For some time in the late 20th Century through to the 21st Century, the debate of the moral nature of romance writings centered on if it was porn or not. Most literary experts of the time would object to such a classification, but a minority of Christian pundits and psychologists/coaches would say otherwise. The reality was the romance genre was a massive success in the publishing industry, because sex sells, and the industry would let no one stand in their way. Having armies of women authors willing to expound on the basic feminist social benefits these novels provided only made it harder for any opposition.
 
Pope Gregory XX
It would come to pass that Pope Gregory XX would issue a most controversial encyclical entitled, “Pure Corde” or “A Pure Heart” which restated the Catholic Church’s position on human sexuality, the concept that human sex was directed towards the goal of human reproduction and that the pleasure from it was the unitive benefit reserved for those in a state of marriage, that all are called to a chaste life, and lastly expanding upon the Church’s understandings of pornography to include the written word. The document did nothing but further divide an already shrinking Church membership, especially in the topics of sex, romance writings and women's rights.
 
Congressman Richard Hays
The debate over the moral nature of romance writings would eventually end up on the U.S. House of Representatives, where one Congressman from South Carolina, Richard Hays, used the encyclical’s explicit verbiage about pornography as justification for expanding the federal government’s reach over “obscene matter” under chapter 18 of the U.S. Code.
 
While the U.S. Supreme Court decision under the Miller test clearly would find many published romance books as obscene by some Christian standards, the enforcement of this was lacking because what the “average person” thought as obscene had drifted away from Christian norms. This was something that Mr. Hays wanted to correct by strengthening the U.S. Code to make it harder for publishers to produce and distribute such materials by creating a specific section in the code. For example, he wanted to ban the distribution of such materials in all public libraries, including the Library of Congress.
 
Mr. Hays had included his “adjustments to chapter 18” in a government appropriations bill. This created a lively floor debate by several women representatives, many of which offered their own counter amendments. Votes after vote occurred on various amendments and in the end, the bill would pass with Mr. Hays’ adjustments and would move on to the Senate.
 
A cohort of publishers and women’s groups caused Mr. Hays’ “adjustments” to be struck over issues of constitutional free speech during the Senate debate on the appropriations bill and its amendments.
 
The lobbyists sealed the win when information came out that Mr. Hays had years ago been in therapy for an internet pornography addiction. Mr. Hays tried to explain this time of his life, and how his marriage was spinning out of control. The romance in their marriage had hit a dry spot and his wife turned to romance novels, and he invested himself in visual porn as a counter. In the end, the two broke up and he entered therapy. But it didn’t matter because his peers and wider society saw him as a hypocrite. Although various Christian groups did voice support for him, which helped his campaign funds for re-election.

In the early 21st Century, the Governor of the former State of Florida signed into law an ‘anti-riot’ bill. It wouldn’t be until the Presidency of Gilbert Sheppard, during the Ross Perot Period of U.S. Presidents of the Second Age of Humanity, that we would sign a similar act into law at the Federal level.

FACV came into being because of the extensive amount of uncontrolled violent acts against people and property prior to the ratification of the Minority Race Economic Adjustment Amendment. Afterwards there were continual minor acts of vigilante violence, especially as the governments dealt with the natural disaster of the Great Melt and the forced displacement of people. The ultimate catalyst was the Battle in Warrenton​ that proceeded the ratification of the Naturalization Amendment (a.k.a. Immigration Amendment) under President Veronica Simmons. This battle and how President Simmons dealt with it, destroyed all confidence in a civil society for America.

All this violence was claimed to be legitimate under the hospice of the citizen’s arrest code of conduct, and the rights of assembly and free speech. This wasn’t true in many jurisdictions based on the criminal arrests, but lenient judges created a situation that gave license to this behavior.

