Constitution and Bylaws
The Washington State Transhumanist Party was founded on August 1st, 2020.
CONSTITUTION AND BYLAWS
OF THE
WASHINGTON STATE TRANSHUMANIST PARTY
Article I – Platform
Article II – Executive Structure
Article III – Membership
Article IV – Alliances
Article V – Philosophy of Activism
Article VI – Nomination of Candidates for Political Office
Article VII – Amendments
Article I. Platform
Section I: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the United States Transhumanist Party and any of its officially nominated or endorsed candidates for Federal office.
Section II: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the spread of a pro-science culture by emphasizing reason and secular values.
Section III: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports maximum individual liberty to engage in scientific and technological innovation for the improvement of the self and the human species. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party supports all rationally, scientifically grounded research efforts for curing diseases, lengthening lifespans, achieving functional, healthy augmentations of the body and brain, and increasing the durability and youthfulness of the human organism. The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that all such research efforts should be rendered fully lawful and their products should be made fully available to the public, as long as no individual is physically harmed without that individual’s consent or defrauded by misrepresentation of the effects of a possible treatment or substance.
Section IV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reduce the cost of education while improving its access. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party supports freely available, open-source, methods of learning, teaching, credentialing, and cultural creation that integrate emerging technologies into every facet of the learning process. The Washington State Transhumanist Party primarily advocates private innovation to deliver such educational improvements, but also advocates the application of these improvements to all publicly funded educational institutions. The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that every person should aspire toward intellectual, moral, and esthetic enlightenment and sophistication and should contribute toward bringing about a new Age of Reason, where the highest reaches of intellectual activity are attainable and eagerly pursued by the majority of the population.
Section V: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax-reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.
Section VI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates for morphological freedom – the right of an individual to alter the appearance, composition, and prospects of his, her, or its organism, as long as such changes do not harm others.
Section VII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the involvement of intelligent laypersons in the political process to counteract and neutralize the influence of politically connected special interests and their paid representatives. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports all electronic and other technologies that can inform and empower intelligent laypersons to monitor and contribute to political discussions and decisions.
Section VIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports an end to the costly drug war, which is often an infringement upon the lives and liberties of innocent citizens who do not use drugs but fall victim to militant enforcement of drug prohibitions. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports legalization of mild recreational drugs such as marijuana.
Section IX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports more proportional representation of professions and occupations among legislative and executive government officials, instead of a system in which the plurality of political offices are held by attorneys. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that a greater proportion of politicians should possess training in mathematics, engineering, and the physical and biological sciences.
Section X: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to significantly reduce the massive incarcerated population in America by using innovative technologies to monitor criminals outside of prison. All mandatory sentencing laws should be abolished, and each individual should be sentenced based solely on the consideration of the nature of that individual’s crime, its context, and its severity.
Section XI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports emerging alternative energy sources and their technological implementations. However, the Washington State Transhumanist Party opposes government subsidies for any energy source – including fossil fuels. Instead, the Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that superior, cleaner, and more efficient energy sources will also tend to become less costly and more broadly adopted under a system of unfettered market competition and innovation.
Section XII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the replacement of all existing social welfare programs with a Universal Basic Income that is unconditionally distributed to all citizens, irrespective of wealth or income. The Universal Basic Income should be sufficiently large to enable survival and the basic necessities of contemporary civilized life, but the manner of spending of this income should remain entirely the responsibility of the recipient. Individuals who seek to earn above the Universal Basic Income will need to engage in a remunerative occupation or secure other private sources of income. Individuals who squander their Universal Basic Incomes on non-life-affirming activities will not be further subsidized by the remaining taxpayers.
Section XIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports a significant acceleration of efforts at space exploration and colonization, particularly through private initiatives. The Washington State Transhumanist Party also supports redirecting offensive military budgets toward civilian space programs, such that every increase in a civilian space program’s budget would need to be offset by a greater reduction in military spending.
Section XIV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports work to use science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.
Section XV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of “third parties” in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements. The Washington State Transhumanist Party also seeks to limit the influence of lobbying by politically connected special interests, while increasing the influence of advocacy by intelligent laypersons.
Section XVI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the replacement of the military-industrial complex with concerted research efforts to cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses that kill far more Americans than any terrorist or foreign government. Any increase in government funding to disease-research efforts should be offset by a greater reduction in military spending.
