C.2(c). Power of Peaceful Reformation of Government

Citizens, collectively, have the Civic Power to revoke, reform, or reassign the delegation of Power to Government institutions in any manner they deem necessary, provided that three-fifths (3/5) of them act together to do so.

Consent of the governed is a core theme of this Charter. For consent to be meaningful, it has to be possible for that consent to be withdrawn. At the same time, chaotic withdrawal or violent overthrow aren’t good solutions to bad government. This enumerated civic power doesn’t require a lot of mechanisms beyond a requirement for supermajority consensus. Instead, it explicitly authorizes the citizenry to take action and reform their government. Or, if they prefer, they can replace some or all of the government. They can’t do it will-nilly, though. Fully sixty percent must act in concert. This protects against the “unjust and interested majority,”[1] but does not set the bar so high that it is impossible to reach.

A critic will point out that there is no validation mechanism for the three-fifths threshold being met. That is an accurate and somewhat valid critique. But it’s essential to think about this provision in the context of what would be happening and under what circumstances. This provision would come into play in a scenario where sixty percent of citizens have lost faith in government to the extent that they are ready to change it. They wouldn’t trust the government to make any validation, and it’s likely such a government would resist their attempt in any case. This apparent weakness can be overcome. Just because the Charter doesn’t outline a verification scheme doesn’t mean there can’t be one. Nothing stops the leaders of a reformation movement from developing and publishing the scheme in advance, so that there is transparency, even without government oversight. Right now, we couldn’t possibly know what specifics would compel the citizens to want to replace the government. We couldn’t, therefore, possibly design a method of validation that would make sense for their context. Just because we decline to reach across time and space and impose our vision on them doesn’t mean they can’t implement their own.

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[1] James Madison, Federalist No. 10 (1787), https://billofrightsintitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10.