these inspection trips, for convenience and logistical reasons, this body could assign a certain, limited number of individuals from among themselves to go on such trips. The only authority for authorizing any given inspection trip would be by a majority vote of all the inspector representatives themselves. No country, including the country who is the target of such an inspection trip, has any right to veto or in any way restrict the movement of the inspectors.This body of inspector representatives must be sworn to secrecy and not divulge any information to the public concerning findings gathered during a mission, unless this body votes that such findings prove or cause great suspicion about treaty violations. Any violation of this commitment to secrecy by any inspector would be punishable by death. Any refusal by a member country to allow free, unfettered access to any site or any proven violations that are uncovered would automatically result in sanctions and the initiation of planning for military actions designed to force inspections or otherwise bring about compliance.Member states may perform military-related classified experiments or activities provided that members of the international military organization body of inspector representatives deem such activities as non-threatening to the peace and security of the region. Experiments that may be detected by neighboring countries may require that those countries (at least just the high ranking political and military officials) be notified of any relevant effects they may detect so as not to be surprised. Generally, merely conducting experiments would not pose a security risk. Though actually manufacturing significant numbers of weapons based on the technology gained through those research experiments may pose a security risk, generally, the gaining of information should not be restricted. - Funding
Member states must agree to assume a portion of the cost of maintaining this international military organization according to a progressive and smooth algebraic formula based on a percentage of each state’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While this exact ‘tax’ rate would be agreed to by a vote of all the states who are members of this treaty, the funding schedule should reflect something similar to that shown below. - Proposed International Military Organization Funding Rates
Maximum GDP Tax Rate $100 billion 0.25% $250 billion 0.5% $500 billion 1.0% $1 trillion 1.5% $2.5 trillion 2.0% $5 trillion 2.5% $7.5 trillion 3.0% $10 trillion 3.5% $15 trillion 4.0% - Military Base Requirement
Every member state must allow at least one military base for every 20,000 square kilometers of territory under the ownership of that state. However, other than providing this land and paying the required treaty tax, no state would be required to directly support, in any way, any military installations on their territory or military operations undertaken by this international military organization. - Right to Refuse Military Operations
Member states reserve the right to refuse any military operations within their boundaries, so long as those objections do not infringe on the normal military operations of any base or so long as those objections do not significantly interfere with the duty of the international military force to keep peace and stability in the area. - Military Service Requirement
Member states would not be obligated to provide personnel to participate in the armed forces, except under emergency situations as declared by a majority vote of the international military organization representatives. - Preemptive War
This international military, under the control of the member states, would have the right to enforce its obligation to provide security by conducting preemptive offensive military actions to disable an aggressor, whether that aggressor is a member state or non-member state. - Prohibition On Entering Other Military Agreements
Member states may not enter into any form of military alliance with any other state. - Autonomy Retained In All Other Areas
Member states would still retain autonomy in all areas except those specified under the terms of this treaty. - Ratification & Withdrawal Vote Threshold
It would require a majority vote of at least 75% of a state’s total eligible voters to ratify this treaty, and a 75% majority to withdraw from this treaty.
8. Military Chants
Military organizations (or any other organization) should be prohibited from using immoral, racist, or any other type of human-degrading training tactics or mental conditioning on its soldiers or other personnel. For example, having personnel repeat chants, such as, “Killing is what we do best,” or “Rape, maim, kill babies, hooah,” or “Swing your guns from left to right, we can kill those guys all night,” all these kinds of things should be prohibited.
7. Optional Military Assignments
One way of maintaining higher military morale out in the deployment area and lowering the level of dissent in a deployed military force would be to allow individuals to opt out of service in a particular area in exchange for a reduction in pay. For example, instead of going to Iraq, a soldier could opt to stay home (and continue training) in exchange for a significant reduction in pay. Of course, if the military really needs all the personnel they can get, the military would have the right to order the dissenting soldier into the deployment area and resume payment at the regular rate.
