Whole society overview (If allowed)

I'd like to write a long in depth explanation of a society i would build if i had the resources and the means to do so. But before i start rambling here i'd like someone to comfirm if I'm allowed to post my ideas on this forum? (Yes i know its practically empty and devoid of activity but cant hurt can it)

Sure, its an open forum you can post anything.

Yeah, no problem. All contributions are welcome.

"Whenever their public needs permit, everyone should be free, as far as possible"

That would be the quote my society would be based on. While you hurt nobody else you should eb allowed to do what you desire and society and law would be absolutely minimized.

Instead of having laws about all kinds of different situations that we want to ban we would have overall law that cover a wide variety of situations. for example, there would be a law about invasion of privacy and that law would be applied to cases ranging from harrasment to reading your emails. Depending on the damage done and what other crimes were commited in the proccess other laws would be applied. Such as in the case of breaking into someones home it would be invasion of privacy + physical violence + stealing applied on this case instead of a specific law about "breaking into peoples homes"

This would minimize the growth of laws and keep it accesible to the normal person. Right now law books are huge which creates a feeling of separation for the normal person on the street. Being unable to understand how the society punishes its criminals is very damaging to the moral of the society.

The court would be based on a panel of people on a rotating basis. The panel would have 3 laymen members selected at random from the community, 3 lawyers/judges/lawspeakers anyone who passes a state administered test on the ability to remember and apply the law and 1 who represents the victim 1 who represents the perpetrator and 1 who represents the state. These 9 memebers would debate the crime in the open unless either the victim/state/perpetrator asks for it to be conducted in private at which point a 5-4 majority has to be acomplished for that to happen.

The victims and the perpetrators representatives would be selected by those they represent and would work much in the same manner as lawyers do these days. They would be tasked to do the meat and bones side of the legal argument, going over the evidence and trying to convince the other memebers that their "client" is in the right.

For the verdict to pass it would require 8-1 majority in agreement. If a deadlock is created all memebers of the board can be reshuffled and new memebers selected but this requires a 5-4 majority.

The criminal system would, as a whole, focus not on punishing actions simply for the sake of punishing. It would focus on the damages caused and mending the social problems caused by the offence. So punishments would mostly consist of paying damages, working for the victim until damages are paid or working for the state until the damages are paid.

For example: Person A rapes person B. Court reviews the case and decides that events happend as described by B. A will be forced to pay all the damages done to B, ranging from cosmetic to 10 years in psychotherapy. A is found to be a bum with no money. A is then relocated to a government run work institution where he will work for no pay until such a time as his work for the goverment is greater than the amount in damages the goverment had to pay to person B or such a time as person B decides justice has been served and petitions the court for A's release. At which point B recieves no more money from the state and the case is settled.

Example 2: Same example but A is insanely rich and could simply pay his way out of trouble and do it again in a few hours. Court decides that due to the nature of the permament damage done to person B by the crime similar percentage of person A's money and possessions are confiscated. If person B has to spend 10 years in psychotherapy then person A is also forced to pay a fine that would strip him of his money for 10 years of his life. Person B could also petition the court that the damage done to him/her and the nature of person A's wealth is such that he would not be sufficiently deterred by a fine then the court could choose from any punishment seen fit by its members ranging from chemical castration to 10 years at a forced labour camp. Once again a 8-1 majority would be required.

The goverment would provide all of its citizens with a cash fund (monthly) that is sufficient to keep them alive at the very very bottom of society even if they choose not to work at all but to get higher than the very cheapest possibility would require working. This would be done as a form of insurance by the state that nobody would be too dependant on their job to allow abuse and not to speak out. Over the long term this would pay off as stress and anxiety levels about keeping your job decrease and through that early retirement and medical bills would decrease significantly.

Care would be taken that modern tax potholes would not appear. As in a modern tax payment system where different wages have different taxations it is possible and in somecases even fairly likely that if you are at the very fence between 2 different taxation percentages earning more can give you less money in hand as the higher taxation rate kicks in.

To explain the entire tax system would be too complex but in short the idea would be that beyond a certain threshold (say, once you earn more than the poorest 10% of the people) you recieve a flat tax on the amount of money over the limit. So earning 50.000 or 500.000 would result in a similar taxation curve. 20.000 would be tax free and the remaining 30.000 or 480.000 would be taxed at a flat rate.

This would save a huge amount of time in complex tax systems and make sure that working is always a good way to earn money.

Goverment would be run on a local republican(no, not the present day US republican) system. All matters would be voted on by those effected by the decicion. Monthly everyone would recieve a letter with all the matters up for vote in the next 30 days and communities would be free to organize their political debates and proccessees as they see fit. The communal vote would always have veto over any goverment decicions in their land but goverment would be free to try to negotiate with the people in the community. The one exception to this would be war time which would require a popular vote to be taken into effect. Simple decicion by "the decider" would not be a binding declaration of war. If a war is declared on the country then the goverment is allowed to use quick emergancy powers until it organizes the popular votes neccesary to confirm the populations support for the war. Any war that does not pass a public vote will be ended by the goverment, failure to do so will result in the people being obligated to overthrow their goverment in anyway they see fit.

Internet or a similar form of communication over vast distances would be the one place that is directly controlled by the goverment under the laws that acces to and participation in information would not be inhibited in any way by local or federal level government. Local people would be free to ban things such as information about rape or bombs or dissent but internet would remain a free source of information about any topic regardless of its content. There are obvious downsides to this such as being able to post pictures of a crime you've comitted to the web and brag about it and the goverment would be unable to stop this. But this would, in my opinion, be a small price to pay for the ability to communicate openly and almost instantly with any community on the planet.

