Amendments At End, Otherwise, Expanding on People, State, Capital Elements

Authoritarian Breakthrough in D.C., Publishing to Spread This As Wide As Possible

Please forgive the fact that what follows is not in its final form. It’s been difficult trying to work on this and start a startup while my industry is being decimated and all law is bulldozed ahead of martial law being declared in D.C. and soon enough 5 other Black mayor-led cities. I intend to edit these segments in such a way that makes them coherent. I invite you to pull out the parts that resonate most and share them as widely as possible like you would if books were being burned and you wanted to assure the information survived.

These ideas NEED, NEED, NEED to go viral so that it becomes obvious to the vast majority of the public that Capital is running the this country to enrich itself at the expense of We the People. Presenting this along side what will hopefully be regarded as obvious solutions that restore We the People as the focus of the government will start the process that leads to it happening.

Picking up from the last paragraph of the first post:

The Constitution, though conservative through a modern lens, coming from a world of imperial monarchies, was enlightened for its day, defining how the country should work, but also progressive for recognizing the importance of technology in our lives and how it influences and affects society. The best example, of course, being the Second Amendment. Its presence in the Constitution is an acknowledgement of the need to and justification for regulating the relationship between People, State, and Capital as it pertains to any technology for the purpose of maintaining bodily autonomy and therefore, liberty, for and from, each element of society. With this understood, let’s dive in.

To start, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, vaccines, and food content and additives—what are the connections to People, State, and Capital? Obviously, these are all things that go in our bodies for different reasons, and they either interact with or have an active effect on our physiology, in some cases, our state of mind and therefore, potentially, our behavior. At one time or another, they were developed, invented, or discovered. For alcohol, tobacco, and certain drugs, this was thousands of years ago, but others more recently, including those being researched and developed right now, either in private, i.e. corporate labs, or universities and health systems.

The purpose of the regulatory environment administered by the State is to understand how they interact with our bodies, based on our best understanding of our bodies and the processes in them. There isn’t a monopoly on this information, but the State is present to act as a neutral party in the process to make sure Capital is being honest in that the product will not harm someone it is given to, and that it works like the company says. It’s part of protecting bodily autonomy with respect to health, but also regulating commerce—to sell a drug to someone that doesn’t do what the company says is fraud. Trust but verify, especially when drug development takes years and costs potentially billions of dollars, and stock prices rise and fall based on the outcome of drug trials.

Vaccines are largely like drugs but have an added dimension that make them a special case. They are developed in research settings, they’re meant to protect health and therefore bodily autonomy, and they have to be verified as effective and safe. But, because human beings are of a biological nature, and the viral pathogens that sicken us are contageous and damaging or potentially deadly, every individual’s health and the health of others is connected. Depending on the virus, the percentage of people that receive a vaccine can affect how quickly it spreads, or if it spreads at all.

Forcing a person to get a vaccine when they claim a religious objection feels like State infringement of bodily autonomy. However, a person that refuses to get a vaccine, or wear a mask to stop its spread if they are infected, also could be person to person oppression—for those that define liberty as taking other people’s liberty, the viral host thinks it’s their right to sicken others—to infringe on someone else’s bodily autonomy—in this case, it would be the State’s obligation to protect those around the viral host from being sickened. Whatever the motivation, the unvaccinated people are at risk of becoming infected and spreading the virus to others. The question of how to handle these cases has been present in society since at least the early 1840s; all I can say is I don’t want to live in a place where cured, eradicated diseases re-emerge and waft through the air because of a non-understanding of People, State, and Capital.

With that said, another factor in the conversation around vaccines is misinformation and charlatans. Vaccines have been proven safe, effective, life-saving, and to NOT be a cause of autism. The previous highest profile source of these lies was a book an unscrupulous doctor published as a scheme to enrich himself. What is going on at the CDC, with the firing of the advisors on the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, it puts the State in serious danger of contributing to either Capital or State-sourced oppression.

Consider the opposite case of forcing a person with a religious objection to get a vaccine—someone that wants a vaccine, and even though the State has one, it does not give it out. Or will give it out, but only if the person is deemed “worthy.” Denial of care very quickly becomes recognizable as a form of oppression.

If HHS is sincere in its concern for people, it will set up a commission to aggregate as much data about vaccine injuries—something that has been tracked and compensated by the U.S. government since the mid-’80s—as possible, then use modern algorithms to look for correlations in the data, but at the same time, not stopping or interfering with precious, essential, life-saving medicine. AND, WILL CERTAINLY NOT PERFORM UNETHICAL “PLACEBO” STUDIES OF VACCINES ON NON-CONSENTING VACCINE SEEKERS. (The attacks against the CDC and NIH are completely unacceptable. There is no reason to stop tracking infectious disease data, ESPECIALLY tuberculosis. The nation’s public health and healthcare infrastructure is NOT negotiable nor neglectable.)

RAN OUT OF TIME, each paragraph that follows are thoughts on a subject that may not connect from one to the next. Subjects include CLIMATE CHANGE, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE AND ABORTION, GUNS, MARRIAGE EQUALITY, AND GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE.

