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[redwallzyl]

so i was thinking i would try my hand at a discussion thread and see if it can get off the ground for a wile so here goes.

if you were to suddenly have total power to change every law and policy and such in the United States, to fix it basically, what would you do? you cant actually change it to have you as god king it has to stay a representative democracy. what laws and policies would you institute? would you rewrite the constitution? institute something like every member of congress have their kids join the military as privates on the front lines for their term of office or all campaigns have a set budget provided by taxes from the area they are running in or even all holders of government office are forbidden from working for or owning any company during or after holding office. it can be as extreme or minor as you want i what a varied discussion. and no nuke congress from orbit is not an option unfortunately. Go.

[itisnotlogical]

Every adult must spend one of every five years in a simulated town, living as if they were below the poverty line or were of a minority race or religion.

Also, the collar lesson would be standard for every school in the nation.

I know that most still wouldn't learn their lesson, but it feels kind of just.

[RedKing]

Manhattan Project funding into NASA to make lunar and Mars colonization viable, then open the doors for disaffected Americans to go set up their own ideological utopias IN SPAAAAACE. All hail the People's Republic of Luna and the Martian Free State. Self-sorting of population would relieve a ton of the pressure points in American society, create a fuckton of jobs and the distance between Mars and Luna would help mitigate the chances of war. And those who really don't give a flying fuck can stay here.

[Loud Whispers]

Manhattan Project funding into NASA to make lunar and Mars colonization viable, then open the doors for disaffected Americans to go set up their own ideological utopias IN SPAAAAACE. All hail the People's Republic of Luna and the Martian Free State. Self-sorting of population would relieve a ton of the pressure points in American society, create a fuckton of jobs and the distance between Mars and Luna would help mitigate the chances of war. And those who really don't give a flying fuck can stay here.

Can't wait until the space states of space declare independence from earth states

[Egan_BW]

• Absolute dictator elected by popular vote.
• With the power of TECHNOLOGY, citizens can vote dictator out of power at any time.
• If dictator tries to use their power to avoid being voted out, they get killed by ninjas.
• Ninjas follow the constitution like a religion, but don't care about anything else.

Alternatively, congress are picked randomly from the people like jury duty rather than elected.

[Shadowlord]

Manhattan Project funding into NASA to make lunar and Mars colonization viable, then open the doors for disaffected Americans to go set up their own ideological utopias IN SPAAAAACE. All hail the People's Republic of Luna and the Martian Free State. Self-sorting of population would relieve a ton of the pressure points in American society, create a fuckton of jobs and the distance between Mars and Luna would help mitigate the chances of war. And those who really don't give a flying fuck can stay here.

Can't wait until the space states of space declare independence from earth states

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. :V

[Loud Whispers]

• Absolute dictator elected by popular vote.
• With the power of TECHNOLOGY, citizens can vote dictator out of power at any time.
• If dictator tries to use their power to avoid being voted out, they get killed by ninjas.
• Ninjas follow the constitution like a religion, but don't care about anything else.

Alternatively, congress are picked randomly from the people like jury duty rather than elected.

• Ninjas vote a ninja into power
• America turns into a constitutional ninja theocracy dictatorship

Doesn't sound too bad unless you count being killed by ninjas for thinking this sounds bad as a downside

[Arcvasti]

Manhattan Project funding into NASA to make lunar and Mars colonization viable, then open the doors for disaffected Americans to go set up their own ideological utopias IN SPAAAAACE. All hail the People's Republic of Luna and the Martian Free State. Self-sorting of population would relieve a ton of the pressure points in American society, create a fuckton of jobs and the distance between Mars and Luna would help mitigate the chances of war. And those who really don't give a flying fuck can stay here.

Its at that point that the U.S. has come full circle.

[Shadowlord]

Alternatively, congress are picked randomly from the people like jury duty rather than elected.

Ancient Athens basically did this, although you could only serve once in your life. It didn't work so well - nobody had any experience at the job - and that was when you didn't need to know all that much, and were only supposed to be governing a single city.

[Bohandas]

All intellectual property would be limited to an absolute maximum of 23 years (a nine year term with up to two seven year extensions which would only apply to corporations[ie. private citizens could copy freely after nine years even if the extension was granted]). Penalties would scale directly to the offender's monetary gain from the infringement (so infringement without monetary gain would carry no penalty at all). Share-alike licenses would be enforced  more strictly.