The Act's Creation

FACV spelled out what made up a person(s) as a vigilante under the Federal code and differentiated it from that of a terrorist. Senator Hobbs and Representative Bridges modeled FACV after the Federal laws dealing with criminal street gangs, but they made changes. During the filibuster on the Senate floor, lengthy speeches were given showing how many of the “vigilante groups” were nothing more than street thugs acting out a “conspiracy to commit an offense” such as “violence or physical force against the person of another.” Other Senators invoked the words of past revolutionaries, and historical figures who had to fight for change against mounting odds. Emphasizing that sometimes that required violence to do so.

This time the nation was not ideologically split on this issue. An overwhelming majority knew of the violence that proceeded the passing of the Minority Race Economic Adjustment Amendment, as well as the violence with the passing of the Naturalization Amendment. They thought American society had gone too far and something new was needed to help quell this problem. FACV in the end was best legal solution too many. It was because of this broad support, and too many key Senate seats were up for reelection, that the filibuster attempt in the Senate failed.

What the Act Did

FACV made it illegal for an individual member of a vigilante group, or a vigilante group itself to gather intelligence on a business, government, or individual. Only those states which provided those powers to perform citizen’s arrests could perform what used to be known as “doxing.” Other crimes included “tagging” or the use of graffiti; Flash mobbing or illegally assembling in the name of a protest; Verbally abusing or insulting individuals with incendiary speech to provoke a violent reaction; and creating a public nuisance in a community through any form of property destruction, harassment, or even the use of the social media net to berate a community or specific person or entity in a community.

FACV also included more grave acts dealing with exploitation, money laundering, and other violent crimes such as murder or conspiracy to commit murder. FACV was all in compassing in describing any possible attributable crimes to vigilantes and their organizations. The act required in all states that standards be adopted for making individuals licensed to perform what was under the behaviors of a citizen’s arrest. No longer could any person detain another. Exceptions were made for bonafide news media covered under the freedom of press, as well as certain forms of free speech covered by previous Supreme Court decisions.

The initial penalties for FACV were considered a felony with an automatic penalty of 50 years in prison with no chance of parole and no chance of bail. Supreme Court struck the last two provisions down, and Congress changed the act to include a parole procedure and a minimum bail set at $1 million USD. Otherwise, all other provisions were upheld by the Supreme Court allowing states to develop a new class of citizen-based policing.

FACV provided the Ranger Marshals, and other Federal policing agencies, a greater number of legal abilities in bringing up charges against those they suspected were vigilantes. It would be from the FACV that Pattyroller licensing was adopted in all other states to retrieve rogue androids. This was despite four Southern states (GA, AL, LA, and TX) and the northern states of Ohio and Pennsylvania having a Pattyroller-like license on the books since the creation of the A-3 androids.

Note-

Ross Perot Period of U.S. Presidents–This period was named after Henry Ross Perot by historians because his 1992 campaign had at one point created a three-way split in the polls. In theory, if he had won enough electoral votes, it would have been the first time since 1877 that Congress would had to decide on a president. For it’s during this period that 10 sequential presidential electoral cycles would have to be determined by Congress. This was because of the amount of political party division in the U.S.

During the late First Age, the U.S. faced an election crisis. Voter confidence in the system collapsed. Many voters stopped voting in protest.

This crisis occurred in several states and municipalities where election contests were judicially overturned, or criminal fraud had occurred. The problems were widespread and had become a contentious issue.

The level of fraud burst the narrative bubble “that voter fraud is rare”. An issue that further polarized the nation. Claims of voter fraud or voter suppression divided the people and were echoed by pundits and politicians alike.

Even with the passage of the Voters Right Amendment, it wouldn’t be until the beginning of the Second Age of Humanity, that Congress would take up reforming voting in the U.S.

Voting Process Act

The Voting Process Act standardized the election process for all Federal elections.

The first part of the act created a division within the Secret Service to maintain a database that assigned every child born in the U.S., its territories and to a U.S. citizen abroad, a unique identification number. They then transmitted this number into all other federal databases as a coded index number, including systems used by states for voter verification. When a person died, this number was deleted from the database, and they updated all other systems.