• Pollution is corporate/Capital power, and it violates bodily autonomy by damaging one’s health and even non-degenerative or carcinogenic forms are known to cause premature death. Protecting bodily autonomy from pollution needs to be prioritized, with an awareness of the spectrum of severity, and the specific operating conditions of a technology. Given its importance, it might make sense for the State to subsidize pollution control technology on commercial and industrial installations such as coal power plants, refineries, etc. Reason will be applied; consumers should not fret about laws being applied to things they already own.
  
  One can think of climate change as the accumulation of unchecked corporate power that has compounded and is now threatening the systems that support our survival. Preventing action on it is the continuation of the Capital oppression vector that created it because as more places become inviable to live in, the more the repressive the State gets to control unrest for Capital to then profit from. I should also note that the phenomenon of an industry lying about the safety of its product was not limited to the tobacco industry. Many industries operate this way, the best example is the oil industry funding advertising campaigns to create unfounded doubt about the existence and dire emergency of the climate crisis. Lying about something they discovered before anyone and are trying to hide, especially given the national and global harms it’s caused and causing, is an authoritarian impulse. If nothing else, it’s fraud from a product safety point of view.

• The very nuanced and delicate case of reproductive healthcare, that I, as a male, can only offer thoughts on. The first thing to do is understand the full context of the subject. To focus only on elective abortion is to ignore 85% of the rest of medical interventions connected to reproductive healthcare that, if made illegal, would cause more death than a ban on elective abortion would ever make up for or justify. I’m not a doctor, and I’m sure this is an incomplete list, but ectopic and molar pregnancies, miscarriage requiring a dilation and curettage (D & C), pregnancies that are identifiable as ending in stillbirth—these are not elective abortions.
  
  Pregnancy itself is not an absolute thing, not every pregnancy carries to term. And given the complications that can threaten a mother’s life, if ectopic and molar pregnancy aren’t treated, both the fetus, which was never going to develop to term, and the mother die. And, the woman can’t try to have any children after that, and any kids she may already have are now without their mother, completely unnecessarily. Not acting to save a grown woman’s life and taking her from everyone else in her life, and preventing her from having more children in the future because of an inviable, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy is heinous. This is absolutely a violation of bodily autonomy via a State vector of oppression.
  
  There is, of course, a movement to grant fetuses personhood, and this is something that should be decided by women. The mother’s consent and bodily autonomy is a necessary condition for pregnancy to begin, and a fetus is dependent on the mother’s body to survive, thus it does not have bodily autonomy until it is viable, and even then, it is wholly contained in another individual’s body. It would seem the mother’s rights take preference until the pregnancy successfully comes to term and results in her individuality and the child’s separating at birth. The reason I say this needs to be decided by women is many women don’t know they are pregnant for months, after fetal viability has been reached.
  
  The ultimate regulatory paradigm must be decided and maintained by women. To quote a woman testifying before a Texas legislative committee earlier this year, “Pregnancy can’t be legislated.” There are too many possible, unforeseeable complications that also come with time sensitivity. Women end up dying, and it has the effect of criminalizing miscarriage, which is a very personal, emotional, potentially traumatic event, especially when the pregnancy is wanted and celebrated. For the State to respond to such an event by incarcerating the person is a reactionary act of oppression. In addition to criminalizing miscarriage, I can’t imagine how trying to enforce abortion bans wouldn’t devolve into menstrual cycle tracking, which is impossible to legislate given the changing biological and situational factors that affect it, and regardless, is a level of State oppression that is beyond perverse.

• In consideration of personhood and crime, with the default condition of all human beings are people, when a person commits a serious enough crime, it has the effect of them choosing to give up their humanity, or showing they don’t have any, depending on the case. The way a society treats those that break the law is one of the main criteria used to determine if it is just. Thus, someone that chooses to give up their humanity must still receive humane treatment from a just society as they are still a human being. Personhood, then, can be equated to humanity, where only the individual themselves can give it up. In this case, it is right that the State would take measures to protect everyone else in society from such a person, with the guidance of the justness/humanity of the rest of those in society. (This is a little cumbersome because of the interchangeability of different words, but I hope the distinction comes through.)
  
  Depending on the nature of the offense, once a person “pays their debt to society,” their personhood, from the State’s persepective, is restored. There’s a lot more to say on this point, as the nature of the consequence for breaking a law depends on the law that is broken. This isn’t relativism, it is because punishments/consequences can be evaluated through multiple lenses—there is a need to create consequences for breaking a law for it to be taken seriously/have meaning, but highly punitive consequences/punishments for breaking laws with low- or no-harm outcomes reflects, after a certain threshold, a overbearing application of State power/potential vector of oppression—the actual crime was violating State authority, not, say, discarding chewing gum by sticking it on a telephone pole (there is a state where this is punishable by a $1,000 fine).
  
  One big issue I ran out of time to address is the laws around drugs and its connection to mental health. Too many people that use drugs are doing so as a means to self-medicate problems that otherwise can be treated in the mental health system. Making this system much more robust and accessible for all income levels and changing the consequence for using drugs, recognizing the connection to mental health is essential. Respecting mental health as a component of personhood will also greatly reduce the burden on the justice system. The application of the justice system to mop up after an insufficient mental health system is a MASSIVE vector of oppression.

