People's Constitution Indiana

No more wars. New legal structure for the US and the world. Presenting a revised US Constitution and Constitution for the Human Federation

09/19/2021

The trillion dollar military can't beat a band of terrorists carrying AK-47s riding around in pickup trucks .

We must end this era of pointless-endless war and start a new one.

I, Alan Dechert, an award-winning engineer at Intel, chairman of the Committee for Open Source Global Governance (OSGG), and heterodox constitutional law theorist, am the chief architect of this constitutional text.

I am asking for help refining the text. Beginning an important phase in a software development project, the code might be described as "feature complete" and "alpha quality." I am asking for your help to bring the code up to beta quality.

We will treat the text as we treat major computer software development projects, dealing with "problem reports" as they come in from near and far in a systematic way to bring the code up to Beta. Next comes Release Candidate 1, then RC2, and so on until perfect (or as perfect as we can make it).

My work on this idea goes back decades. I began serious discussions with legal scholars about five years ago. I never felt I was qualified to write any of it. I intended to work with a few scholars who might like the idea and would be willing to contribute some of their expertise -- even if they believed it could never be enacted.

Most of all, I wanted a suitable scholar to take charge of it. I was unable to recruit anyone for this role, and wound up writing a great deal of it myself. A few scholars contributed some insights and even some text. So, I -- and OSGG -- will retain ownership of it sink or swim.

I am passing along this message to you asking for your help. The links* are to the document in ODT format (Open Document Text) and PDF**

The document contains 3 constitutions: the existing text for the USA side-by-side our proposed replacement text; and text for a proposed international sovereign, the Human Federation.

I am not interested in handwaves (I'm 69 and not planning on attending law school... I did consider that one but decided against). My inbox has had its fill of them and I don't save them anymore. I would most appreciate it if you would mark up the document with any insights you might have. Can you provide any amendments? (at this point, we would want to stuff them into the body of the text without actually calling them "amendments"). Minor corrections? Do you know where any of the specific words or phrases come from?

I've tried to identify some of the origins, but I don't really know that much except for what I wrote. A few clauses were provided by scholars like Michael Dorf, Dan Farber, and Shubha Ghosh. I've noted that in the document, although I may have missed a few things. I haven't bothered to add notes to the existing US Constitution although I want to do that. I'm pretty sure James Madison wrote the first 10 amendments -- and the nearly forgotten 27th amendment -- but haven't gotten around to mentioning that. I tried to incorporate J P Stevens' 6 amendments (although I eliminated the 2nd altogether). One clause is from Emmanuel Kant's 1795 essay on Perpetual Peace.

Here are some essential features of the document:
• USA's World Cop role would be handed over to this international sovereign, with simultaneous adoption of two new constitutions
• worldwide ban on nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons.
• ownership of military weapons banned (Human Federation will collect them and keep what it needs for its mission)
• Unsustainable practices curtailed.
• How humans will make use of space; Outer Space Treaty subsumed; no "space force;" mineral resources in space can be produced and made available to humans in a responsible legal manner; Luna and Mars to become countries.
• New articles specifically covering equality in the US constitution as well as the international one.
• Strengthening local government
• Health Care becomes a human right in the US; Roe v. Wade memorialized in clause 5 written by Michael Dorf as I requested
• Peace becomes a human right, as spelled out in US constitution as well as international constitution
• voting in the US becomes mandatory with greatly enhanced voting processes
• One new Supreme Court Justice installed every two years (effectively defining an 18-yr term)
• term limits in US Congress (24 yrs combined service)
• Education becomes a human right
• Plural Executive -- Attorney General becomes elected executive with 10-yr term (process is spelled out)

A common response is we're trying to do too much. However, due to very long trends and a long string of major events, it's time to revolt. This is a unique time. The World Cop can't stop a band of guys in pickup trucks carrying AK47s. We have cowboys in space. Climate. There remains serious doubts about the voting systems. Something has to give. We can do this now and it may be the last time for centuries this can be done again.

Some will say this is utopian dreaming. Wrong. Utopia literally means nowhere. Utopia is used in strawman arguments. There is no reason we can't have a much better system of global governance and US governance. Instead of utopia, we can call it Ecotopia if you prefer (Ernest Callenbach, my friend and cohort many years ago in Berkeley, used this word).

OSGG can be a complete success. It's not easy to understand just how, but I know how. It's as feasible as open source voting and renewable energy... and those things are becoming law as we speak, first in CA then the USA, then the world.
Please, will you get in touch with me asap? There is a lot to discuss that I dare not attempt in one email. We need your help.