The second part established a government corporation to produce domestically an election machine to meet specified standards. All components had to have a strict level of custody that made the complete process from chip to software to finish product all in-house. Employees had to have top secret clearance to even work in these facilities. The law didn’t permit sub-contractors or contractors. This entity was subject to two annual audits by the GAO. Further, the act required after each election the GAO to conduct a forensic audit to be reported to Congress and released to the public.

These machines, or kiosks, required a voter to place their state identification into a card slot followed by a thumb scan. After the voter verified their ballot choices, they would then approve and cast the ballot by signing their name with their finger on a touch screen. Because of the interconnection, these kiosks allowed a voter to vote in any location in the U.S. as the system would provide them with the ballot for their specific residential address on file.

Additionally, a person could register to vote at these machines, and they came in different configurations allowing agreements with states and municipalities to use them as either ballot drop boxes and/or ballot printing stations.

Some voters were resistant to using these new machines as they were interconnected to the advance Wi-Fi networks and used artificial intelligence for fraud deterrence. These voters preferred paper ballot methods which in the previous age were considered the most secure against any fraud threat.

A handful of states challenged the constitutionality of the act, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government citing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the federal government’s jurisdiction over federal elections.

In the ruling, the act didn’t stop states and local municipalities from using whatever method for voting for their own elections, but federal elections had to comply with this new technology.

One of the major results were the smaller parties used this ability to divide up municipalities by forcing them to paper ballot systems. This caused these locations to have a smaller pool of voters they took advantage of and resulted in more of their candidates to be elected to power.

By Rosella’s Time

Voting by Rosella’s time had continued at low levels. Despite reforms in place, people continued to distrust the election process. They didn’t bother to take part or even follow up with official registration. As a result, many states and counties had amended their jury selection processes to random citizen lottery systems based on tax returns.

A lot of low-level voting was because of the disruptions caused by the Great Melt and New Madrid Traps. But the previous age’s idea of high levels of voter fraud were still persistent on the social media net. This was true for the local elections, which created in the minds of citizens a sense of constant political corruption. It was re-enforced during the Ross Perot Age Period of U.S. Presidents when Congress elected the President.

The other problem was the Great Vital Records Hack. The database used by the Secret Service relied on state and other vital record information to maintain itself. Now there was a hack of 35.2 million records that went missing and had to be replaced. Aside from the controversy over special treatments because of racial issues, this inflamed arguments on the social media net of potential voter fraud and suppression. Thus, furthering people’s mistrust of voting.

Rosella is not registered to vote. Some jurisdictions prevented clones and androids from voting.

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​Image- polling station poll election day. By mounsey. Source pixabay. (Processed using Adobe Spark).

​This is Part 2 of the important legal changes that have occurred in the dystopian America of Rosella's World. Changes that have profoundly impacted society and culture.

The Supreme Court of the U.S.

The number of justices on the Supreme Court is determined by Congress, as per the Constitution. The issue known as presidential legacy created by retiring judges caused Congress to enact the FDR plan. The number of justices was raised from the 9 to 15 through retirement.

By the time President Veronica Simmons was elected to power by Congress, there was a mixture of 15 Supreme Court Justices serving of various ages, and legal dispositions.

As a result, majority opinions on many cases were nearly impossible. The resultant was lower court opinions were now stronger than ever before, but only impacted the region of that court.

The Decision Dealing with Marriage and Family Life

When the A-2 model androids came out, groups of men wanted to marry them. Object sexuality became a social reality. Some societies, like in Germany, reacted with social stigmas being attached to such behaviors. Others were more open.

In the U.S., this issue became a Federal case before the U.S. Supreme Court with the case, Montgomery v. Matsuta-Hawkins Leasing Company, et al. In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court took up the case despite the lack of other similar cases present in any of the 12 other Courts of Appeals.

Chief Justice Alicia Carver convinced her fellow justices that this case was too important to the nation to wait for any other cases to appear. She noted that it was time to decide android rights before it became a problem later, and this was the perfect case.

