Draw a line in the sand. Everyone who thinks abortion should be allowed (in some or all cases), move to this side. Everyone who thinks abortion should never be allowed, move to that side. Nobody has to move, but they do have to respect the law of the land and if they don't like it they can move to another land.
Repeat this for every social issue about which there is strong disagreement and no resolution in sight.
The end result would be a land divided into so many pieces that everyone would be immobilized... you can't just put all the pro-life people in one spot because they will disagree about other issues and will be further divided. You can't prioritize the divisions because people will disagree about the priorities as well.
It would be wholly impractical.
Here's a twist on the line in the sand: land charters. The idea is that moral choices are organized into sets that people can identify and choose as a group - yes, religion and philosophy. Within our country, grant each group a swath of land in which they can act in accordance with their religious or philosophical values. Grant a charter to the group for the use of that land - it must be in accordance with the stated religious or philosophical values. The charter does not need to specify all the values or all the rules of the group, only the invariant ones, the ones the group itself deems most important. Since it would still be within our country, anyone is free to move in and out of such swaths of land. However, citizens must obey the law of the land on which they stand and be held responsible for their actions.
The rule of the line in the sand prevails: if you don't like it where you are, move somewhere else. And at the same time, if enough people don't like it where they are, they can change it through democratic government processes - as long as its not one of the invariants of the charter.
To amend a charter should require a strong majority vote by its denizens - maybe 80% or 90% in favor - and a federal judicial review to ensure that the amendment is being proposed by legitimate denizens of the charter (and not by a flood of impostors), that the amendment is consistent with the rest of the beliefs of its denizens, and that it is not an invariant.
For example, a charter for a Christian swath would probably include an invariant like "Jesus is the Lord Savior" and could never be amended to remove that line. Similarly, a Jewish swath would probably include an invariant like "Our God is One" (statement of monotheism) and could never be changed to anything atheist or polytheist or Christian (since in most sects of Christianity God is Three - the Trinity).
A charter cannot be revoked by its denizens. This is to ensure that changes in population don't affect the opportunity of anyone to live under the laws of the charter. So for example, a swath of land chartered to Wiccans could not be flooded by a horde of marauding foreigners who move in, vote to revoke the charter, and then leave or try to instate a different charter.
It is not necessary to divide the entire country into swaths, although I think that under a system of land charters this would be inevitable.
Before granting any charters to groups of citizens who assemble and petition for them, prior planning should identify groups who are likely to request charters and reserve land for them.
The act of granting charters can be destructive to people who live in swaths but do not agree with the charter. However, it's comparable to the passing of local act with which some citizens disagree, because they can simply move to another state, and it's better than the passing of any national act with which citizens disagree because under a land charter system the citizens can simply move to another part of the same country, whereas with the passing of a national law they essentially have no choice at all unless they give up their citizenship and move to another country.
Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews should petition for separate charters because their values are actually widely different due to a different interpretation of their religion.
Similarly, certain sects of Christianity may need to petition for separate charters, although I think most sects could coexist peacefully within the same charter. I'm sure that pro-life and pro-choice types would need to be in separate charters, and the root beliefs that cause this difference in values should be identified and made an invariant of each of those charters in a form appropriate to that sect.
Federal laws would have to be pared down to a set that can apply to all land charters equally without inhibiting the exercise of their declared values. For example, the question of the death penalty would have be delegated to land charters. Also, separation of church and state would still apply to land charters but the contents of any one charter may be wholly inspired by a specific religion or sect without sponsoring a specific church of that religion or sect.
Members of political parties like Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats, as well as many smaller parties, could petition for swaths of land where people can live according to that party's values. The essence of the party platform would become the invariants for their land charter.
For example, in a Democratic Party land charter, it might say that everyone is guaranteed a retirement, that rich people should get taxed more than poor people, that every worker must belong to a union.
In a Republican Party land charter, it might say that people are allowed to own guns, that abortion is illegal, that marriage is between one man and one woman, that slavery is illegal, that all people should be taxed the same, and that unions are allowed but works should be allowed to decide not to join.
In a Libertarian Party land charter, the invariants would be the right to life, liberty, and property as well as a mention about non-initiation of force; it may even include some of the platform positions such as workers would be free to form unions and employers would be free not to bargain with them, the income tax would be wholly replaced by sales taxes, and retirement planning is the responsibility of individuals.
Even communists may apply for a swath of land in which to practice their ideals. Their charter might include as invariants all that communists hold dear, and this might include unity of the working class, freedom from all kinds of racism and discrimination, minimum wage for all workers, health care for all its denizens, retirement for all its denizens, and freedom from unemployment.
The area of land granted to a land charter should be proportional to the number of people who signed the petition or who are expected to move there, with some room to grow (when word spreads) based on the total number of people expected to be interested in living in such a place. For example, if a group of post-Modernists petitioned for a land charter, they should be able to obtain a swath of land, even if it's a small one.
