I am born and raised in the United States, and so this post is going to take a U.S.-centric view, but the same ideas could be applied in other countries as well, especially if those countries are facing similar issues. The issues I speak of are the growing sense of political divisions and loss of trust in the government, leading to a loss of trust in the very ideas of democracy, liberalism, enlightenment values, free market economics, and civil liberties. Popular responses to this discontent takes one of two forms: the position that we need to overhaul the entire system (e.g., with a revolution), or the position that we ought to double down on what we are already doing. In this post, I would like to propose perhaps a sort of middle ground.

Introduction

Recently here in the U.S. a 2023 Pew Research Poll looking at people’s sentiments toward the U.S. government came out. The findings are quite striking. We can look at one of their charts below to see trust in government since 1958:

The trust in government is not just at historic lows, but it is remaining their for a long period of time. If we look at other lows, such as during the Carter and Clinton administrations, trust went back up fairly quick after dipping. Not so with our current situation, which has remained at historic lows for over a decade now.

Perhaps more alarming, if one is in the camp of doubling down on what we have been doing, is that many U.S. citizens lack confidence in the future of our current political system:

Indeed, as of writing this, our House of Representatives has just ousted a Speaker of the House and is failing to install a new one – just another one of those “historical moments” that seem to keep occurring for the U.S. government.

With the political system seen as not working well, U.S. citizens are increasingly pessimistic that large issues can be addressed:

A big part of this, it seems, is because politicians care more about special interests than they do the people they are supposed to represent:

This stems from misplaced priorities and bad character traits in our politicians:

And because politicians are in it for themselves:

See the whole Pew Research report here (there is much more to it than what I am showing, but all of it paints a rather dour picture of how U.S. citizens view their government and politicians).

The main takeaways for my purposes here are that trust in the government is low, politicians are seen as corrupt and greedy and unable or unwilling to address important issues, and that confidence in the future of our political system is low and getting lower. My proposed solution is to ratify an entirely new constitution that, while maintaining much of what is good about the current constitution, changes our political system in important ways.

What is Government?

The question of what the government is, and what its role ought to be, is of course the ongoing unanswered question (or, perhaps, question with too many answers that are mutually incompatible) at the base of all political philosophy. Most people can probably agree, broadly speaking, on two things that the government, at least minimally, ought to be and do:

1. What the government is: that entity which holds the only legitimate monopoly on force.
2. What the government does (or, at least, is supposed to do): perform services and give oversight that cannot or will not be adequately addressed by any other institutions or civil society (e.g., security, both from external sources like foreign countries and internal sources like crime; building and maintaining infrastructure; etc.).

This tells us that the nature of the government as an institution is fundamentally different than any private institution. There is an asymmetry between the government and the polity which it governs, where force is legitimately allowed to be used in one direction but not another. As such, the government must be held to different standards than private institutions. This is why, for instance, in the U.S. the First Amendment’s protection of free speech applies only to the government and not to private institutions, i.e., the government cannot (at least in theory, if not in practice) prohibit or mandate speech of any certain type, but a private business can discipline or fire people for engaging in (or refusing to engage in) certain speech. Indeed, the U.S. constitution is largely concerned with spelling out what the government can and cannot do, not what the people can and cannot do.

The government is, of course, supervenient on the politicians and administrators who staff it (and the citizens who believe in its existence (just as private institutions supervene on the citizens who staff and believe in them)). In other words, there is no “government” that exists above and beyond the human beings who compose it (and believe in its existence). Should all the politicians and administrators who staff the government disappear or resign en masse tomorrow, the “government” would cease to exist (likewise, if everyone stopped believing in the existence of the government tomorrow, it would cease to exist).

What these analyses give us is the following syllogism:

P1: the human beings who staff the government just are the government
P2: the government is subject to different laws than private institutions/citizens
C: the human beings who staff the government are subject to different laws than private institutions/citizens

What this entails is that the people in government can be subject to a different set of laws than everyone else. This is usually interpreted as being that the government offices are subject to different laws. In other words, the human being who is, say, the president, is subject to different laws while they are the president, because it is the office of the president which is subject to the different laws, not the human being who occupies or has occupied the office of the president. But in a way, I think this is one of the places where we run into trouble, because it allows people to seek office for their own personal gain. As such, the biggest departure my proposal will take from the current constitution is that the human beings who staff the government will themselves be subject to a different set of laws, namely ones that restrict the ways in which they can personally enrich themselves from their office.

