Considering the deep divides that exist today between the Blue States and the Red States, might it be time for the former to separate from the latter? If so, might the following principles be used to knit the Blue States into an alternative union?
- Every citizen benefits from every other citizen being educated and/or trained to the extent possible.
- Every citizen has as many undeniable responsibilities as inalienable rights.
- No individual or group of individuals holds or can hold a superior level of authority over the right of a woman to exercise dominion over her own body.
- Every truth, right, principle, and original intention is subject to interpretation.
- Human kind has a moral duty to respect, steward, and conserve the natural world.
- Every citizen has a right to access some minimal level of healthcare.
- Every citizen has an obligation to maintain his or her health toward minimizing the need for (expensive) medical interventions, especially in later life.
- Citizenship requires of every citizen some minimal amount of public service.
- Religion is a private matter and has no standing in the realm of governance.
- We need not love our neighbors but we have a moral obligation to look after them.
- A complex world requires a proportionate amount of regulation.
- Terminating a life as punishment for a crime, however heinous, is a form of barbarism.
- All public policy should be informed by three goals: The well-being of the family; the protection of women and girls; the socialization of boys.
If the Blue States were to declare independence from the Red States, would there be a war; or would there be a great sigh of relief…from all concerned?
I have indeed laid out an alternative constitution. See Common Sense 2.0 under Press Room/Future Releases for a few hints.
The worthy principles you have articulated are not characteristics of states; they are values of people who reside all over the country — people who may constitute a majority of those who have actually showed up to vote recently in states labeled “Blue”. Perhaps you have outlined an alternate Constitution deserving of discussion and consideration. But there is a serious flaw in the plan. The contiguous Red States, perhaps lacking the educational attainments and skills to support themselves, will build toll booths on all the roads connecting the non-contiguous Blue States and sap the vital bodily fluids of the proposed New Body Politick.