Federal level government would be in charge of creating a unified money system, post, internet, transportation, army and other things that local people would not be able to do on a large scale. But even if a federal level army exists all communities would be legally allowed to have their own army but would also be obligated to support the federal army just as a community with no army would be.

I might write more about this at a later date and excuse my atrocious amount of typos.

In essence my community would be formed around the celtic village-elder-king-highking system where the empire as a whole spanned from the isles to present day Romania.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Those are interesting ideas, Hkelukka. I'll comment on them shortly.

city government overview:

I'm assuming a population in the range of 20 million people to 50 million people.
the city is split into 'villages', each between 50,000 and 200,000 people, with the emphasis at the higher number.
Everything the government does is done through organizations.
These organizations are created by the congress.
They work to follow a specific plan to solve a specific problem.
They are headed by elected officials who are nominated in (NOT FROM) congress.
Congress contains: 1 elected delegate from each village (130-250)
-200 randomly selected delegates from all over the city
-each village can opt to send an extra delegate. the top 20% of the people who chose this get to.
-The people can vote in every decision congress makes as well, if 5% of the population votes then they get 5% of the vote.
-Congress can identify an 'issue'. A comittee of average people will be hired to solve the problem in a timeframe between 1 and 3 months.
-Congress will vote on whether to enact this solution or not. (if yes then make an agency)
-Every year the pople will vote on an objective to get 15% of the federal budget.
-NOTHING may recieve more than 20% of federal funds
-For the randomly selected members of congress, their political views are sampled, and a profile is established. The voters vote for that profile. The people who get the most votes get the most power, but everyone who is randomly selected is in congress.
-There is a president/ mayor who oversees the acting of the agencies.

Sorry it's long and unorganized.

How about this: The government is limited to 50 laws. A randomly selected group of people from all the citezens is seleced each month to work out how to apply those laws. If you are called up, you have to do it, like jury duty. Basically, you can do what you like as long as you don't affect anyone else. But there you run into difficulties. Gay marriage would be allowed, but what about Gay adoption? The child might be affected Psychologically, which would come under the affecting anyone else bit. Abortion? The embryo would be affected. What happens when we apply it to potentially damaging Advertising? Should that be banned? So we have to classify it on how much it affects someone else. But how much is too much?

I think a place should be set aside somewhere, say in a wood/forest (using Terraformatuion tricks to make the Trees grow, of course ), where people can go away for a while. They will be exempt from all the government taxes, etc, so they can get away from all the hectic society and such like.

This is very interesting, Hkelukka

This is kind of like establishing a clean-slate constitution. I'd like to respond by paragraph.

#1 With respect to this topic my motto has been "Permissiveness With Regulation" there is no way for any one person to gather all the knowledge of any given situation, and for this reason the government has established regulations. It has also established standards to hold people to a level of accountability. There are many professions and activities that require licensing this is to ensure that people are aware of responsibilites and implications and there are repercussions if they ignore these. Licensing is instrumental in keeping people honest. This is too broad to go into too deeply, but in a nutshell, prohibition of something no, regulation of something yes; for the most part.

#3 This is a good idea. In the US in the 1930's there was a rash of kidnappings and many victims were murdered. The outrage led to the making of kidnapping a capital crime, but when you break it down, kidnapping is unlawful imprisonment and extortion. The murder was a different crime, but they were all grouped together. This would be a good way to uncomplicate our legal system, and maybe make it easier to get justice.

#5 There are a lot of shortcomings to our legal system. Throwing out an entire case out because of a technicality, a mistrial because of one holdout juror, the aquittal of wealthy suspects simply because they can afford a good attorney. Defense and prosecuting attorneys trying to win rather than find the truth. This is a very complicated issue and it is hard to say if this 9 person system would be good or bad, better or worse. At the very least it is an alternative to be considered.

#8 This is pretty complicated as well but the option is worth consideration, possibly implementing in some cases. Perhaps as much as possible letting the punishment fit the crime to give the perpetrator a taste of their own medicine.

With regards to capital punishment specifically, I have a somewhat complex view about this. The reasons would take very long to explain but my plan is this: A person convicted would have a choice. Death, or spending the rest of his life, without parole, atoning for his crime. Death would only be by euthanasia, and atonment would not be easy. Since he took a life, his only purpose in life now is to save lives. He would be required to give blood on a regular basis. He will be an organ donor upon death. Survivable donations like a kidney or partial liver transplant can be considered. There are many more possibilites that can be considered in the atonement area, but these are a start.

#11 The idea of a social safety net isn't bad, but since the goverment is footing the bill, this system should be on the government's terms not the individual's. Having served in the military I can see the need for a CONDITIONAL welfare system.
The goverment establishes very realistic conditions, standards and rules and if a person isn't willing to abide by these, they don't get their check. This can include community service. If the government needs people to pick up trash, or things like this, these individuals can be utilized for these tasks.

#12 The issue of taxation was discussed on another thread, and that is a good place to leave as it is quite complex.

#15 This is another complicated issue. To make informed decisions on ALL the issues is unrealistic for the average citizen. Also to make an informed decision about many important issues might call for revealing classified intelligence. I think our present system is not bad for putting qualified people in the right positions, for the MOST part, but term limits are a good idea, and campaign finance reform is another good idea to keep politicians SOMEWHAT honest. More can be said about this!!

#16 Privacy, free speech and the internet!! This is another complex one!!

#17 We have the National Guard for this already, but thanks to "The Decider", this could stand a little review.

This is a very broad but extremely important topic. It is best to break it down and address each section individually.

P.S. When you stop and think about it, except for a few things (eg. the 3/5 rule) the founding fathers did a heck of a job on the Constitution! It isn't a perfect document but considering democracy was basically a social experiment at the time, with out much experience, they got a heck of a lot right.