Section XVII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports all emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the human condition – including but not limited to autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, economical solar power, safe nuclear power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, applications for the sharing of durable goods, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, rapid transit, 3D printing, vertical farming, electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma, and beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings.
Section XVIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the creation of a “Transhumanist Olympics” where augmentations and modifications of the human body would not disqualify persons from competing.
Section XIX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that each individual should remain completely sovereign in the choice to disclose or not disclose personal activities, preferences, and beliefs within the public sphere. As such, the Washington State Transhumanist Party opposes all forms of mass surveillance and any intrusion by governmental or private institutions upon non-coercive activities that an individual has chosen to retain within his, her, or its private sphere. However, the Washington State Transhumanist Party also recognizes that no individuals should be protected from peaceful criticism of any matters that those individuals have chosen to disclose within the sphere of public knowledge and discourse.
Section XX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party strongly supports the freedom of peaceful speech; religious, non-religious, and anti-religious philosophical espousal; assembly; protest; petition; and expression of grievances. The Washington State Transhumanist Party therefore strongly opposes all censorship, including censorship that arises out of identity politics and the desire to avoid perceived offensive behavior.
Section XXI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports a concerted effort by governments and by public opinion to eradicate police brutality against peaceful citizens, such that violent force is only utilized against individuals who actually pose an imminent threat to human lives.
Section XXII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts at political, economic, and cultural experimentation in the form of seasteads and micronations. Specifically, the Washington State Transhumanist Party recognizes the existence and sovereignty of the Principality of Sealand, the Republic of Molossia, and the Free Republic of Liberland, and supports the recognition of these entities by all governments and political parties of the world.
Section XXIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the rights of children to exercise liberty in proportion to their rational faculties and capacity for autonomous judgment. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party strongly opposes all forms of bullying, child abuse, and censorship of intellectual self-development by children and teenagers.
Section XXIV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the promotion of animal welfare to the extent it does not conflict with human well-being. However, the Washington State Transhumanist Party opposes “animal liberation” movements that seek to return animals to the wilderness or espouse any attempts to separate domesticated animals from human influence. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the prohibition of cruelty to animals and a complete abolition of euthanasia of healthy animals by animal shelters. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports a complete prohibition on the killing of non-contagious, non-aggressive dogs, cats, dolphins, whales, elephants, horses, tortoises, parrots, and primates. Furthermore, the Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the development and widespread consumption of artificially grown, biologically identical meat products that do not involve the killing of animals.
Section XXV: Additional elements of the Washington State Transhumanist Party Platform may be issued in the future by means of Platform Statements published by the Chief Executive of the Washington State Transhumanist Party. Such Platform Statements shall not be considered a part of this Constitution, but shall have equivalent standing to the Platform Sections within this Constitution.
Section XXVI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party welcomes both religious and non-religious individuals who support life extension and emerging technologies. The Washington State Transhumanist Party recognizes that some religious individuals and interpretations may be receptive to technological progress and, if so, are valuable allies to the transhumanist movement. On the other hand, the Washington State Transhumanist Party is also opposed to any interpretation of a religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose religious belief by force and/or by legal compulsion.
Section XXVII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party is furthermore opposed to any interpretation of a secular, non-religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose certain beliefs by force and/or by legal compulsion. Examples of such doctrines opposed by the Washington State Transhumanist Party include Stalinism, Maoism, Neo-Malthusianism, the death-acceptance movement, and the doctrine of censorship, now prevalent on many college campuses in the United States, in the name of “social justice”, combatting “triggers” or “microaggressions”, or avoiding subjectively perceived offense.
Section XXVIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that the vast majority of technologies are beneficial to human well-being and should be enthusiastically advocated for and developed further. However, a minority of technologies could be detrimental to human well-being and, as such, their application, when it results in detrimental consequences, should be opposed. Examples of such detrimental technologies include nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, mass-surveillance systems such as those deployed by the National Security Agency in the United States, and backscatter X-ray full-body scanners such as those used by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the Washington State Transhumanist Party is opposed to the deliberate engineering of new active pathogens or the resurrection of once-existing pathogens, whose spread might not be able to be contained within laboratory settings. While it is impossible to un-learn the knowledge utilized in the creation of such technologies, the Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.