With this case, Randy Montgomery wanted to marry his A-2 leased android, Roxanne. The leasing agency bulked at the idea when he applied for the license in the state of Georgia. Georgia at the time had a law on the books requiring leasing agencies to be notified if someone tried to marry an android so the leasing agency could claim default. It was the state’s way of dealing with the morality of object sexuality.

With this case, the Supreme Court used the same legal tradition found in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973) that defined privacy to form it’s majority opinion.
​
As the majority opinion said, “While we agree with the minority, and the state of Georgia, that androids are inherently machines and therefore not afforded any rights specified in the Constitution. We disagree with the assertion of Georgia’s right to regulate the institution of marriage. We, of the majority opinion, see the historical legal tradition of marriage as an institution that is a sacred trust of privacy between those of practicing faith or individuals privately to which no government may interfere or govern.”

Thus, marriage as an act was returned to the people to deal with.

With this decision came the fact that no longer could a state marry people or issue licenses. Nor could they or the Federal government recognize any social or tax benefits. This unraveled tons of tax code and other laws involving divorce and family law. Ironically untouched by this decision were issues involving childcare, child welfare, or laws dealing with underage sex.

By this point in time the U.S. society had become negatively reproductive, and less responsive to being socially together in family structures. Object sexuality grew mostly among men. But this new legal development just pushed society over the edge. Marriage was dead. Only those following religions would get married and have kids. Such legal ideas quickly spread to other parts of the developed world.

With the development of the A-4 android models and their reproductive abilities, the manufacturers and leasing agents pushed a new family concept centered on these androids. This idea took off, not only to deal with the Martian population growth issue, but also back on Earth.  It became trendy to have a large cloned family as a sign of wealth and status. Soon those who could afford it were building large cloned families from androids.

Krishna Shree

One of the defining persons who caused many women in the U.S. to be disenchanted with married life was Krishna Shree. She was an Arab Hindi immigrant to the US, and a young adult of the late #MeToo feminist movements that had taken root in parts of India. She and her young husband fled to America because of a wave of increased violence against the native Arab populations in India. To make matters worse, they were a mixed union between Arab and Hindu. Her in-laws saw her as an untouchable for her Muslim heritage even though India was in the early part of the Second Age of Humanity.

In the US, she raised a traditional family of four and was a stay-at-home mother. But later, when the Supreme Court decision concerning marriage happened, she declared her marriage over and left her husband. When she left her husband, her four children were adults. She then started her own career as a social media net personality. Her channel bashed the idea women should get married and depend on men on any capacity. She promoted the power of the single woman’s life. Eventually she wrote a book called, “Men can have Space, I’ll take Earth” where she rambles on about the male American culture. The book is very misandry and blames men for the climate change.

The book became a big seller and defined the women’s movement of that period. This propelled many women to shatter areas left in society where men still where a majority, except for space. It also resulted in lots of women either leaving their husbands or not marrying. Men also took the book’s advice and sought space as a career. Krishna Shree would eventually run for the US House of Representatives and serve one term there. She would then later die of breast cancer. She wrote other books, but they were not as popular as that first one. Ironically, it’s her eldest son that still manages her estate and the associated royalties to her remaining children.

The Net Result

All these changes would help foster the political desire to allow 501(c)3 churches to actively participate in political campaigns by those against object sexuality and the new views on marriage.

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​Image- Rotunda of the Capitol, By Joshua Sukoff, Source Unsplash, Unsplash License (Processed using Adobe Spark)

Much of U.S. social history can be seen through the lens of its legislative and court processes. We all should be aware of how powerful Supreme Court decisions can be in shaping U.S. society, besides the impacts of rulings concerning Acts of Congress and Amendments to the Constitution. Today both political parties and activists are trying diligently to shape America through these processes.

I’m always amazed that during the adoption of the reconstruction amendments during the late 1860s, that changes to the second amendment concerning the right to bear arms to form militias was not done. Maybe Congress was more focused on issues dealing with slavery than how the south armed itself, or the codifying of a national army.

While we can debate it, I’ve observed that prior to the Civil War each state had their own “army”. The federal government formed the national army from these “state armies”. This alone allowed the southern states to easily deploy troops against the north. You would think Congress at the time would have realized this problem and rethought it.