• For all the Second Amendment people, I support firearm ownership. Guns as a technology help to illustrate one of the elements that drives innovation—getting around regulation. For other technologies, this can drive the diversification of an industry and the economy, which creates jobs, but for guns, preserving people’s rights and public safety risks being at odds.
  
  My thought for approaching this subject is one of parallel examples. Cars didn’t exist when the Constitution was written, but even if they had, no one would be arguing a blind person has an absolute right to drive a car. I feel the same minimal condition should apply to guns as well, that people who aren’t mentally or emotionally stable should not be allowed to own them. To drive a car, we have to learn the rules of the road, practice driving for a number of hours under competent supervision, take a vision test, a written test, and an on-road test. Seems fairly obvious that we make sure someone operating a vehicle knows what the heck they’re doing, that they can do so SAFELY and in a variety of situations, especially considering the life-and-death consequences that driving carries with it. And, they receive a license that can be revoked if they drive recklessly—endangering themselves or others.
  
  There is no reason this same type of process can’t nor shouldn’t apply to guns. Vehicles are created for lots of different reasons. Guns ultimately have ONE purpose, and everything that goes into getting a driver’s license is to make sure driving a vehicle doesn’t lead to what guns exist to do. Anyone that can’t agree to a universal training, testing, and licensing system for firearms, something that’s done in other countries where mass shootings don’t happen on a weekly basis, and accidents with guns don’t affect children at such a high rate, is too extreme to participate in the debate. The debate about guns really just seems to be the manufacturers trying to sell more of them by making people think they won’t be able to buy them anymore.

• Marriage equality is a nuanced situation, but it can be resolved to protect the rights of all parties. It makes sense that the State can’t force a religious institution to change its doctrine around a subject, in this case, marriage, but because it is also a legal status the State administers—a representative of the State can officiate a marriage, i.e. a justice of the peace—because there is equal protection under the law, the State can allow for individuals to be married without regard to biological sex or gender to confer the legal status and rights without showing preference or disfavor of one orientation vs. another.
  
  We both have a better understanding about how human sexual orientation exists in the world, and using the State to force one’s beliefs on others is a vector of oppression, thus the State can create an avenue for something if other institutions don’t understand. The same logic applies to transgender individuals and healthcare. It is a matter of one’s liberty as to their healthcare decisions, and depriving those of treatments to realize the gender they identify with is a terrible vector of State oppression because it is irreversible once full maturation has been reached. And, it’s so few people in a given population, it’s clear it’s a vector of oppression being used for nothing other than seeking power. In addition, how is this different from denying any kind of healthcare to any population or identity?
  
  It’s not that corporations, churches, schools, charities, political organizations, unions, etc, don’t have legal rights, it’s that they aren’t people. They have the autonomy to organize and run themselves around whatever idea or principles they see fit, provided they are not criminal in nature, but they can’t violate anyone else’s rights or dehumanize them under the guise of their beliefs or values. And, they cannot be the primary focus of the government.

• Protect bodily autonomy for everyone as part of personhood, with technology and externalities being a factor in violating it.

CONNECTION B/W PERSONHOOD & ECONOMY AMENDMENT

I apologize in advance, and to be coarse and blunt, but to take this head on, let’s analyze this statement: “They” are taking “our” jobs. Why would anyone say this? To clarify, I don’t think this way, but it’s crept back into politics. For one thing, it’s extremely loaded, and it’s a Capital-motivated attack, but it unmasks what a job is connected to in people’s minds.

Like anything living, humans need various resources to survive: food, water, clothing, shelter, security, etc, a.k.a the hierarchy of needs, and the way we get those resources is by working. Obviously, there was a time when the work required to survive was a matter of hunting, fishing, or gathering enough food to eat, and finding a reliable source of clean water to drink (and a few other things—making clothes, tools for cooking, eating, and hunting, shelter—but for simplicity’s sake). Due to a variety of factors but which would include the advancement of knowledge and technology, the work people did became more specialized, the lack of portability of ledgers used for accounting, and the perennial question of whether three or four fish was a fair trade for one water pot, currency was invented to be a common medium of exchange. (Hey, look at that, Capital enters society.)

Nothing has changed in the intervening time, that doing something for money is still directly connected to staying warm and having enough to eat. Thus, a job = survival, and this connection is easy for unscrupulous politicians to exploit by making people think their survival is at risk for any number of reasons. This is the entry point for all manner of discrimination: racism, sexism, ageism, nativism, etc.

It seems the first task of the State is to protect the rights of the individual by protecting bodily autonomy which includes preparing them for participation in the economy. Participation in the economy, of course, is a form of competition, where success is determined by the knowledge, skill, effort, and choices of the individual. The second task of the State is to allow for fair competition, between Capital interests/businesses, businesses and people, and people and people—preventing fraud, theft, collusion to manipulate prices, etc, but also making sure bodily autonomy is protected such that no one is profiting from:

1. Using the law to cut people out of being considered persons/denying anyone personhood (education, good health, demographic reputation) to increase their chances of getting a job.