Section XXIX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that each of its members should vote or abstain from voting in accordance with that member’s own individual conscience and judgment. If an official or candidate of the United States Transhumanist Party or the Washington State Transhumanist Party expresses a preference for any particular non-transhumanist candidate for office, then no national or State-level Transhumanist Party, nor any individual transhumanist, ought to be in any manner bound to support that same non-transhumanist candidate.
Section XXX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party abhors all racism, nativism, xenophobia, and sexism. Accordingly, the Washington State Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the Washington State Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to close national borders, restrict immigration of peaceful individuals, or deny opportunities to individuals on the basis of ethnicity, race, or national origin. The Washington State Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns all demagogues who seek to segregate individuals on the basis of national origin, race, or ethnicity. In particular, The Washington State Transhumanist Party opposes movements describing themselves as “white nationalism”, “America First”, “race realism”, and the “alt-right” – as well as the counterparts of those movements in other countries.
Section XXXI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates Constitutional reform to abolish the Electoral College in the United States Presidential elections and render the plurality of the popular vote the sole criterion for the election of President. While the original intent of the Electoral College as a deliberative body to check the passions of the poorly informed masses and potentially overturn the election of a demagogue may have been noble, the reality has not reflected this intention. Instead, the Electoral College has enabled votes from less cosmopolitan, less tolerant, more culturally ossified and monolithic areas of the country to disproportionately sway the outcome of Presidential elections, to the detriment of individual liberty and progress.
Section XXXII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates greatly shortening the timeframe for electoral campaigns. The current two-year election season, combined with voters’ short memories, renders it possible for both genuine merits and egregious transgressions of candidates to be forgotten by the time of voting. Longer campaign seasons also perpetuate the “horse-race” mentality on the part of the media and result in the search for contrived election drama in order to drive views and campaign contributions. The ensuing acrimony, misinformation, and outright violence are detrimental to the fabric of a civilized society. Election seasons should be as short as possible, to enable all relevant information to be disseminated quickly and be considered by most voters within the same timeframe as their decisions are made.
Section XXXIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates abolishing all staggered party primaries and for all primary elections to be held on the same day across the entire country. With staggered party primaries, individuals voting later – solely because of the jurisdiction in which they reside – find their choices severely constrained due to the prior elimination of candidates they might have preferred. The staggered primary system tends to elevate the candidates who are least palatable to reasonable voters – but have the support of a vociferous, crass, and often violent fringe – toward frontrunner positions that create the pressure for other members of the political party to follow suit and reluctantly support the worst of the nominees.
Section XXXIV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current “winner-take-all” electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived “lesser evil” rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.
Section XXXV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the right of any jurisdiction to secede from the United States specifically in opposition to policies that institutionalize racism, xenophobia, criminalization of dissent, and persecution of peaceful persons. The Washington State Transhumanist Party does not, however, condone any secession for the purposes of oppressing others. Therefore, the secession of the Confederate States in 1860 was illegitimate, but a future secession of a State may be justified in reaction to violent crackdowns by the federal government against individuals based on individuals’ national origin or ancestry.
Section XXXVI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party encourages every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life. The development of autonomous weapon systems, in particular, will always be opposed to the greatest extent possible. While some existential risks arise from certain technologies, many existential risks also stem from the unaltered “natural” circumstances in which humans and other life forms find themselves. For both technological and “natural” existential risks, the strongest safeguards can be achieved through responsible development of protective technologies that empower rational and moral beings.
Section XXXVII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party considers it imperative to achieve reductions of the United States national debt in order to avoid calamitous scenarios of extreme inflation, default, and burdensome future tax increases on individuals. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports the following measures to reduce the national debt:
- Elimination of wasteful federal spending on programs, goods, and services where equivalent positive results could be obtained through lower expenditures.
- Cessation of foreign military occupations and the return of American troops to be stationed exclusively on American territory.
- Removal of barriers to technological innovation and technologically driven economic growth, in order that a surge in such growth could increase federal revenues so as to generate increasing surpluses, as long as federal spending does not materially rise from current levels.
- Elimination of the current cumbersome system of federal contracting, which favors politically connected incumbent firms whose advantage consists of navigating the system, rather than performing the best possible work. Instead, all federal agencies should be empowered to purchase supplies and equipment and to requisition projects from any entity capable of satisfying an immediate need at a reasonable cost. Exclusive and preferential contracts for particular entities should be prohibited, and all payments by federal agencies for work by non-employees should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
- Digitization of as many federal services and functions as possible – to eliminate the waste and expense of paperwork, physical queues, and legacy information technology systems.