Now years later we are dealing with Supreme Court decisions that have separated the legal aspects of gun rights into two parts. One for individual gun rights and one for the state rights. Creating a unique gun culture that’s unlike any in the world. Ironically, if Congress back then had adopted a new version of the second amendment, making it harder for independent armies to spring up, we might be more like the rest of the world concerning our legal traditions about guns. We might have seen groups like the KKK not as easily occurring during the reconstruction period, and other racial violence of later eras. This doesn’t mean racial tensions or biases would be eliminated. Only that the violence used would change in form and maybe decrease because of less access to guns.

We might also less male suicide in the 21st Century since men typically use handguns to kill themselves. But these same men might just substitute cleaning fluids instead. Clearly some mass killings in the U.S. may not have occurred, but may have been replaced with bombings instead. 

This is my point about the way laws and decisions create a society. Change one aspect and there can be a ripple effect. And I'm not making a formal discussion about the moral issues of U.S. gun rights here. I'm only applying an alternative historical scenario to a timeline. I’ll save those moral arguments for other experts.

While the list below doesn’t have the various court decisions, it lists the U.S. Congressional acts and constitutional amendments ratified.

I present this list in chronological order. Act means an act passed by Congress and signed into law, whereas CA means a Constitutional Amendment eventually ratified and adopted by the states.

CA- Voters Right Amendment

This Constitutional amendment was adopted several decades before the end of the First Age of Humanity. It was an attempt to standardize the Federal voting system used across the United States and to remedy certain issues, such as a party's ability to manipulate the number of polling locations in a state. It granted the access to voting to those 18 years and older in Federal elections. This right could not be infringed upon by the states, and it required Congress to set the specific election procedures and minimal access level to voting. Such as use of mail-in ballots, election balloting, and universal voter registration at age 18.

Congress was reluctant to actually follow through with the required details for many years. The issue was presented annual but the bill was procedurally tabled.  A collection of state governors sued Congress over this, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled "while the amendment gives the power to Congress to make up the rules. It does not tell Congress when or compels them to do so." This left many of the old rules used by the states in place until said time as when Congress actually passed the official rules.

Act- Women’s Child Stipend Act

This act reshaped the U.S. welfare system concerning how the federal government handed out funds to women with children. Now women were getting a direct payment stipend for every child they had birthed until the child turned 18. It changed this stipend annual by a COLA adjusted by the rate of inflation. Other welfare programs that involved children were adjusted, since now women were receiving direct payments for childcare. It also made a push at the state level to change laws dealing with child support by men by eliminating the need for men to support women. This worked in some states, but not others. There were legal challenges by single fathers, and childless adults. These cases never reached the Supreme Court because of the passing of UBI in the U.S. (see Federal Reserve Authorization of Universal Basic Income Direct Payment Act).

Act- Workers Attainment Wage Equality Act

This act made it illegal to discriminate in wages paid to employees based on education attainment. This act saw many lawsuits generated after its passing from employees who thought their companies were discriminating. The problem was many cases heard ended up being ruled in favor of the company on the grounds of the work content was more than the educational requirements for the work. With the passing of the act, companies began using rigorous testing for job slots as a result versus relying on college degrees. This spawned a host of HR based testing companies using the latest AI systems. This didn’t totally diminish college education in the U.S. but reformed it. College was turned into preparing people for work by fine tuning their degrees with these HR based testing companies. Thus ensuring greater success for the college graduate to get hired.

Act- Federal Reserve Authorization of Universal Basic Income Direct Payment Act

This act allowed the Federal Reserve to provide direct cash payments of a calculated universal basic income, annually adjusted for inflation to every adult person in the US. This act replaced the Women’s Child Stipend Act, as well as all federal poverty assistance programs. It also replaced Social Security, disability, and unemployment payment programs. This one act was one of the most sweeping changes to social welfare the U.S. had seen in decades. Economists of the time hailed it as the most effective means to manage inflation and the economy. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the act in a later challenge.