Land charters, of course, don't solve the problem of managing the federal government. They would only provide a limited freedom to live life a certain way within some bounds set by the federal government. I think the bounds should be as minimal as possible.
The federal government might require land charters to participate in environmental protection by keeping the waters within their swath clean and limiting pollution. It might also place a ban on weapons development, requiring that all advanced weapons programs be approved by federal government. These mandates would be included in the land charters.
The charters may also include federally mandated provisions that their denizens must accomplish certain goals, such as increase the number of trees in their swath by 25%, or create a protected habitat for some endangered animal, or provide an amount of adults proportional to the denizen population size for the federal military reserve system to be called up for national defense in the event of a war (but never for the invasion of foreign countries).
The charters may also include a provision to guarantee the political education of their denizens. Even though all other facets of their education are in their hands, denizens of land charters and their children must never lose the knowledge that they are American citizens, that they owe their autonomy to a benevolent system of land charters organized by a federal government, that any denizen is free to leave the chartered land and live anywhere else in the country according to the laws of that place, and all the other rules of the land charter system. To ensure that these basic political facts of their life are not lost, the charter may state that all denizens ages 12 to 32 will complete a survey (quiz) every 5 years. The surveys would be administered by the federal agents
I think the most significant contribution of a land charter system is the ability of people holding different perspectives to experiment with the mostly uninhibited practice of their religion or philosophy. If it's working well they may have additional denizens clamoring to immigrate and live in the chartered swath of land. If it's not working well they may experience an exodus of denizens. The rest of the world can observe this and, over time, make conclusions about the value of certain ideas based on their real effects.
In order to make uniform surveys of the conditions of denizens possible, a land charter must include a provision to allow federal agents access to observe and record any aspect of life such as employment rates, spread of disease, etc.
I think that a big problem with land charters could be that the more autonomy they receive from the federal government, the more likely they are to act as separate little countries. If their denizens then decide in a fit of irrationality that they want to secede from the very country that made their land charter possible, they might begin acting in ways which violate the supervisory provisions of the federal government in their charter. They might deny entry to federal agents or they might even send militants on raids of surrounding territories. Such acts should rightly be seen as an initiation of civil war and the federal government should rightly respond very violently in order to protect the rights of all Americans to continued use of that swath of land.
I think such a sad conclusion is more likely for some charters than others due to the nature of the ideas in their chartered religion or philosophy, but it would be so interesting if communists were able to achieve their dream without murder and coercion, or if anarchists could demonstrate that no government is good government while maintaining a quality of life appealing to "mainstream" Americans, or if capitalists could show that less controls over their business lead to more prosperity and how they can still take good care of their little swath of the planet.
Despite the possibility of such a conclusion for any particular land charter, I think the key to a successful experiment is to give it the most autonomy possible. This is because religions and philosophies must be studied as complete systems (whether or not they are or pretend to be complete). If a system calls for a weak central government and strong local courts that mete corporal punishments even for minor crimes, it should be allowed. Don't worry about the corporal punishment - all the denizens subject themselves to it voluntarily!
That brings up the question of children. When children are born in a land charter, they are raised in accordance with its laws. While they are children, any consequences of living in the land charter have to be accepted as consequences of their parent's choices. Each woman who gives birth to children must be assumed to have their best interests at heart. Each man or woman who works to provide for his or her children must also be assumed to have their best interests at heart. So if something bad happens to the children in the land charter, it has to be accepted because the point of the land charters is to allow people to live their lives a certain way that they prefer (within the minimal limits provided by the federal government) and for other people who disagree to leave them alone. This means accepting the consequences of life in that land. There cannot be any form of federal child protection service that interferes with life in chartered land. The denizens, of course, are free to form their own child protection services.
The federal government might choose to designate only land-locked swaths of land for land charters in order to ensure that the federal government retains complete control over all of the country's borders. Land charters would be a more formal and voluntary version of the Indian Reservation system. I don't know if the Native Americans would be happier with a land charter than in their reservations, but they could also petition for a land charter if they think that would be better. I think they might like their reservations better because anyone can enter a land charter.
Land charters should be represented in the federal government, but not the same way as the States because they don't have equal status to the States. They might be treated as territories, sending a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, or they might form a separate Land Charter Assembly to discuss and vote on issues, with the entire Assembly being granted a single vote in the Senate equal to one Senator. The Assembly could designate one of its members to be its Representative Senator in the Senate with the requirement to vote according to the resolutions of the Assembly.
It's interesting that land charters imply that different people's beliefs and opinions should be tolerated as long as they do not harm others, but in a macro sense - a group's beliefs and opinions may harm itself and that's ok as long as they don't harm other groups. I wonder if people who are militant in the enforcement of their views on others would be satisfied by moving to a swath of chartered land with like-minded neighbors or if they would still assault the rest of the world with their opinions, refusing to rest until all of humanity conforms to what they think is right.
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