Section XXXVIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party recognizes that the power of the Executive Branch of the federal government has expanded far beyond the originally conceived Constitutional framework, so as to predominate over the Legislative and Judicial Branches, as well as over the institutions of civil society and individuals. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports greatly curtailing and restricting the role of the U.S. President so as to confine that role within parameters originally conceived by the framers of the U.S. Constitution – particularly with regard to eliminating the unacceptable current prerogatives to unilaterally launch nuclear strikes and conduct military attacks, and to imprison, spy on, and assassinate Americans and others without due process.
Section XXXIX:The Washington State Transhumanist Party advocates the construction of a self-repairing, self-maintaining smart infrastructure which incorporates the distribution of energy, communications, and clean potable water to every building.
Section XL:The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to depoliticize the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and to further incentivize their impartiality toward political viewpoints.
Section XLI:The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to revisit, condense, and simplify the law, with a focus on resolving issues among conflicting laws and closing illogical loopholes within the law.
Section XLII: The Washington StateTranshumanist Party supports efforts to have bills proposed without sub-sections or provisions unrelated to the main subject of the bill. A single-subject or germaneness rule for bills would:
- Simplify bills, rendering them more accessible and less convoluted;
- Enable a focused vote for or against a bill without the possibility of having to accept or reject an embedded unrelated provision; and
- Prevent an unrelated provision from being buried within a bill as a possible tactic to have it passed.
Section XLIII: The Washington StateTranshumanist Party supports efforts to limit protectionism and subsidization of an industry or group of companies.
Section XLIV: In supporting peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the Washington State Transhumanist Party endorses the thorium fuel cycle, which provides for a safe and nearly limitless energy source in the absence of the development of practical thermonuclear fusion.
Section XLV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure that no United States Representative or Senator may be obstructed in their ability to vote on any piece of legislation, or be kept from the Senate or House of Representatives for intra- or extra-curricular political-party activities which interfere with their primary task as representatives of the people within government. For example, protections should exist to prevent situations where Representatives or Senators are forced by their political parties to do fundraising calls during a vote on a bill.
Section XLVI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to restrict and limit civil asset forfeiture laws, and other laws that assist law-enforcement agencies in circumventing the Fourth Amendment, such as asset seizure, or detainment or arrest in situations where no criminal charges have been filed, except as part of an active interrogation of a person suspected of a crime or unless the person detained or arrested poses a clear and probable danger of inflicting physical harm upon others or their property.
Section XLVII: Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to investigate questionable, but currently legal, actions by law-enforcement agencies that have over time garnered critical attention by the public. The safety of the public could benefit from such actions being revisited or revised to limit abuse and to close legal loopholes.
Section XLVIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party considers it important for impartial, objective investigations of alleged police and other law-enforcement misconduct to be pursued. While law-enforcement agencies should not be prohibited from internally investigating potential abuses within their own ranks, such investigations should never be considered exclusive or conclusive, and further external checks and accountability should be instituted. As part of providing such checks and accountability, investigations regarding misconduct, negligence, abuse, criminal activity, felonies, and misdemeanors allegedly committed by police, district attorneys, and judges, should, in addition to any internal investigation, also be conducted by a civilian organization outside the justice system. The intent of this requirement is to limit the possibility of favorably biased or preferential treatment of a member of a given law-enforcement agency by that person’s colleagues, and to restore confidence by the public that an investigation into police misconduct is done as objectively as possible.
Section XLIX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party opposes those specific cultural, religious, and social practices that violate individual rights and bodily autonomy. Examples of such unacceptable practices are forced marriage (including child marriage), male and female genital mutilation, and honor killings.
Section L: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to create a reasonable minimum timeframe between the proposal of a bill and the voting procedure. To ensure a reasonable timeframe is proportional to the number of pages of a proposed bill, a time period per each specified amount of pages could be adopted. For example, and without committing to specific numerical magnitudes, a 24-hour period within a working week per every 20 pages could be adopted to ensure all members of Congress involved have sufficient time to read through and study a proposed bill’s implications. Such measures would prevent a bill from being introduced shortly before the voting process. They would also have the added side effect that proposals might become more concise, as the length of a bill would influence the consideration time. In addition to this, after the proposal has been submitted, any amendments must be explicitly discussed in a public forum with the same degree of thorough consideration and same rules pertaining to the timeframe of consideration as allowed for the original proposal.