The New Constitution

The Pew research poll showed that U.S. citizens broadly favor some fairly minor (although important) changes to our political system, namely things like term limits, age restrictions, and getting rid of the electoral college. Although conservative by some standards, my proposal will be somewhat more radical than the things discussed in the Pew research poll. While there is much in the U.S. constitution that I would maintain, there are some larger changes that I would propose. I will go through the biggest changes I have in mind here:

1. Increase Number of States and Members of Congress

The first part of my proposal is increasing the number of states by dividing the ones we have into smaller states. One thing that I think is a big issue is that states (or, as they may be called in other countries provinces, regions, prefectures, counties, etc.) govern too many disparate people. This is why, for instance, gerrymandering is such an issue, because the states have districts that are politically divided from one another. Carving up the states would allow state governments to be more local, thereby allowing them to govern fewer people who are more in agreement about what sorts of laws and policies their state should have (e.g., a state would not have to impose, say, an abortion ban on nearly as many pro-choice residents), and to be more answerable to those people (being less remote and abstract from their constituents).

As such, I propose dividing up states such that the U.S. has anywhere between 150 and 200 different states. This can obviously lead to some of its own problems, such as interstate commerce and upholding a greater variety of differing state laws, but I think that the benefits would likely outweigh the detriments.

Another result of this proliferation in the number of states would be the concomitant increase in the number of congresspeople. Especially the number of senators, which, if things were kept as they are now with each state having two senators, this would increase the size of the senate from its current 100 members up to 300-400 members. This, I think, is fine, although adjustments could be made (e.g., perhaps having each state get only one Senator rather than two). I will talk more about the senate below. I do think that, in addition to carving up the states, that each state could also carve up their districts to increase the number of representatives in the house. This would have similar benefits to the smaller states in that each representative would be representing a smaller number of constituents and could therefore be more reflective of what their constituents want. As it stands, the U.S. currently has 435 representatives. I could see this going up to near 600-700 if necessary, preferably ending up with an odd number of them as a tie breaker.

2. Create a Senate Class of People

This is likely to be the most radical of my proposed changes. This proposal is justified by the argument I made above that the people, not just the offices, that compose the government can be subject to different laws than private citizens. The proposal is this: the people of the senate are people who voluntarily agree to joining a whole different class of people within society. I hesitate to make the comparison to Plato’s philosopher kings, since Plato’s Republic would appear to us as a totalitarian society, but there are similarities to what I have in mind. A major way in which my proposal differs, however, is that this senate class would, in most senses, be much more restricted than the citizenry, as opposed to having greater liberty than the citizenry. This could include restrictions such as:

1. Those in the senate class must undergo many years, possibly decades, of education and training before they are eligible to become members of the senate (i.e., those who voluntarily enter the senate class, at perhaps no younger than age 25, are educated and trained for many years before they are eligible to be actual senators, say at the age of 45).
2. Those in the senator class cannot own any private property, including money, having their needs (housing, food, clothes, healthcare) supplied by the government.
3. Members of the senate class are barred from entering any government or private contracts with anyone, including marriage.
4. A member of the senate class can leave the senate class, but only after, say, a 10-year period following their resignation. Even after finally exiting the senate class, the person is barred from holding any other government or administrative offices and has restrictions placed on how much private property (including money) they can possess.

There are two primary benefits I see to this. The first is that this prevents anyone in the senate from profiting off their position, the second being that these restrictions would mean that only people who are interested in public service would voluntarily take on such hefty restrictions to their liberty. The idea, aside from simply just stopping people from being corrupt while they are in power, would be that these restrictions and the lengthy education process would attract primarily people who are motivated by duty rather than bad incentives, such as greed or self-aggrandizement.

The education that someone must undertake would serve two purposes: ensure that senators are knowledgeable and to weed out anyone who is not serious about being a part of the senate class. The education would include academic subjects like law, science, technology, philosophy, history, comparative religion and culture, critical thinking, and so on, to ensure that members of the senate class are knowledgeable on all subjects about which they, should they actually become senators, must deliberate and pass legislation (i.e., the senators would not be so ignorant about things like science and technology). This education would also require civic duties and engagement within their constituents. This would include things like tending to the poor and sick (e.g., working in homeless shelters, hospitals, or psychiatric institutions), working low-level administrative jobs (for no pay), doing manual labor on infrastructure (actually helping to build houses, roads, bridges, dams, and so on), and other jobs that would help to give the members of the senate class a real, tangible, hands-on sense of how their constituents live (i.e., to help prevent them from living in a bubble, out of touch with their constituents), while also allowing the members of the senate to actually know, in a concrete way, who it is they are representing.