Alan Dechert, (916) 792-1784
* Here are the links to the documents I mentioned.
https://theanswer.fyi/constitutions.pdf
https://theanswer.fyi/comparisonsource.odt
(depending on your device and software, the odt file may not automatically open up. It's there and will download. It was written using Libreoffice, which is free and open source and runs on most anything)
** You can get to all the content on our site from
https://theanswer.fyi/frequently-asked-questions/

You can also see the intro at https://theanswer.fyi/ knowing that there is an Easter Egg opened by clicking on our logo (people making pledge requests as explained in our FAQ)

Photos from People's Constitution Ghana's post

05/21/2020

07/25/2018

https://youtu.be/QO2PxRozzDA

Years ago, when I described the concept to people, some said, "we have to wait for the return of Jesus Christ for that." I didn't believe it then, and still don't.

This is not the first plan. It's not the final plan. It's not the second draft, the third, or the fourth. It's the plan as of July 21, 2018.

As always, it's a flexible plan. Things are happening; we're doing things; the world is changing. The current set of goals, strategies, principles, objectives, and building blocks (things we've done, 1 - 7) are listed here.

Open Source Voting & Open Source Global Governance
------------------------------------
If we succeed with one of these initiatives, we will get the other. Open Source Voting is a small subset of Open Source Global Governance, but would be a large world-changing event by itself.

ETASA (Election Transparency and Security Act), a ballot measure for a constitutional amendment in California, encapsulates the work of the movement for open source voting. The original 2018 document (http://openvoting.org/ad/e-tas.pdf ) is now ETASA2020 and has its own website,

(1) http://electionact2020.org/ where visitors can also find a video by Adria Ross about smartphone voting.

This flyer, which makes the case for open source voting, was distributed at several events where Brent Turner spoke at the California Democratic Party Eboard meeting July 13-15, 2018, Oakland, California.
http://openvoting.org/ad/ca-dems2018.pdf

(2) The Open Source Global Governance (OSGG) proposal
-----------------------------------
As of Sep 30, 2017: 9250 words, 25 references, and one diagram.
http://openvoting.org/ad/osgg.pdf
http://openvoting.org/ad/osgg.jpg

(3) Letters to the National Governors Association and the United Nations
----------------------------------------------
12 July 2018
http://openvoting.org/ad/letter12jul2un.pdf
http://openvoting.org/ad/letter12july2nga.pdf

(4) People’s Constitution on facebook
--------------------------------
https://www.facebook.com/hf.discuss

THE ANSWER Video Blog (or VLOG), can be seen here. There are daughter pages for the 50 states in the U.S. and 50 or more countries, and a few territories.

As of July 15, 2018, the 100+ pages have a total of over 14,000 likes – more than half from outside the U.S.

(5) Constitution text
--------------------------
http://openvoting.org/ad/revised-const.pdf

(6) Our Logo
--------------------------
a peace bird with a quill:
http://openvoting.org/ad/logo3.jpg

Thanks to Morgan Hastings for the artwork (he also incorporated this into the letterhead). Thanks to Eve Moran for suggesting the quill. We will gladly place our logo on most anything available at cafe press https://www.cafepress.com/ (pricing to be determined)

(7) Committee for Open Source Global Governance
Membership in the committee is open, and we don't maintain a list. Basically, anyone who wants to identify with the committee can do so.
There are two sub-committees:
a) Editors (of the two constitutions)
b) Steering committee (Alan Dechert, chair)

I am recruiting for chair of editors committee.

KEY EVENTS WE NEED TO MAKE HAPPEN ("our process")
------------------------------------
** Press conference announcing formation of editors' committee. We need the chair of this committee and as many constitutional scholars as possible to back-up him or her. We will describe the process and invite participation of state governments in the U.S., as well as national governments around the world. At the press conference, we'll have two scientists and two political scientists joining two of the constitutional scholars.

** Government participation begins (template #1 described in Jul 12 letters). We need governments to participate in our process. Before we can get many to participate, we have to get one.

** Process set up, probably with bug tracking software (perhaps free open source Bugzilla https://www.bugzilla.org/ ), which will enable people all over the world to report their issues. Chief editor (or chair of subcommittee) will then assign the item to an appropriate editor.

** Full participation -- approximately 40 U.S. states and 40 countries, minimum.

** Press conference announcing document completion -- all issues satisfactorily resolved

** selling the deal. Federalist papers for the New Era and new constitutions. Participation by people all over and in the media. Final adjustments/edits to constitutions as needed

** request letters from partcipating governments (like template #2 in Jul 12 letters)

** sufficient letters received for ratification.

** time/date/place arranged for international constitutional conference. Details organized, planned

To summarize, I fully agree the project I am leading seems impossible. It's not about following some procedure -- which no one has ever succeeded with before -- but is more like a magic trick.

Here is something from a magician, Laszlo Szombatfalvy:

"A true magician doesn’t wonder so much if something can be done, but focuses on how it could be done."