A soldier has to have a very good reason based on some fundamental disagreement with the military mission to object to a military deployment. During the period of time that the soldier is permitted an absence from the original deployment area, that soldier must be forced to undergo an education process explaining why the mission has been approved by the government, what the goals are and the fact that everybody can’t always have their way and that when people work for others they must sometimes do things with which they may not fully agree.
For small scale military missions, such as Somalia, where only a small force may be necessary, perhaps the military could implement some sort of advertising campaign where individual soldiers or perhaps individual military units could sign up to form a special task force composed of people willing to participate in the mission. This type of setup may be unworkable because it would require strangers to rapidly get to know and trust each other. It would also leave several traditional military groups without some of their members. However, perhaps individual military groups could vote on whether they would like to join the task force, with the majority ruling.
6. Greater Military Independence
The executive and legislative branches of the government should keep to a minimum, direct interference into certain military activities such as weapons purchases and target selections. Only the military should have the right to determine which weapons it will or will not need in the future. And during the course of a military campaign, civilian planners outside of the military should not regularly demand whether or how certain targets should be struck.
Of course, the military should always be entirely under civilian control, but the proper place for civilian control and where it would be most effective would be in the areas of constructing and formulating the principles by which military plans and operations are decided, such as how many major and/or minor conflicts the military should be designed to adequately respond to, how far to go in the prosecution of a war (i.e., conditional or unconditional surrender), the use of unconventional weapons and tactics (such as nuclear weapons, torture, etc.), the execution of medium or long term military activities on foreign lands as well as deciding whether or not to use certain bases in foreign countries for certain missions. Virtually everything else should be left up to the military to decide. This will allow the military more efficient control of its resources so that it could accomplish its objectives more quickly. Proper civilian control over the big picture would make civilian micromanagement unnecessary. So while civilian control should be shifted away from the lower levels of military planning and operations and dwell mostly at the higher levels of planning and operations, civilian control would still be allowed to overrule any military decisions at any level.
5. Fixed Schedules for Military Personnel
Military personnel serving in areas away from their homes, spouses, or families should have more predictable schedules informing them of their dates of departure and return. Before leaving for a term of service, every military personnel should be told the date that they will return home. Of course, the military should retain the right to keep any personnel beyond their original deployment times during times of war or other emergencies, but overtime must be paid to all people staying over their terms if the military has asked (or forced) them to stay. If, instead, a person volunteers to stay over his/her deployment term, and the military agrees, that individual would not receive overtime pay.
If the military needs to retain personnel beyond their deployment terms, the first thing to do would be to offer overtime pay to all personnel volunteering to extend their deployment to perform jobs for which there is a shortage of workers. If still more personnel are needed, the military could force deployment extensions to personnel without significant obligations back home (such as marriage, etc.). If still more personnel are needed, the military could force deployment extensions for all workers, including those who are married or have other significant obligations back home. Of course, exceptions would be made for those with extreme hardships or obligations.
4. Professional Soldiers
Soldiers, fighter pilots, and other military personnel whose duties include having direct contact with the enemy should all be intensively trained professional who have chosen this job as a long term career (lasting at least 10 years after completion of training). Maintenance training should obviously continue constantly throughout an individual’s career.
No important positions, such as these, should ever be given to untrained people or people not committed to a long-term career nor should such jobs be advertised as just a way to pay for going to college or other short-term commitments. For people who would not like to choose a long-term career in the military but do want to join the military either for various job benefits offered, or as a relatively short-term (less than 10 years) endeavor while they decide upon a new long-term career move or any other reason, they could be employed in non-frontline positions, especially in the area of logistics. If people in important positions are cycled through the military often, not only is it an inefficient use of military resources spent for training but the benefits provided by individuals holding years of experience is lost as well. Military operations would progress more smoothly with more personnel having greater experience.