2. Being allowed to diminish anyone’s health with externalities (pollution) from business activity.

3. Criminalizing those being denied personhood to then profit from the justice system.

The above phenomena typically begin WITH AN OPPRESSIVE, DOMINATION-BASED MINDSET WHERE THAT PERSON DEFINES THEIR LIBERTY AS BEING ABLE TO TAKE OTHER PEOPLE’S LIBERTY—THAT THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS THAT AFFECT OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES OR LIVES. In the context of individuals, we might call this a criminal mindset, but when it’s a mode of operation within the political system or government, it’s a hallmark sign of authoritarianism, where the State is used to amass power and wealth/capital for Capital interests. To give it a name that generalizes it for incident examples vs. when it’s the principle underlying an entire system (i.e. authoritarianism), it can be referred to as the Wastable People Ideology.

This is incomplete, but there at least three relevant groups in a society based on the Wastable People Ideology (WPI—sorry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute). The first is the “target” population, the second is the “captive” population, and the third is the Capital interests, a.k.a. oligarchs, a.k.a. the oppressing group. The drivers of the Wastable People Ideology are ultimately seeking power, capital/resources, or both. Due to the ideology’s wasting/consumptive nature, those controlling it must constantly escalate their attacks. Having consumed whatever they targeted initially, to keep going, they have to turn on something/someone else. In a nutshell, this is the pathology of oppression from the WPI:

Out of the general population or a subset thereof, identify, minoritize, criminalize, oppress, intensify.

“Identify” and “minoritize” are kind of the same step because the WPI is only successful if it targets a group of people that are too few in number to fight off the attack; by identifying a subset of a population that is less than half of it, it’s by definition a minority. It’s because of our history that our use of the word “minority” comes with the implication of oppression by a majority. There is slightly more to it, though, in that the process plays out over time, and the repetition involved has a material effect on how society thinks about the group of people.

Upon first identification, there isn’t necessarily a negative connotation to the trait being identified, although, since the WPI is a power/resource/Capital-seeking attack, the first impulse is to find something that is easy to cast as negative. Even if not initially thought of as negative, the more attention that’s called to it, the people with the particular trait eventually become a discrete entity which can be referred to as a minority. If negative characteristics are conflated with the minority, over more time, the idea to criminalize them is raised and eventually comes to pass. Once criminalized, the minority is oppressed by the mere enforcement of the laws passed against them, but again, to maintain the power the oppressing group has achieved, the attack must be driven deeper/to greater lengths—thus, the “intensify” step. It’s an infinite loop that is only abandoned after the oppressing group has extracted all the wealth and power they can. This isn’t to say they stop, it’s just the process is repeated with a new trait to start the entire thing over.

This process is better known as discrimination. It is most precisely understood as a power/resource/Capital-motivated attack. In America, racism is the most well-known example, but all discrimination is for the same purpose. Even a cursory understanding of biology imparts the fact that “race” as it is used to differentiate between subsets of some species of animals DOES NOT APPLY TO HUMANS. There are 9 genes that code for skin color in the human genome; because these genes do not prevent offspring of those with dissimilar skin color genes from being able to reproduce successfully themselves, it is false to say there are different “races” amongst human beings. (Same deal for our eyes, whether they have a fold in the eyelid or not.)

Thus, race is a social construct, and with the benefit of hindsight, we can think of it as the O.G. “Big Lie” of America. “Race,” as we use the word today, is an imprecise/nebulous and amorphous term for “culture.” The scene in the movie, “Green Book,” where Mahershala Ali’s and Viggo Mortensen’s characters are arguing in the rain, Ali’s asks, ‘If I’m not black enough, and I’m not white enough, tell me, what am I?’ Even though this is dialogue from a movie, we know what he means, it helps show our awareness that it actually refers to culture without necessarily spelling it out.

There’s all kinds of cultures in America, in the very specific instance of NFL football, Packers fans have their own culture—the cheese hat, Steelers fans—the Terrible Towel, Philly fans—the cheesesteak hat, booing anything, climbing light poles to celebrate championship wins. And, it is entirely possible to be an Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, etc, fan and do none of these things, and listen to rock and roll or hip hop or jazz or country or zydeco—no one has just one element of culture in their life. Life would be really f-ing boring if they did—watch ONE TV show, and that’s it? Or have 7 identical shirts, pants, socks, underwear—one for each day of the week? Ridiculous. It’s fine to identify with a culture, but there isn’t one that’s better than another.

(A quick interjection, the “captive” population is bought into the WPI because it seems to be a phenomenon where people will give up all their rights and live in poverty if they are permitted to hate another group of people, in this case, the “target” population. The captive population is also attacked by the oligarchs/oppressing group, but they don’t complain because in this society, having money/being rich is what makes one a person, and with enough money, they are ascribed something akin to magical powers. This is another reason the captive group attacks the target group—they don’t have money, therefore, they are not people and it’s ok.