This encapsulates what I am doing (or think I'm doing). Laszlo didn't get it reading a book how to do it. It wasn't some established procedure. It was invention.

Until proven otherwise, I assume it could be done. I am only interested in HOW to do it. I think I know steps, after many years of thinking about it.

I have already completed many of the steps. I still have some figuring to do for the rest. Like a person watching one of Laszlo's latest and greatest tricks, people will come away wondering, "how'd he do that?" Call it "magic," but in the end it was just a series of steps.

episode3ThePlan

07/15/2018

https://youtu.be/Kh6nl1GmiwQ
Here are the letters referred to in the vid
http://openvoting.org/ad/letter12jul2un.pdf
http://openvoting.org/ad/letter12july2nga.pdf

In summary, we ask for states and countries who want to participate in the process to send us a letter with a contact person we can work with.

episode2TheLetters

07/15/2018

Can we abolish war? Here's THE ANSWER on that. Please watch and share the video.

https://youtu.be/tZ9GIBlem6g

THE ANSWER
Episode 1, Peace as a Human Right, of weekly series by Alan Dechert ( [email protected] )

Today's (July 5, 2018) video is about 17 minutes

Here are several documents referred to in the presentation:

TWO INTERLOCKING CONSTITUTIONS (drafts) -- ONE FOR THE U.S. (pages 1-20) AND ONE FOR THE WORLD (pages 21-32)
http://openvoting.org/ad/revised-const.pdf

THE ELECTION TRANSPARENCY AND SECURITY ACT OF 2018 (now targeted for 2020)
http://openvoting.org/ad/e-tas.pdf

Emerging, our current age, the Solar Era, is a roll-up of all the ages that have been seen in the last 230 years. Each of these developments have had significant impact on our system of governance, which authors 230 years ago had no knowledge.

1. Industrial Age (citizens were all farmers before)
2. Age of fossil fuels (non-biological non-renewable energy)
3. Electronic Age
4. World War (and WMD)
5. Automobiles
6. Flight
7. Television
8. Space Age
9. Racial Equality
10. Computer age
11. Internet
12. Information age
13. Social media
14. Women
15. Smartphones
16. Robotics (emerging)
17. Solar Era (emerging)
18. Cryptocurrency (emerging)

Some large current issues impacting public policy that have been brewing all the while:
- climate change
- population
- privacy

Two MacArthur speeches
--------------------------
1955http://openvoting.org/ad/macarthur-booklet.pdf (quote was from this one... see last paragraph on page 7)
1961http://openvoting.org/ad/macarthur-1961-booklet.pdf

copied from, http://www.macarthurmemorial.org

Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) New Shape Contest
----------------------------
GCF recently awarded three contest entries $600,000. Two of the three focused on reforming the United Nations. See https://globalchallenges.org/

OSGG submission to GCF New Shape Contest (9250 words, 25 references):

The OPEN SOURCE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE PROPOSAL
http://openvoting.org/ad/osgg.pdf
http://openvoting.org/ad/osgg.jpg

episode1

12/04/2017

Global Challenges Foundation has launched their Educators' Challenge contest. This is supplemental to their New Shape Prize contest which closed on September 30 (results known in the Spring).

They report receiving 2702 entries from 122 countries. Ours was one of them!

You don't have to wait until the Spring to get involved. The Educators' Challenge is open now. You don't need to have a formal teaching role to qualify. Anyone with an audience has a chance to win $5,000.

To learn more about our New Shape Prize entry, write to [email protected]

To learn all about Educators' Challenge, visit

https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/educators-challenge

China Is Showing the World What Renewable Energy Dominance Looks Like, Says New IEA Report

10/07/2017

Look at what China is doing, then consider what President Trump says about solar

China Is Showing the World What Renewable Energy Dominance Looks Like, Says New IEA Report The growth of solar energy continues to outpace forecasts and this growth, according to a report published today by the International Energy Agency, “is a China story.”

09/09/2017

08/19/2017

**Installing a new constitution is a lot of trouble. Why bother?

We gave some hint of it in the introductory post. We will provide much more detail in this post.

The short answer to the Why Bother question is that none of the major problems we face can be solved by itself, because each happens to be intertwined with many other problems. We have to address them all (or all the ones we can see right now). We can't even the US Constitution to address even the most basic issues today. Dissolving world wide military conflict will require an international sovereign, which has never existed. So, we have to install that at the same time (called Human Federation).

MORE INFO BEGINNING WITH OUR INTRODUCTORY TEXT
--------------------------------------------
The introduction says, "The revised version of the US Constitution addresses many weaknesses and faults that have become apparent over the past 230 years, which, for practical reasons, cannot be changed by amending. Wholesale replacement is required, as it was required in 1787."

We also bring up the abolition of war in the introduction. This specific item is mentioned right off because we have found it is the most compelling feature of the plan. We can tell from our site statistics what people react to the most, and that's it.