For people who are not certain about whether they would like a particular military position enough to commit for a minimum of 10 years, they could spend more time studying what the job entails or perhaps, if practical, sign up for a short period of ‘shadowing’ an actual willing worker in the field for a few days to get a better idea about the job. Or they could possibly interview people who actually work in the field about the job.
Mandatory Counseling
All soldiers should be required to attend mandatory counseling sessions at least once a month so that the stigma often associated with such counseling sessions is eliminated. Such counseling would also help reduce the degree of irrational hatred soldiers often feel towards the enemy and civilians during the normal course of their duties, but especially after an attack by the enemy or casualties inflicted by the enemy. These counseling sessions should encourage the development of the empathetic and caring qualities of the soldiers.
Additional Penalty for Misbehaving
Soldiers and all other personnel who commit crimes while acting on behalf of the United States on foreign soil should be punished more than they would otherwise due to the additional humiliation of the US in the eyes of foreign observers. Perhaps a penalty twice as severe as a normal one would be a good rule of thumb.
3. Permit Purely Defensive Systems
No country should ever be prevented from developing and deploying any purely defensive military system. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) should be abolished.
2. Classification & Declassification Of Information
Far too many documents are classified and withheld from the public than should be the case. The number of classified documents have been exploding beyond what is rational, espcially within the last decade or two. The security classification system for government documents needs to be overhauled. There needs to be a system that automatically sets certain documents to be declassified so that there is not a perpetual increase in the number of documents classified. Basically, a report entitled “Transforming the Security Classification System” published in 2012 has a good set of suggestions that would dramatically reduce the number of classified documents and provide the world with more accurate information which can be used to study history.
This report proposes a 14 point solution. I have omitted some of the more procedural points.
1. Documents should be classified into only one of two classification categories.
2. The level of classification should match the level of harm if the information were to be released.
3. Specific protection for sources or methods need to be rationalized.
4. Documents with short-term secrecy value should be set to automatically become declassified at some date in the future.
5. To help counter the over-classification bias of today, classifiers would undergo extensive training on the proper standards to use to justify a classification. Classifiers who adhere to rigorous risk management practices and determine in good faith to classify information, but are in error, would be protected from prosecution by the classification agency. This protection is necessary to counter the over-classification bias and to balance the need for secrecy with the fundamental civil need for a transparent government to pacify the population, among other policy objectives (such as facilitating the sharing of information between government departments). Furthermore, a continued tendency to classify or reclassify dubious documents would result in significant, resource-intensive future costs associated with revisiting the documents and making further determinations.
6. Storage and stockpile information about nuclear weapons from WWII through the end of the Cold War should be systematically reviewed for declassification. Most of this information is obsolete anyway but valuable for historical studies. (This category of classified materials is not covered under current declassification regulations, thus this special mention is necessary.)
7. The National Declassification Center should have greater authority to streamline the declassification system within and among various agencies.
8. Historically significant documents (those which are judged to be in highest demand by agency policymakers and historians) should be prepositioned for review (placed on a short list) by historians at the classified level. Because of the severe backlog of classified documents in line for review, most documents are not able to be reviewed and declassified at their 25 year age mark as required by Executive Order 13526, so creating a “short list” of documents that the original reviewers have judged to have a significant public interest, would result in finding such records on time for their release at the 25 year age limit.
9. Require agencies to better organize their records so that as documents near the age of review for potential declassification, they could actually be found.
Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA)
FOIA requests should be allowed for any documents that are still under a classified status. Such a request could be for purposes of partially declassifying a record to certain individuals for investigative or research purposes or could be a request for full declassification in a time frame sooner than that which would normally occur under the normal declassification timetables. Documents having been declassified would obviously not need a FOIA request. A non-refundable fee should be filed for each application and a response should be given within 60 days as to whether the request is able to be satisfied or not. Six months should be allowed for the fulfillment of a request, measured from the original date of the request.