Section LI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure a jury is fully informed on its rights and responsibilities, including jury nullification. The Washington State Transhumanist Party also supports efforts to prevent false claims being made regarding the rights and responsibilities of the jury.
Section LII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party strongly opposes the possibility for any political party to determine the boundaries and borders of any voting district. The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports measures that require any efforts to have the districts potentially redrawn, when necessary due to migration for example, to be left to an automated system such as an artificial intelligence (AI) designed for this task.
Section LIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to remove the possibility for a President to sign an international agreement among two or more nations by executive order. This would prevent a President from engaging in international affairs without support from the Congress, and likewise would make it more difficult to exit an international agreement, as support from Congress would need to exist in order for such an exit to occur. This would furthermore ensure that the United States becomes a more trustworthy nation in the eyes of the international community.
Section LIV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports lowering spending by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Military, which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars per year and includes unchecked wastefulness. Reducing military spending would free up money for more important goals, such as curing disease, which collectively kills many more people than military conflict or war by an exponential degree.
Section LV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reinstate the rights to vote for convicted felons who have received and served their punishment, in order to present them the opportunity to participate in society as otherwise normal citizens.
Section LVI: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports repealing the current requirement in the United States that drugs or treatments may not be used, even on willing patients, unless approval for such drugs or treatments is received from the Food and Drug Administration. Such requirements are a profound violation of patient sovereignty; a person who is terminally ill is unable to choose to take a risk on an unapproved drug or treatment unless this person is fortunate enough to participate in a clinical trial. Even then, once the clinical trial ends, the treatment must be discontinued, even if it was actually successful at prolonging the person’s life. This is not only profoundly tragic, but morally unconscionable as well. The most critical reform needed is to allow unapproved drugs and treatments to be marketed and consumed. If the FDA wishes to strongly differentiate between approved and unapproved treatments, then a strongly worded warning label could be required for unapproved treatments, and patients could even be required to sign a consent form stating that they have been informed of the risks of an unapproved treatment. This reform to directly extend many lives and to redress a moral travesty should be the top political priority of advocates of indefinite life extension. Over the coming decades, its effect will be to allow cutting-edge treatments to reach a market sooner and thus to enable data about those treatments’ effects to be gathered more quickly and reliably. Because many treatments take 10-15 years to receive FDA approval, this reform could by itself speed up the real-world advent of indefinite life extension by over a decade.
Section LVII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase opportunities for entry into the medical profession. The current system for licensing doctors is highly monopolistic and protectionist – the result of efforts by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century to limit entry into the profession in order to artificially boost incomes for its members. The medical system suffers today from too few doctors and thus vastly inflated patient costs and unacceptable waiting times for appointments. Instead of prohibiting the practice of medicine by all except a select few who have completed an extremely rigorous and cost-prohibitive formal medical schooling, governments in the Western world should allow the market to determine different tiers of medical care for which competing private certifications would emerge. For the most specialized and intricate tasks, high standards of certification would continue to exist, and a practitioner’s credentials and reputation would remain absolutely essential to convincing consumers to put their lives in that practitioner’s hands. But, with regard to routine medical care (e.g., annual check-ups, vaccinations, basic wound treatment), it is not necessary to receive attention from a person with a full-fledged medical degree. Furthermore, competition among certification providers would increase quality of training and lower its price, as well as accelerate the time needed to complete the training. Such a system would allow many more young medical professionals to practice without undertaking enormous debt or serving for years (if not decades) in roles that offer very little remuneration while entailing a great deal of subservience to the hierarchy of an established institution. Ultimately, without sufficient doctors to affordably deliver life-extending treatments when they become available, it would not be feasible to extend these treatments to the majority of people.
Section LVIII: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports reforms to the patent system that prevent the re-patenting of drugs and medical devices, or the acquisition of any exclusive or monopoly rights over those drugs and devices, once they have become generic or entered the public domain. Appallingly, many pharmaceutical companies today attempt to re-patent drugs that have already entered the public domain, simply because the drugs have been discovered to have effects on a disease different from the one for which they were originally patented. The result of this is that the price of the re-patented drug often spikes by orders of magnitude compared to the price level during the period the drug was subject to competition. Only a vibrant and competitive market, where numerous medical providers can experiment with how to improve particular treatments or create new ones, can allow for the rate of progress needed for the people alive today to benefit from radical life extension.