We also point out in the introduction that. "This basic purpose of the Human Federation (HF) would be to make swords into plowshares -- collect the world's military hardware and recycle it.

As more countries join, the need to retain any of it diminishes.

The other basic purpose of the HF is space -- mostly to get colonization started (beginning with the Moon). Over time, the function is mainly monitoring, while continually improving readiness to respond to extra terrestrial hazards (like incoming Near Earth Objects)."

List of issues addressed
------------------------
Here is a summary of what's in the proposed draft constitutions. They are included in the same document because one cannot be enacted without the other. The new US Constitution would refer to the Human Federation.

We expect further revisions, with additions, changes, and deletions as more people become involved. However, we feel the basic ideas are here. The revised US constitution has 16 articles, and the Human Federation draft constitution has 17 articles. Some of the material is new; some of it is recycled from the US Constitution; some of the wording in the Human Federation's article 17 if from the German constitution.

To get the details, you have to read the 31-page document. Here is a summary of the proposed constitutions:

1) Preamble edited to include "secure the Rights of the People" and provide for common defense deleted.

2) Gender neutral language

3) "Indian" changed to "Native American"

4) US Constitution linked to new Human Federation (see US Article 9 on sovereignty), which has to be adopted concurrent to adoption of new Human Federation Constitution (first clause says, "This Constitution is the Supreme Sovereign for all people choosing to be governed by it").

5) Electoral College removed and replaced. We specify electors which are not people, but tokens which will become fractional when apportioned. Small state weighting retained, but winner-take-all removed.

6) Basic structure of government described in articles 1 - 4 of deprecated constitution retained.

7) Article 5 shortened because there is no need to prescribe how a constitutional convention can be called. It's the Right of the People to alter or abolish the government

8) Article on Elections inserted. States each have a consortium to maintain their voting technologies. Software has to be open GPL.

9) Six amendments proposed by retired justice John Paul Stevens all adopted. Two of -- banning Gerrymandering and 2nd amendment restriction -- are covered differently, however.

9a) Gerrymandering banned -- automated rule-based procedures for drawing lines maintained by the Census bureau. We simply leave out the language for the 2nd amendment, as it is not considered a right, but a privledge covered by state laws

9b) Anti-commandeering rule (add "and other public officials" to Supremacy Clause)

9c) Campaign finance restrictions, clean money. JPS language included

9d) Doctrine of Sovereign Immunity gone.

9e) Death penalty eliminated

10) Office of Local Governor established -- the immediate government official people interact with all the time

11) Article on Equality

12) Free public colleges and universities

13) Peace declared a human right.

14) Supremacy clause of the Constitution retained since it declares itself the "supreme Law of the Land" but not the Supreme Sovereign (which owns no land). The Constitution of the Human Federation is itself the Supreme Sovereign for all people choosing to be governed by it.

15) War Abolished

16) nuclear weapons abolished

17) nuclear power phased out, and nuclear waste permanently stored (by 2100 C.E.)

18) possession of fissionable material banned (except for Human Federation)

19) fossil fuel burning phased out (by 2040)

20) work toward a zero-waste economy with extensive recycling. Right of future generations to inherit a viable land

21) Calendar System defined. Deprecated Constitution has times and dates that were not defined. New era declared -- Solar Era, with Year 16 S.E. equivalent to 2016 C.E.

22) Universal Heath Care -- health care a human right guaranteed by government; abortion rights spelled out ( #5 by Dorf). #6 says reproductive health care and family planning included in these services.

23) Luna established as a county and a member of the Human Federation, Outer Space Treaty to be changed accordingly.

24) Mars also defined as country and Mars Epoch specified (coincidentally Mars and Earth were very close to the same position in orbit around sun 01/01/00 ~275 +/- degrees).

25) Most of the Bill of Rights from deprecated US Constitution contained in Article 15, although 10th amendment moved to section on sovereignty. Other amendments moved to appropriate articles.

27) Presidential term starts 2 weeks earlier.

28) Term limits on Congress members (24 yrs including service in both houses)...

29) SCOTUS members fixed at 9, with regular terms -- new one on odd years; 18 yr max

30) Clause added: "Citizens come under protection of the laws of the United States at birth."

31) voluntary population control -- states publish their Carrying Capacity

32) Default for Human Federation is open, non-secret. Anything held in secret must have strong justification for being kept secret

33) HF Article 16 to establish state autonomy -- one country cannot muck with government (or elections) of another

34) Human Federation would investigate and enact measures to protect earthlings from collisions with space junk, including human-made junk as well as natural near earth objects

35) The Human Federation has highest authority, but limited scope of responsibilities. For example, it has nothing to do with regulating commerce, or other day-to-day human activities on earth.

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