Defense Department Approval for Sensitive Information
The US Defense Department should have plenary authority to approve or deny the trade, transfer or divulging of any type of information, product, or service from any entity to any entity, both foreign and domestic, due to national security concerns. However, such information and its reasoning must be divulged to selected high-level personnel with direct Defense Department oversight in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
Satellite & Launch Vehicle Information Transfer
As a rule, the United States should launch all of its own space satellites which contain significant classified technologies. Any domestic company (or foreign company) launching such satellites for the U.S. should be required to have appropriate safeguards in place to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. Information should be intensely compartmentalized to minimize the risk of unauthorized transfer.
Since it is highly impractical to accurately assign cutting edge technologies with the proper level of classification so that it balances the economic needs of the parties, the national security of various entities, the desire of engineers to share information and engage in problem-solving, and the urge of human nature to collaborate and push the technological envelope, the best solution would be to allow market forces to regulate the flow of information but only under the framework of a comprehensive (and strictly enforced) international military treaty in which all countries agree to be bound by rulings related to internal and external territorial disputes and agree to deprive themselves of all significant offensive military capabilities in exchange for the guaranteed security of their own territory from any external threat.
This way, the exchange of information of a military nature could be shared without the potentially severe consequences that currently exist because of the provision for surprise inspections of absolutely any facility in any country that is a member to this treaty. The potential for only peaceful uses of the various otherwise dangerous technologies will be virtually assured.
1. Information Branch of the Military
The US Department of Defense should create a new branch of the military just like the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc., but which specializes in information warfare. This Information Branch of the military would reflect the growing importance of information in warfare and organize its coordination for both defensive and offensive purposes.
67. Right to Privacy Over Personal Information
People should not be required to pay companies to keep their private information private. By default, it should be common practice to keep the names, telephone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses and other personal information away from everybody except those individuals necessary to conduct the transaction or otherwise necessary for providing proper services. People should not need to pay the telephone company, for example, to prevent their telephone numbers from being published in the phone book. Companies should be required to do whatever it takes to keep such information confidential and secure. However, the original owners of this personal information (i.e., the actual people to who this information relates), should have the right to sell any or all of their own personal information to third parties.
Telephone companies would be required to keep a database of telephone numbers of people who have expressly permitted unsolicited telephone advertisements, promotions, propaganda, notices, announcements, commercials, courtesy calls, etc. Telemarketers would be required to check such lists before making calls. Because few people would actively permit such calls, to make these calls more attractive to people, regulations could be structured in a way that compensates the residents for accepting such calls. For example, for each telemarketing call a resident takes, a certain amount could be deducted from his monthly telephone bill. In essence, accepting telemarketing calls would directly help pay that person’s telephone bill. Of course, a resident hanging up as soon as he realizes that a telemarketer is calling would not qualify as ‘accepting a call’. Telephone companies would be encouraged, but not required to offer this service, but if they do offer it they would be required to keep track of all of this and would be responsible for listing all such calls and credits on the customer’s telephone bill every month. Perhaps, if this system becomes widespread and mature enough, customers could begin to set their own prices for accepting telemarketing calls and they could even choose which telemarketers to accept.
In a similar way, things like genetic information, spending habits, credit card numbers, license plate numbers, or other kinds of personal information should also be allowed to be sold at market rates with the permission of their original owners. This information would be sold at market prices and any unauthorized use of the information would be treated as theft, and restitution would be paid to the victims/owners. The right to sell this information would not apply, of course, in cases where the information is necessary for business transactions, verification, security purposes, routine proceedings, etc. Such entities would be allowed to the free access of such information for legitimate purposes.
All personal information gained in any way, or through any transaction or medium should be treated as confidential and should be protected unless permission has been granted by the original owners to sell, give, or have free use of that information. Anyone who misuses this information or divulges it to any unauthorized party should be very, very severely punished. This is necessary to preserve the public’s trust in the idea that private information is ensured.