The senate class, perhaps at the age of 35, would also be eligible to become a state senator. It could perhaps be the case that all state senates must have some proportion of its members be people from the senate class, while the remainder are regular citizens who are voted into office directly by the people (this may be necessary since there may not be enough people in the senate class in a state to fully populate their state senates; different states could set their own proportionality).

To become an actual senator would require an election that could go something like this: all (or some who meet a certain criteria) of the members of the senate class would vote on eligible candidates who are of the correct age and have completed sufficient education and who wish to become senators. The top few (maybe between 2 and 5) would then become candidates on which the residents of the state from which the senatorial candidate lives and works would elect. In other words, the senate class themselves would narrow down the number of candidates, who would then ultimately be voted on by their state constituents. Senators then serve up to, perhaps, a 20-30 year term (this would help incentivize long-term thinking, rather than just the next election), after which they can no longer be a senator, but are still a member of the senate class, where they will continue performing their various civic duties within their state. During that term, a senator can be removed by a supermajority of votes within the senate itself, or from a supermajority in the state’s own congress (thus there is at least some accountability).

Another idea I’ve considered, but am not too attached to, is to have supreme court justices be picked from the senate class. Or, at least, some proportion of the supreme court be members of the senate class. This would help bring in that same wisdom and dedication to duty over self-aggrandizement or partisan politics into the judiciary. If this were to happen, there would likely need to be a restriction that says that nobody who has actually been a member of the senate can subsequently become a supreme court justice, and vice versa. One of the issues faced in the U.S. is that supreme court justices are chosen by the president and then confirmed by the senate, which opens this process up to partisan politics (everyone knows who the conservative and progressive judges are, even if the court pretends they are non-partisan). Having at least a portion of supreme court justices be appointed by and from a (theoretically and ideally) non-partisan class of people in society would help to mitigate these issues.

3. Executive and House of Representatives

The executive, which in the U.S. is the president, and the house of representatives (i.e., the parliament) would look quite similar to how it already does. The house would still be voted on by the citizenry (the constituents of a district would elect a single representative from their district), and could therefore act as a bulwark against any potential overreach or abuse of power by the senate class. I would propose changing the electoral system for these positions, using instant-runoff voting which uses ranked choice voting, since this would help break the two-party duopoly and reduce the amount of strategic voting and voting for the “lesser of two evils.” Instant-runoff voting works like this:

Instant runoff voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference (i.e. first, second, third, fourth and so on). Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish, but can vote without fear that ranking less favored candidates will harm the chances of their most preferred candidates. First choices are then tabulated. If more than two candidates receive votes, a series of runoffs are simulated, using voters’ preferences as indicated on their ballot.

The candidate who receives the fewest first choice rankings is eliminated. All ballots are then retabulated, with each ballot counting as one vote for each voter’s highest ranked candidate who has not been eliminated. Specifically, voters who chose the now-eliminated candidate will now have their ballots added to the totals of their second ranked candidate — just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round runoff election — but all other voters get to continue supporting their top candidate who remains in the race. The weakest candidates are successively eliminated and their voters’ ballots are added to the totals of their next choices until two candidates remains. At this point, the candidate with a majority of votes is declared the winner. (Some jurisdictions choose to end the count as soon as one candidate has a majority of votes, as this cannot be defeated.)

I would propose imposing term limits on representatives. This would perhaps be something like a maximum of five 2-year terms (up to ten years total). I would also restrict the amount of money a candidate is allowed to raise for their election, restrict the amount any single entity (individual, corporation, etc.) can donate, and make all donations 100% transparent. Additionally, some lesser forms of the same restrictions that apply to the senate class would apply to representative during their time in office and for several years afterward, mainly limits on how much private property they are allowed to own (including money).

Now, here in the U.S., one of the biggest issues in legal corruption that people can point to are lobbyists. Unfortunately, there are legitimate reasons to allow for lobbyists to exist. It’s not just powerful corporations that employ lobbyists, but so do all sorts of special interests, such as unions, environmentalists, various kinds of activists, advocacy groups (e.g, the NRA), and so on. When these are from organizations we disagree with, it’s viewed as rank corruption, but when it’s from organizations we agree with, it is seen as having our voices amplified and heard. The point being, though, that every lobbying group has some subset of the population who see lobbying as a way of getting their voices heard.

There are, of course, legitimate concerns when it comes to lobbyists. To address this, there could be restrictions on how much money a representative is allowed to take from a lobbying group and restrictions on what such money can be used for (for instance, it cannot be used to enrich the representative or their cronies), how much time can be spent with lobbyists from lobbying groups, requirements to have all such interactions recorded and made public, a kind of fairness doctrine (i.e., if lobbyist group A gets to interact with congressperson X, then congressperson X must also make time to interact with other lobbyist groups concerned with the same issues as lobbyist group A who can make their own case on an issue), or other such measures.