Section LIX: The Washington State Transhumanist Party supports reforms to reduce the lengths of times over which medical patents could be effective. Medical patents – in essence, legal grants of monopoly for limited periods of time – greatly inflate the cost of drugs and other treatments. Especially in today’s world of rapidly advancing biotechnology, a patent term of 20 years essentially means that no party other than the patent holder (or someone paying royalties to the patent holder) may innovate upon the patented medicine for a generation, all while the technological potential for such innovation becomes glaringly obvious. As much innovation consists of incremental improvements on what already exists, the lack of an ability to create derivative drugs and treatments that tweak current approaches implies that the entire medical field is, for some time, stuck at the first stages of a treatment’s evolution – with all of the expense and unreliability this entails. Even with shortened patent terms, the original developer of an innovation will still always benefit from a first-mover advantage, as it takes time for competitors to catch on. If the original developer can maintain high-quality service and demonstrate the ability to sell a safe product, then the brand-name advantage alone can secure a consistent revenue stream without the need for a patent monopoly.
Article II. Executive Structure
Section I: The Executive Committee shall oversee the decision-making and planning activities of the Washington State Transhumanist Party. The Executive Committee shall consist of the Chief Executive Officer and the Secretary.
Section II: The first Chief Executive Officer of the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall be Michael B. DiVerde. The Secretary of the Washington State Transhumanist Party, will be appointed at a later time of the Chief Executive Officer’s choosing.
Section III: The Chief Executive Officer shall hold office for life or for an indefinite duration of time, until or unless the Chief Executive Officer submits a voluntary resignation. In the event that the Chief Executive Officer submits a voluntary resignation, the Chief Executive Officer shall appoint a successor. If the successor accepts the appointment, then that appointed successor shall become the new Chief Executive Officer for life or an indefinite duration of time. If the successor rejects the appointment, then the present Chief Executive Officer shall continue to hold office until a successor can be found to accept the appointment.
Section IV: The Secretary shall hold office at the discretion of the Chief Executive Officer, until or unless the Secretary submits a voluntary resignation. In the event that the Secretary submits a voluntary resignation or is removed by the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Executive Officer shall appoint a new Secretary.
Section V: The Chief Executive Officer shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the Washington State Transhumanist Party, including, but not limited to, the maintenance of the Washington State Transhumanist Platform and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chief Executive Officer shall have the authority to decide any matter affecting the course, conduct, and official positions of the Washington State Transhumanist Party. The Chief Executive Officer shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the Washington State Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chief Executive Officer’s discretion. The Chief Executive Officer shall be responsible for the maintenance of the Washington State Transhumanist Party’s official status with the Washington State Secretary of State and for all filings with the Washington State Secretary of State, but the Chief Executive Officer may delegate that responsibility to another Officer or Member of the Washington State Transhumanist Party at the Chief Executive Officer’s discretion via a written delegation of authority.
Section VI: The Secretary shall be responsible for the coordination of the logistics relevant to the activities of the Washington State Transhumanist Party.
Article III. Membership
Section I: The Washington State Transhumanist Party shall have two categories of members: Washington State Members and Allied Members.
Section II: Washington State Members shall be those individuals who lawfully reside within Washington State and are eligible to vote in Washington State elections. Washington State Members may participate in any activities of the Washington State Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chief Executive Officer.
Section III: Allied Members may be any individuals, of any age, nationality, and place of residence – with the exception of those persons eligible to be Washington State Members. Allied Members may participate in any activities of the Washington State Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chief Executive Officer – provided, however, that Allied Members may not be eligible to vote in Washington State elections pursuant to applicable Washington State law.
Section IV: Allied Membership in the Washington State Transhumanist Party is open to any being capable of logical reasoning and of the expression of political opinions. Specifically, if sentient artificial intellects or intelligent extraterrestrial life forms are discovered at any time after the founding of the Washington State Transhumanist Party, such entities shall be eligible for Allied Membership.