The philosophy seems to be that because oligarchs are rich, they know what they’re doing so just let them do whatever they want because it will make them richer and the captive population will benefit in some derivative fashion. They seem to blindly trust the oligarchs, even if they are doing things that will directly impoverish them. The last feature of the captive population is it will believe anything the oppressing group tells it, and they have no memory. Anything the oppressing group tells them, they’ll overwrite the last thing they held as true, even if it’s information that would otherwise prove that the oppressing group is lying—they need to be told what something means, they won’t draw conclusions themselves. Likewise, any “other” that’s outside the oppressing group, they won’t believe a thing they say when they try to wake them up from it. Generally, the captive’s world view is propped up with appearances and lies, where words and meaning are severed, and the oligarchs will make up ANY lie to justify doing ANYTHING, but the captives will never publicly object, even if they are hurt by it. George Orwell captured this in “1984” from observing Soviet society in the ‘30s and ‘40s; he nailed it, to say the least.)

MORE “RAN OUT OF TIME” STUFF:

• If all people are brought up and living with bodily autonomy respected, and observing that there are those with greater and lesser abilities to provide for themselves, those with the capability will take care of themselves. We need to have a way to care for those who can’t provide for themselves to be seen as a just society, and as long as vectors of oppression/systemic racism are eliminated, “welfare” as it’s referred to, isn’t necessary.

• Cyclical portion of economy—the agriculture, healthcare, education, etc systems to maintain society and train people to replace those that retire.
  
  Innovation portion of economy—Silicon Valley, research at colleges and universities that is licensed and commercialized, or that businesses are started directly from.

• To complete the Constitution-as-OS analogy, Constitution 2.0 came after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified, and Constitution 2.1 came after the Civil Rights Act was passed. The story of We the People’s rights is one of expansions and reversals, with the Supreme Court tending to be a regressive institution that narrows the scope of rights given in legislation. The Dred Scott decision, the end of Roe v. Wade, the end of affirmative action, the undermining of the federal agency’s abilities to draft regulations, the end of nationwide injunctions, etc, as examples.

“...WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST…”

I’ve been honing these ideas for years, and I’ve tried to stay abreast of the latest analyses of our society, democracy, and the interplay of People, State, and Capital forces therein, without any finished form to present them to the world in mind. After the Supreme Court keelhauled the Constitution with presidential immunity in July last year, I have been working to distill them into a concise, digestible form with the hope that they would pull back the curtain on the source of so much of the disagreement in our society—the displacement of We the People as the primary focus of the U.S. government in favor of corporations and Capital, and violations of bodily autonomy via vectors of oppression from the State and Capital, in order for those with Capital to accummulate power, and more capital. When the true individuals of the country, We, the living-breathing-human-beings, People are neglected, we are in danger of becoming a feedstock from which billionaires/corporations amass wealth.

If there is any doubt as to whether the government, since the inauguration, is working for the People or Capital, the head of the executive branch is a billionaire, the campaign was supported by the richest man in the world who spent not even 1% of his fortune in the $250 million dollars he shelled out, there are over a dozen billionaires in the Cabinet and there were a bunch at the inauguration, and that same richest man in the world went right to work afterward, completely illegally, completely outside the law, slashing the federal agencies that protect our rights, safety, and health as citizens and consumers—Veterans’ Affairs, CDC, NIH, FDA, EPA, USDA, CFPB, USPS, Social Security, Medicare, National Park Service, Department of Education, the FAA, Medicaid, there’s been too much to list to keep this short. Not in the modern era, if ever, has the richest man in the world bought an office in the White House with campaign donations, and no one is supposed to use public office to enrich themselves.

Getting back to the government’s Capital focus, the House budget bill that just passed seeks to take 13.7 million people’s health insurance away via Medicaid cuts, and end food assistance for millions of workers and the poor just to give themselves/the rich in the country tax cuts. Besides being unconscionable, this is the neglect of, and frankly, an attack on the individual, considering Social Security and Medicare are benefits we pay into our entire working lives and are paid back upon retirement—this is theft, and millions survive on this money and benefits alone. As they said, they are making, “America, Inc.” All the fat cats are in the kitchen, and the proof is in the pudding: We the People are being sieved out and tossed from the mix.

• Arresting the homeless and throwing them in jail is horrific State oppression in service of enriching Capital. There is no greater proof that We the People have been completely neglected and Capital is the sole focus of the American State—instead of passing legislation to make housing more affordable and expanding programs to treat mental health conditions, they cut programs that do this and will jail anyone for being homeless or supposedly being homeless (exec. order from 8/7/25). The message is if one does not have enough money to solve one’s own problems, the government will not help you, you become a criminal they will incarcerate and pay the prison industry to keep you fed once a day with no medical care, clean clothes, or bedding as they are doing with those being kidnapped by ICE. Heart of Darkness, in a world with smartphones and satellite internet, in the richest country in the world, by the richest people in it. God help us.

Why do I cut this short? What is going on right now in Los Angeles, California is not what it seems (this part written on 6/12/25). I’ve been trying to draft this idea as fast as I could (mostly written by hand, that’s why there isn’t more), in case some stunt like the one we’re witnessing might happen, such that rather than give the rogue executive ANY shred of pretext to escalate his illegal use of emergency power, we can come together and direct our efforts into amending the Constitution to regain ourselves as We the People, and make the government work for us again. (AND NOW, THEY’VE DONE IT (8/11/25)—D.C. UNDER MARTIAL LAW BECAUSE OF A SINGLE ATTEMPTED CARJACKING, IN AN AMERICAN CITY—this is why we have local police. THIS IS DICTATORSHIP.)