Another idea I’ve kicked around in my head for the president is to perhaps have more than one president at a time. This might be something like having two presidents, one who oversees domestic issues and one who oversees foreign affairs and military affairs. Another possibility would be having a sort of tribunal at the head of the executive, so that any presidential action must be agreed upon by at least two of the three. I understand that these things could bring up a whole host of other issues, and so this is an idea that I’m not as attached to as others in this post. Possibly the primary benefit of such a system, however, would be to ensure that no single president can acquire too much power, which is often a pathway to dictatorships (e.g., Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Narendra Modi, all of whom are somewhere along that pathway leading from fairly elected president/prime minister to de facto dictator). One aspect of this benefit would also be to limit how much of a cult of personality someone could cultivate by limiting how much any one person can do on their own (i.e., someone can’t really run on a platform that says “elect me and I will single-handedly fix all your problems and/or vanquish all your foes” since they would not actually possess the power to do these things single-handedly). Another benefit would be to allow for some specialization in the top executive office, such as if there was a “domestic executive” and “foreign affairs executive” we could have one president who specializes in things like monetary/economic policy and law while the other specializes in international relations, diplomacy, and military matters.

4. Congressional Powers and Duties

The U.S. constitution, in article 1, section 8, enumerates the powers of the legislature:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Here is how I might rewrite these:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; to borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Congress may incur deficits when addressing emergency situations only with two-thirds support in both chambers and requires debts to be paid back as soon as practicable; all outstanding debts must be paid within ten years of when they began;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, but not within states; agreements between any two or more states that are ratified by all states involved cannot be superseded, negated, struck down, or infringed upon except by a simple majority of the Senate and a simple majority of Representatives;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money at a rate proportionate to population growth; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To establish, fund, oversee, and regulate sciences, medications, treatments, therapies, procedures, and staffing that promotes the physical and mental health and well-being of  native and naturalized citizens, residents, and legal foreign visitors; that these physical and mental healthcare measures be paid for by the taxpayers and refused to no eligible individuals; that the standards and practices of this care be equal to all eligible individuals

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Military and all of its branches to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Military and all of its branches, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Military and all its branches according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

No offensive military actions inside or outside the United States may commence without a simple majority vote in the Senate or supermajority vote in the House; no foreign state nor foreign agents of any kind may have military action taken against them without prior authorization by the Senate or the House unless there is a clear and present danger; no permanent or temporary military installations may be commenced, constructed, sustained, funded, or staffed without prior authorization by the Senate or the House

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof;

Necessary and proper Laws are defined to be legislation that does not infringe, negate, or otherwise unduly impinge on the rights of individuals or the States, and does not grant, erogate, or imply powers to the Congress or the Executive or the Judiciary that exceeds, supersedes, negates, or undermines any of the powers bestowed by the Constitution; all legislation deemed to be necessary and proper must be sufficiently justified and approved by a supermajority in both the Senate and the House.

Much of what is in article 1, section 8 remains unchanged, but the major changes to notice are restrictions on the commerce clause, additions of clauses that specify that congress cannot incur deficit spending except in cases of emergency and that debts need to be paid back within 10 years of incurring them, a new clause granting congress power to establish and oversee public healthcare, that congress is given much more responsibility in military matters (restricting the executive from having so much leeway to send troops around at their whim), and being more explicit about what is meant by “necessary and proper” in the necessary and proper clause, including wording that rejects the “implied powers” that the clause has been interpreted as granting to congress.

The commerce clause has been widely interpreted to give the government a lot of power. The restrictions I’m imposing on it are meant to reign this in somewhat, while also giving states potential ways to regulate their own interstate commerce without the federal government having carte blanche to intercede on anything pertaining to interstate commerce.

The deficit spending clause is probably the one of my major alterations to article 1, section 8 that I am least attached to and much more open to tweaking and fine-tuning it. The main thing I want to address with it is the extremes of deficit spending done in the U.S. and the skyrocketing national debt. All of these things are cans constantly being kicked down the road, and are (pardon my mixed metaphors) chickens that will one day come home to roost.

The healthcare thing is an issue that I’ve done a complete 180 on. In my more libertarian days, I would have defended by private healthcare system of the U.S., but I’ve come to see public healthcare as something that will not only be more humane, but also more cost-effective than the current private healthcare system.