CA- Continuing Budget Authorization Amendment

Congress created this amendment to prevent the federal government from shutting down. If Congress should not be able to make any adjustments to an appropriation bill to fund the federal government, then the last signed bill into law continues to be in effect until Congress changes the funding and a new bill is signed into law.

CA- Minority Race Economic Adjustment Amendment

By far this amendment was the biggest social experiment the U.S. had undertaken since prohibition. The debate over affirmative action in the U.S. has been a long and contentious social issue. It’s said that it all began during the Reconstruction Period to give freed slaves “forty acres and a mule.” There have been various court challenges over the years that both supported and undermined it.

This amendment resulted from repeated years of outrage and demonstrations over perceived and historical inequalities from the African American community. The amendment set up the general principle that each race respectively of itself should economically have the same percentage spread of incomes, and that the majority race is the model for minority races regarding that spread.

The amendment provided the framework for a long lasting and fundamental shift in how the U.S. economy operated with respects to race. It codified at the highest level of law the concept of affirmative action for minority races and gave Congress and the President various powers to execute such actions. This amendment didn’t apply to ethnicity, which left out millions of Hispanic peoples. It included mixed raced people counting them toward the minority race. Thus, many Hispanics were reclassified as either Native American, African American or White depending upon heritage.

Amended was the composition of the House of Representatives. Representation was increased for each district with higher minority presence. Districts were drawn using these new formulas through A.I. guided technology. Attempts to change the Senate composition failed, but in states with higher minority presence votes for senators were weighted, so minority votes counted twice as much. This increased the efforts to disenfranchise people based on minority composition. Arguing that the individual wasn’t truly a minority. Meanwhile, the reverse was true in some states.

Aggressive policies were enacted concerning minimum wages based on race and kinds of employment, racial composition of board representation on publicly traded corporations, requirements for the top 500 publicly traded corporations to have a specified number of minorities in top management positions including CEO, racial employment composition for publicly traded corporations, mandates for priority acceptance of minorities over others for educational resources, required federal priorities to assist minority communities with block grants and other aide over other communities, and prohibitions on laying off minorities during economic downturns.

This elevated millions of African Americans out of poverty. It also caused politically in increase in hate speech rhetoric against minorities. This despite efforts to eliminate hatred and racist attitudes from society. The Supreme Court continued to support racist ideologies as free speech, albeit limiting in how it is to be expressed.

Out of this amendment came a narrowly defined fact that African Americans were those who could trace their roots back to the original slavery period, versus those immigrants from Africa after that point. African immigrants were considered an ethnicity and thus excluded.

Only 38 states ratified this amendment. The 12 states that didn’t ratify were Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas.
Groups attempted to legally challenge the validity of the amendment, but the courts dismissed all.

The Amendment by Rosella’s Time

A big conspiracy theory that continues to circulate on the Social Media Net during Rosella's time is that 35.2 million people have taken advantage of this amendment. When Rosella was born there was the Great Vital Records Hack, wiping out 35.2 million vital state records and online ancestry data. Many speculate that it was done to allow people to get social advantages they never had originally. This has never been proven true.

By Rosella’s time, various provisions of the act were no longer being enforced as in previous years, such as the employment aspects. This was because of a three fold reality. First, those minority races over time had sufficiently benefited from the act. They were now in positions to set policy and dictate hiring on a large scale. Second, people’s attitudes had changed concerning racial issues. Many minorities were now economically similar to the majority race. Even the minorities themselves and academics didn’t see racial disparities as a significant problem anymore. With this came the waning that historic correction of moral wrongs had to be socially corrected. This would only be temporarily revived with the United Nations' Vilmee Genocide Reparation Trial. Third, the use of cloning and advance CRISPR technologies muddled the definition of race. Whites and Asians were now including in their children higher percentages of melanin variants typically sourced from African American genomes. Not to mention those people who purposely made hybrid cloned children using genomes to provide their children with the greatest social advantages.