Section V: The Chief Executive Officer may delegate any authority of the Chief Executive Officer or of the Washington State Transhumanist Party more generally – with the exception of the authority to accept or reject candidates for political office – to any Washington State Member or Allied Member of the Transhumanist Party for any specified length of time, or indefinitely until the delegation is revoked at the discretion of the Chief Executive Officer. All such delegations of authority shall be in writing. A person receiving a delegation of authority by the Chief Executive Officer shall be known as a Member Delegate.
Article IV. Alliances
Section I: In addition to beneficial alliances with any private individuals, the Washington State Transhumanist Party may cooperate with any other political party or candidate for the achievement of specific goals consistent with the Washington State Transhumanist Party Platform – provided, however, that the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall not advocate for the election of any candidate running in direct opposition to a candidate of any Transhumanist Party in the United States. An alliance with an individual or political party outside of the Washington State Transhumanist Party does not thereby commit the Washington State Transhumanist Party to support any initiative of the other individual or political party outside the specific scope and purpose for which the alliance was formed.
Article V. Philosophy of Activism
Section I: The Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that influencing public opinion and policy are more important goals than electing candidates to office. As such, the focus of the Washington State Transhumanist Party during the first several years of its existence shall not be to field candidates for public office, but rather to influence public opinion and policy in directions aligned with the Washington State Transhumanist Party Platform.
Section II: The Washington State Transhumanist Party shall focus on campaigns of education, information, discussion, and policy advocacy intended to advance the objectives of the Washington State Transhumanist Party Platform.
Section III: The Washington State Transhumanist Party shall conduct its activities in as inclusive a manner as possible – provided, however, that such inclusiveness shall not conflict with the ability of the Chief Executive Officer to efficiently implement the functions and objectives of the Washington State Transhumanist Party. The Washington State Transhumanist Party shall always be open to considering the input, advice, and suggestions for improvement from its Washington State Members and Allied Members, and the Chief Executive Officer, or a Member Delegate entrusted by the Chief Executive Officer, shall evaluate each suggestion and determine whether or not its adoption would be in the best interests of the Washington State Transhumanist Party.
Section IV: The Washington State Transhumanist Party renounces all violence, except in self-defense against a clear, immediate act of physical aggression. In particular, the Washington State Transhumanist Party holds that violent political activism is never permissible or just. The Washington State Transhumanist Party commits to always pursuing its goals in a civil, law-abiding manner, respecting the legitimate rights of all persons. However, this commitment does not preclude the Washington State Transhumanist Party from criticizing any ideas or behavior which are contrary to reason, morality, common sense, or the principles and objectives of the Washington State Transhumanist Party Platform.
Article VI. Nomination of Candidates for Political Office
Section I: The Chief Executive Officer of the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall have the sole discretion to determine whether or not the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall be open to fielding candidates for political office during any election season. If the Chief Executive Officer determines that the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall be open to fielding candidates for political office, then the Chief Executive Officer shall consider proposals from any Washington State Members to become candidates. The Chief Executive Officer may, at the Chief Executive Officer’s sole discretion, accept or reject a proposal from any Washington State Member to become a candidate for any Washington State political office on behalf of the Washington State Transhumanist Party. This authority may not be delegated by the Chief Executive Officer to any other person.
Section II: The Chief Executive Officer’s sole decision-making authority with regard to accepting or rejecting candidates for political office shall be used to ensure that no more than one candidate shall be nominated by the Washington State Transhumanist Party for any particular political office. Because the Chief Executive Officer is able to decide upon all candidacies affiliated with the Washington State Transhumanist Party, such decision-making authority offers the most efficient and expeditious means of preventing duplicate candidacies for the same office.
Section III: In the event that the Chief Executive Officer of the Washington State Transhumanist Party has accepted any candidates for political office, either the Chief Executive Officer or the Secretary of the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall file the list of such candidates with the Washington State Secretary of State in compliance with all filing deadlines established pursuant to Washington State law.
Article VII. Amendments
Section I: Amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws of the Washington State Transhumanist Party may be promulgated at the sole discretion of the Chief Executive. In the event that the Chief Executive amends the Constitution and Bylaws of the Washington State Transhumanist Party, either the Chief Executive or the Secretary of the Washington State Transhumanist Party shall file the amended Constitution and Bylaws in compliance with all filing deadlines established pursuant to Washington State law.
Adopted on August 1st, 2020:
Michael B. DiVerde
Chief Executive Officer, Washington State Transhumanist Party