The U.S. congress has forfeited much of its power to the executive when it comes to war. The clarifications I’ve added here are meant to reestablish the authority and responsibility for war-making back to congress. This would hopefully reduce the amount of foreign intervention the U.S. engages in, or at the very least remove such expansive power from the hands of one person.

The restrictions on the necessary and proper clause, like those of the commerce clause, are meant to reign in some of the overreach from the federal government. The justification for the “implied powers” of the necessary and proper clause is reasonable: no author of a constitution could ever be expected to foresee every possible contingency into the future, and so congress is going to need flexibility when addressing new or unforeseen issues that inevitably come up. But, without a good, clear definition for what “necessary and proper” even really means (and the definition could probably get even clearer than what I have above) these things can be interpreted extremely broadly, and so some clarification on these terms is probably needed.

5. The Bill of Rights

I likely would not change too much in the first ten amendments of the U.S. constitution. Some updates and clarifications to the language might be helpful, though. Currently they are this:

First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

These are how I might update them:

First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment or favoring of any religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging, impeding, prohibiting, or unduly influencing the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The executive shall make no rules or executive orders and the judiciary shall make no rulings meant to bypass congress in order to establish a religion or prohibit the free expression thereof; abridge, impede, prohibit, or unduly influence the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment
The right of any individual who has not been convicted of a felony, and who has no other prior restrictions, to keep and bear arms, shall not be unduly infringed.

Third Amendment
No soldier shall, in time of peace or war be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner.

Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, data, and effects, against unreasonable and unjustified searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the military and all its branches, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against their self, nor be deprived of life, liberty, data, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just cause or permission and without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against their self; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in their favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for their defense.

Seventh Amendment
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The most significant change here is to the first amendment, which now specifies that these freedoms are also meant to prevent the executive from making rules and the judiciary from making rulings that restrict any of the rights of the first amendment. The next most significant change is in the second amendment, which is now not so absolutist, allowing certain situations in which a person’s right to bear arms can be infringed. The next most significant, although perhaps one could argue is in fact the most significant, is adding the word “data” to the fourth and fifth amendments such that data is listed among the things that cannot be searched, seized, or otherwise taken by the government without due process. Other minor changes are somewhat more clarifications and updates to suit the modern times.

In addition to these changes, I might also propose a new amendment that would enshrine bodily autonomy to people. It might go something like this:

Congress shall make no law, the executive shall make no rule or enforce no policy, and the courts shall make no ruling that mandates, prohibits, restricts, or infringes on an adult person’s bodily autonomy, except as is reasonable and within the scope of other rights when issuing a punishment for a crime. Bodily autonomy includes, but is not limited to, the introduction, insertion, ingestion, or wearing of substances, objects, or parts of other bodies into or onto an adult person’s body only upon express permission, and the right for consenting (and only consenting) adults to engage in private acts with one another.

Concluding Remarks

There are plenty of other things that could be tweaked, altered, substituted, removed, or added to our new constitution, but these are some of the major things that come to my mind. Probably the most radical, and most controversial, thing in this proposal is the establishment of the senate class of citizens. The justification for this rests largely on my thesis that the human beings that constitute the government can be subjected to different laws than the rest of the citizenry on account of the government being a very different kind of institution than any others, with an asymmetrical relationship with the rest of society. Yet it is this part of my proposal that is sort of the crux of what I am thinking, as many of my other ideas here are not really anything new or revolutionary, and would likely be seen by many as actually being quite conservative (e.g., election reforms, or even the dividing up of states into smaller regions).

Being that this senate class is the most radical of the ideas I’ve presented here, it is also the one that is least likely to be adopted. Yet, to me, something radical like this is probably the only thing that could give us lasting reform. One of the problems with government is that the kind of people attracted to it are going to be narcissists, opportunists, the avaricious, and (perhaps worst of all) radical true believers in some ideology (e.g., Marxists, fascists). And so, while my other proposed reforms might be good, and reasonable people can disagree, it is really this idea of the senate class that I think is the one I’m proffering here as a novel solution to many of the issues I described in the introduction.

Other radical (though not too radical) ideas, like the six new types of politics given by Hanzi Freinacht (pen name of the Swedish duo Emil Ejner Friis and Daniel Görtz) in Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, could also potentially accompany the ideas I’ve proposed here (though you can read my reviews of their books to see some of my reservations to their ideas). The point, though, is that although I am a pessimist, this does not make me a reactionary or conservative. If we want things to suck less for a greater period of time (before things start sucking a lot again), then we’ll need radical change, especially with the rapid pace of technological advancement. And so, plenty of other ideas, like universal basic income, should also be on the table. Indeed, if the crisis is as bad as I think it is, nothing should be off the table.