Act- Labor Union law updates

See the discussion here about how Labor Union laws in the U.S. were changed. All these changes were to deal with the ever-increasing changes that computer technology brought against human labor.

Act- Tyler-Hinton Slave Reparations Act and Dustu-McBride Native American Reparation Act

The United Nations' Vilmee Genocide Reparation Trial brought with them the adoption of two reparations acts. Read more about them here.

CA- Federal Emergency Election Amendment

During the Great Melt and the New Madrid Volcanic Traps ecological disasters, the nation was in full panic. Of deep concern was maintaining a stable and constant government during this time of chaos. For this reason, Congress passed an amendment that placed U.S. federal elections on a temporary hold, and it extended all elected terms by four years during the environmental crisis.

Act- Image Discrimination Act

See the discussionhere about the Image Discrimination Act.

Act- Omnibus changes 501(c)3 changes.

See the discussion here about the changes to the non-profit tax code known as 501(c)3.

Act- The New Public Workers and Assistance Act

This act was part of an omnibus spending package to help rebuild the nation after the immediate effects of the Great Melt. It created many work opportunities for individuals. But it also created many pitfalls for a few states. The act was a significant omnibus piece of federal legislation designed in part to help many of the orphans and others displaced by all the natural disasters facing the nation, and it carried with it many new work guarantees and entitlements. It granted work guarantees even if the worker committed sexual harassment at the workplace, because the person had a genetic or psychological issue causing the problem. Criminal or civil charges couldn’t be levied against such individuals because the act saw it as retaliatory. It also enforced a host of new excise taxes upon the states, with the inability for the states to bypass them by passing them on to their citizens. The federal government was taxing the states directly.

Legal challenges associated with the act got hung up in the courts resulting in a mixed bag of lower court decisions, and a Supreme Court unwilling to resolve the issues.

Act- Federal Lands Protection Act

Congress designed this act to deal with a specific Supreme Court decision. The court allowed states to legalize the sale and use of any federal class of drugs to the residents of their states, but not the transportation between states or on federal lands. The act created the U.S. Ranger Marshals as a domestic paramilitary organization under the Department of the Interior. With the authority to monitor, defend, and secure the federal lands from this recent problem. In doing so, the act reorganized various other agencies and departments, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, to only deal with international and state to state transportation drug concerns. The act further changed the Insurrection Act of 1807 permitting the U.S. President to use the Ranger Marshals to quell domestic threats, terrorist acts, riots, unlawful protests, and other similar acts noted in the Insurrection Act of 1807 without Congressional, state legislature or governor’s approval. The Ranger Marshals could supplement the National Guard forces, or take direct action as required. Some politicians saw this as the long-term solution to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

Thus the U.S. Ranger Marshals became the domestic army, while the traditional armed forces were the nation’s global and space forces.

The Battle of Warrenton was one of the most grievous uses of this act, resulting in the single largest amount of American deaths on U.S. soil since the Civil War.

The only other time the U.S. Ranger Marshals were called out en masse was to deal with the Rebellion of Utah.

CA- The Naturalization Amendment

This amendment codifies the naturalization process to which immigrants become U.S. citizens. Becoming a citizen was linked to the willingness to pay taxes. It also extended citizenship rights to the unborn.  You can find the full text in the short story, An Excerpt from the Memoir of Alan Pozo, inJoseph Street Digest #3.

States ratified the amendment during President Simmons’ administration. She discovered a loophole by holding immigrants in camps and not allowing them to work. Immigrants could not pay taxes because of a lack of earned income and thus not become citizens. Immigrants did not qualify for the U.S. universal basic income payments (UBI). UBI income was considered to be taxable earned income.​ Many nations would cut off their U B I payments to those citizens that left their borders. Thus leaving many people during this time with the choice of migrating in the hopes of something better, or staying for a constant source of income.

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​Image- Rotunda of the Capitol, By Joshua Sukoff, Source Unsplash, Unsplash License (Processed using Adobe Spark)

Image- U.S. Soldiers. (Processed using Adobe Spark)