I do not bear ill will towards those that didn’t vote the same way I did in the last election. It was evident from before the inauguration that the rogue executive and his cabal of deceitful billionaires lied during the campaign—they said they’d lower prices and had never heard of Project 2025. Within weeks, it was, ’who cares about the price of eggs?’ and those in the administration said, yes, Project 2025 is the plan. In short, they lied. And, the right wing media ecosystem, which is a dangerous, engineered, precise attack against the senses, and has been for the better part of a decade, helped spread them.

When House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) took office after being elected in 2018, for 6 weeks, 75 times a day—working out to be literally every 19 minutes and 12 seconds—Fox News spent, presumably, 48 seconds attacking her and her positions. I allege, this is mind control. It’s strange because she’s someone that always advocated for the workers, the ones that supposedly the Republican Party is so synonymous with, or at least claimed to be in the last election, and has now gone back to attacking her. Social media is an untrustworthy vacuum—deepfake AI videos, videos from years ago, and all manner of lies are being perpetrated to make the very few non-peaceful individuals in Los Angeles seem like they warrant martial law. The mainstream media is no better, corporate ownership has defanged the watchdog of democracy’s fourth estate and turned it into a parrot. In other words, they’re all owned by corporations, and whether it’s fabrications and propaganda designed to turn people against one another, or covering meaningless stories instead of performing actual journalism and holding politicians and businesses accountable, corporations are trying to control what everyone thinks, for their own profit.

Regardless of the media, since the inauguration, the things they’ve been doing have NOTHING to do with lowering prices, and still other things that NO ONE wanted. I can’t be upset with someone who was attacked and manipulated, especially when I know we want the same things—corporations and Capital to NOT be the main focus of the government. If neither party in Congress or at the state level feels motivated to act, We the People must. In every state, we can start constitutional conventions, working to draft these amendments, with or without the help of sitting state-level elected officials. We the People cannot lose our democracy.

Let’s not waste this crisis. Let’s amend our Constitution, let’s get our rights back, and let’s make We the People, once again, the primary focus of our government.

AMENDMENT TEXT, w/explanations.

First and Foremost: End Presidential Immunity

“Immunity for any elected official, especially the president, is hereby nullified, revoked, and reversed.”

Of the more than dozen reasons I’ve thought of that presidential immunity is inappropriate and should never have been fabricated, this is the apex: Even if there could be an esoteric and relatively inconsequential case for immunity for the president, a rebellion against the authority of the United States, a.k.a., an insurrection couldn’t possibly be one of them because it is both a violation of the oath of office AND an attempt by the president to overthrow all law and therefore the very system that would be granting immunity.

The next best reason is structural to the Constitution—Congress has the power to impeach and convict a president when he breaks the law, why would it ever be granted this power if there were circumstances that would put him above it? Further, what would ever qualify as impeachable if an insurrection doesn’t? The 14th Amendment makes this very clear, such a person is ineligible, and there is no differentiation between when it applies as to whether that person is seeking office, or made the attempt while already in office.

Third, how can someone that tried to overthrow the government and therefore, all law, possibly have grounds or standing to be president again? Any law they would attempt to enforce in the executive branch of the government—they tried to overthrow the entire system, and that is a bigger crime than any single violation of the law anyone in the country, citizen or not, could commit. (Especially something as haphazard as not having the right documentation after crossing an imaginary line that, according to the head of the executive branch in the case of the one between the US and Canada, is “just a suggestion.” And, especially because the lack of a workable immigration system is a well-known, decades-long political failure that is now being used against those it failed.)

Finally, working off of the dissenting opinion, if the president is free to assassinate political enemies and critics with impunity, immunity deprives ALL AMERICANS of not just their rights as citizens, but their HUMAN RIGHTS. Given the founding sentiment of this country that Thomas Jefferson so succinctly put into the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to secure our human rights, and derive their power from the consent of the governed.

With the benefit of hindsight from the last five months, the same Court fabricating immunity has seen the rogue executive defy its own orders as a co-equal branch of the federal government. Recent actions disprove the idea that a president could be worthy to be considered above the law. (Not to mention, what happened to the “major questions” doctrine—something Congress should decide; “Originalism” doctrine—an immune president is a king, and they would have thought so in 1787.)

Personhood Amendment:

“An individual person shall be defined as a living, breathing human being, where all human beings are people, and shall be given equal treatment under the law, the full measure of rights, freedoms, and liberties applying to everyone and not being restricted or abridged for any reason, including but not limited to traits or identity of a: genetic, cultural, religious, gender, biological sex, sexual orientation, wealth, ability, national origin, ethnicity, creed, belief, marital, political party, age, education, body type, health, mental health, region of the country, -based nature. Because the primary vector of oppression is through the violation of bodily autonomy, from any source, whether it be other people, the State, or Capital, in an encroaching or depriving sense, the preservation of bodily autonomy shall be the guiding principle behind upholding personhood. All people, citizen or not, shall be given all the respect, dignity, and humanity they are due. Involuntary servitude, slavery, and forced work without pay are hereby unconditionally abolished.

The following are not people: corporations and other legal entities, Capital, the government, religious institutions, AI, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, blockchain, algorithms, and other technologies now in existence or yet to be invented. While some cultures recognize animals, all living things, the earth and everything in it and on it as people, preserving bodily autonomy for human beings also preserves the integrity of all living things and the earth; and because human beings are dependent on complex, interconnected ecosystems, other living organisms, and natural processes to survive and thrive. Respecting, accommodating, protecting, and maintaining these systems such that they are healthy and balanced is part of protecting our own personhood and in fact, our own existence and ability to survive. How we treat the earth is how we treat ourselves.”

Capital Bill of Rights – Economy Amendments

1. A forum shall be created for the purpose of enabling sensible regulations to preserve bodily autonomy that also promote efficient commerce and economic growth. Given the technological nature of the economy, and the evolutionary nature of technology, a well-defined, well-informed process for evaluating and allowing new technologies into the economy is needed to sustain economic growth. Participants in this forum should include the relevant House and Senate committees or subcommittees, given the subject, experts and lawyers from the relevant federal agency, interested members of the public and other organizations, and representatives from the relevant industry.
   
   The elected officials will preside over the hearing, and the parties present will give testimony to draft regulations that protect public and individual health and safety, but also allow for efficient conduct within the economy. This will replace all lobbying, and the purpose is to bring the drafting of these regulations into the light of day and disconnect the text of the legislation from promises of campaign contributions. It also prevents elected officials that have no expertise in a given subject from drafting counterproductive, pointless, or harmful regulations—the reason for experts from industry to be present, but also for experts and lawyers from the relevant federal agency—keeping the industry honest and not allowing them to corner markets or write advantages for themselves into the law. The public and other nonprofits will also be allowed to enter testimony in person, with time-based public comment periods permitted to remain in place provided they are not years long. Written testimony sent in beforehand can serve in place of in-person appearance.Members of Congressional committees will preside, as, if a separate “Economic Forum Commission,” with its own administrators was created, given the connection to Capital and the economy, I fear it would become a shadow Congress that would eventually be more powerful than Congress itself, and We the People would be at risk of neglect.

2. Projects and other business before the federal agencies have the right to a speedy review but not be so short as to prevent input from affected parties or be seen as, “pulling a fast one.”

3. The concept of “process awareness” shall guide the development of the processes employed in reviewing, approving, or providing oversight for any project, entity, or individual requiring such services from a federal agency. In addition, in any place or process where it makes sense, treating regulations like construction codes shall be the preference. Using the example of the National Electric Code, updates are published and adopted every three years, except in the case of newly discovered life safety issues, which are handled as they arise. Committees of experts meet regularly to review and decide how to incorporate new technologies and update any processes or methods that have been shown to be inadequate. This way, a process for employers to comply with worker safety and reporting requirements can be determined and doesn’t need to change for years, as opposed to seemingly constant updates.

4. Taxes on corporations shall be assessed in a manner fair and commensurate with all other taxable entities. Revenue earned from business activity in the US shall be taxed to help support the system—infrastructure and governmental—that enables the conditions for it to operate. There can be no creative accounting or structuring to get around this—subsidiaries in foreign countries being shown as the entity realizing the revenue, foreign taxes paid being allowed as write-offs on domestic tax bills, servers in other countries used to do the work required to deliver a digital service domestically—any and all of the tricks. Money made here goes back into sustaining what allows it to be possible.

5. With the understanding that even in the 1780s, Thomas Jefferson was opposed to monopolies, review must be given to ensure that too few companies don’t monopolize any industry. Our recent experience with infant formula manufacturers, the current, now years-long shortage of stimulant medications used to treat ADHD that no one seems interested in remedying, the Great Recession and the bailouts that were required of banks and car makers to prevent massive unemployment and economic losses, and the phenomenon of industries seeming to compete in upward price competition for no other reason than to see what they can get away with charging. The horrific price gouging surrounding certain drugs such as insulin, the drug used to treat multiple myeloma, and its generic version are crimes against humanity.

6. Hedge funds and other massive financial institutions shall be prohibited from buying up the nation’s housing stock and renting it back to people because it eliminates the possibility for generational wealth by the working and middle classes, as well as destroying the American Dream.

7. The heads of federal agencies shall only be able to be removed for cause.

Election Amendments

1. The electoral college is hereby abolished, and the candidate for president receiving the majority of the popular vote as tallied from the several states shall be awarded the office of the presidency.

2. The practice of politicians choosing their voters when drawing voting district boundaries, commonly known as, “gerrymandering,” is prohibited.

3. Representatives in the House shall be apportioned, in addition to the existing stipulation of one per state at a minimum, such that there are no more than 500,000 residents represented by one Representative.

4. Elections shall be publicly financed. In addition to the existing qualifications to be eligible for a particular office, the following is added to both qualify to run and to receive funds for the potential candidate’s campaign:

   1. They must commit to accept the results of a free and fair election, whatever the outcome they experience. If they do not live up to said commitment, it is grounds for being required to pay back the campaign funds they received with interest and be subject to perjury laws.

   2. They must commit to discharge the duties of the office in good faith and in keeping with the principles of our democratic system, including being truthful in their dealings on a day to day basis.

   3. They must demonstrate an understanding of right and wrong, limits of power, and the concepts and principles that inform a democratic society. They must commit to using emergency power justly and appropriately. If they are found to abuse emergency powers, it is grounds for removal from office.

   4. They must certify they will not use the office to enrich themselves, their friends and families, or anyone they know. If they are found to, it is grounds for removal from office.

5. No person, corporation, or other party besides the official campaign of a candidate in a given election shall be permitted to spend money on advertising for that candidate or election. No candidate can use their own finances to fund their own campaign.

6. Truth in advertising laws shall apply to political ads and other campaign and issue ads.

7. All elections shall be recounted and audited automatically.

Justice Amendments

1. Washington, D.C. shall receive full statehood.

2. To end a gaping vector of oppression, incarceration/corrections shall be operated by the State only with human rights monitors in every facility.

3. A reasonable system for immigration that respects human rights shall be decided upon and implemented.

4. In recognition of bodily autonomy as the foundation of personhood, and physical and mental health, and education as core components thereof, all states and tribal lands will be evaluated as to the adequacy of the quality of infrastructure and services available to meet these needs in a way fitting of the modern era. A viable level of federal support that is the same in every place in the country will be determined and provided, but if states or tribal governments want to add more from their own sources, they will not be prevented. If there is universal healthcare, businesses will no longer need to provide it for their employees, saving hassle, expense, and anymore, very little coverage anyway. For education, higher education and college is free in many other countries, it’s not used to saddle the incoming workers to the economy with so much debt they can’t start their lives.

5. Congress shall create or augment existing means of reviewing prices and costs within the country. A range of reasonable prices shall be determined for essential and important consumer goods as well as raw materials for economic activity, and when they exit the given range, legislative action to create means to incentivize factors that will restore them to the reasonable range shall be taken. Attention must be paid to unscrupulous efforts to manipulate costs to induce these incentives, however.

6. Supreme Court Reform:

   1. The Court’s review of laws and legal cases not involving executive power or actions shall have their scope changed such that decisions will function as advisory statements to Congress as to how to amend any particular law to bring it into Constitutional compliance, and Congress has a month to act. If it is in recess when a decision is handed down, the month begins the next time it reconvenes. The Court shall no longer serve as the rich man’s Congressional bypass.

   2. Congress shall draft and enforce a code of ethics on the justices, in addition to applicable laws, as said justices represent the best educated practitioners with the most nuanced understanding of the law and are looked to as examples, with even the appearance of impropriety being worthy of consideration for removal.

7. To realign Capital and corporations with democracy and the values and institutions on which it depends, from now and for at least the next fifteen years but in perpetuity unless changed by Congress, the CEO, president, chairman of the board, and all other executives of every corporation with annual revenues greater than $300,000, and then LLCs and LLPs with more than $500,000 in annual profit based in the United States and any foreign corporations doing business here, and all individuals with more than $500,000 in annual salary or assets or debt totaling $5 million shall be required, on September 17th, to go to the most convenient city hall, municipal building, village, town, or township office, court building of any level, county administration building, state capital, or any other government facility as designated that is practical and appropriate, to hear a reading of the Constitution by the mayor or other official in charge, and swear an oath to uphold it. The location attended need not be within the place any individual resides, whatever location is closest to wherever they happen to find themselves. The only exception to this is the CEO, president, chairman of the board or person most in charge of every company with a valuation greater than $10 billion will be required to travel to Washington, D.C. to hear the reading and take the oath in front of the Capitol building. The Speaker of the House shall read and administer the oath, with the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate, Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in attendance. This is will be done in public, with anyone interested encouraged to attend. Everyone required to take the oath, wherever they are, will need to pick up a signed and sealed document indicating attendance and file it with the year’s taxes.

8. Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Marianas Islands, shall take a vote as to whether they would like to receive full statehood, or full independence—to be independent nations from the United States. And whatever the decision, it shall be honored and fully implemented within two years, with efforts made to set up their economies and independent governments to be successful, should they choose to leave. In regard to any military facilities, should a territory choose to leave, the military will make the final decision on its course of action, but all other U.S. non-military facilities will be vacated.

9. Lynching shall be a felony at the federal level.

10. Congress shall pursue a truth and reconciliation process to begin healing past injustices against all people.

11. Extremist ideologies based on ideas of supremacy of a particular race, religion, gender, sex, or other element of personhood shall be regarded as criminal organizations. Anyone proven to espouse or promote such ideas shall be guilty of a felony. Such ideologies are the source of the impulse to create State vectors of oppression and violate personhood.

12. Congress shall pursue the creation of a “Cultural Communication and Understanding” forum to facilitate conditions for greater domestic tranquility.

    1. This is not a fully formed idea, but the purpose is to foster understanding. Whereas there is NO context for cultural debates in the public realm at present, I’m imagining something like a domestic United Nations General Assembly where any group of any identifying characteristic can register and have a place to publish its views and speak face to face with others in a controlled, rational environment seeking to maintain decorum. This way, clarification can be sought when someone of one identity says something on social media/in the public realm that is misinterpreted by someone of another identity, and a non-issue doesn’t escalate simply because there is no context for the original comment. Not to say this forum would be responsible for policing or explaining random people’s comments on social media, but that it would be a mechanism to de-escalate social tension.