Pornography, blasphemy, and violence in the media would all be made explicitly protected speech.

The constitution would be amended to explicitly ban the development of any sort of "thoughtcrime" laws once technology makes these feasible.

All factors that currently negate consent in some jurisdictions (drunkenness, etc), , would (with exceptions solely for coercion or drugging someone without their consent to said drugs) no longer apply. ("Yes means yes")

All of the FCC's censorship rules would be voided

Universal healthcare for all legitimate (ie no funding for plastic surgery, medically unnecessary abortions, skin bleaching, penis enlargement, or boner pills) medical issues.

Legalization of prostitution

Elimination of corporate personhood

Election reform (both campaign finance reform and also things like elimination of the electoral college, moving election day to either a saturday or a fixed date and making it a national holiday, and moves towards breaking up the two-party system (perhaps a two stage election where an initial open election determines the sole two candidates for the second stage of the election, so in the initial stage people won't be afraid of throwing away their vote and feel less compelled to vote against the candidate they don't want instead of for the one they want))

Reduce the age requirement for congressmen and presidents to around 23.

Remove the clause in the constitution that requires the president to have been born on American soil.

Legalize soft drugs (under restrictions similar to those on booze and cigarettes)

If I had control of the entire world on the other hand and there was therefore nowhere where people and businesses could jump ship to I'd make some much more severe changes including draconian restrictions on business, even shorter intellectual property terms, the immediate invalidation of ALL of the Walt Disney Corporation's intellectual property as punishment for pushing the Mickey Mouse Protection Act through congress, coverage for some forms of plastic surgery under universal healthcare, the conversion of Jerusalem into something similar to Las Vegas but with more and cheaper hookers, the keelhauling of MPAA and RIAA representatives and decision makers, and general moves towards mechanization, globalization, and a post-scarcity post-ethnic society.

EDIT:
Also tort reform.

EDIT:
Also government subsidized bike generators. Save  money, save the environment, and lose weight all at once.

EDIT:
Also a government program to develop new GMO supercrops

EDIT:
Depending on results of drug legalization 4-20 and/or 4-19 may be made national holidays

[DoctorMcTaalik]

The legalization of Marijuana, LSD, etcetera. Suppliers would be subject to the same rules as cigarette and pharmaceudacal companies. With prisons thus empty of non-violent drug offenders, the death penalty would be abolished at the national level.

Greater power would be granted to the FDA. "Herbal supplements" would be redefined as medicine, and subject to the same regulations. More punishments for companies making fraudulent health claims.

The 28th amendment to the constitution would ban military conscription and exclude corporations and super PACs from the definition of personhood.

Voting day would be declared a national holiday. While voting wouldn't be compulsory, I would be sure to fund propagandic programs to shame people into participating in the democratic process.

Scientology, and other overtly for-profit religions, would lose their tax-exempt status.

Chimpanzees would no longer be used for pharmaceutical testing, except when absolutely necessary for public safety reasons.

The U.S. would switch to a single-payer health care system.

[FearfulJesuit]

As president, I will:

-Enact mass disappearances of soccer moms, school administrators, people who work for Buzzfeed and ostentatious nouveaux riches.

-Restrict the franchise to Catholics, Episcopalians and Jews.

- Appoint Mencius Moldbug clones to every cabinet position.

- Enshrine Nelson Rockefeller as Kim Il-Sung-style eternal president.

- Reform the public school system along German lines.

-Nuke everything west of the Mississippi.

- Facere linguam latinam esse solam linguam imperii americani.

- Invade Britain and restore the Stuarts.

- Outlaw grape juice.

- Condemn Reagan to damnatio memorise.

- Declare war on Florida.

- Build a sea wall to protect the East Coast from rising sea levels and make Antarctica pay for it.

- Retreat into increasingly absurd self-parody. 

[LordBucket]

How to fix the country thread discussion: USA

Suggestion: before discussing solutions, can we agree on what we think the problem is that we're supposed to be fixing?

if you were to suddenly have total power to change every law and policy and such in the United States, to fix it basically, what would you do?

I would start by holding a weekly live television show, I would talk to the country about potential and possibility. I would ask what we want our future to look like.

What do we want?

Do we want to be a spacefaring civilization? Do we want to end war and poverty? Do we want to blow ourselves up in a blaze of glory? Do we want to have robots doing all the work so we can focus on other things?

What do we want?

My first step as supreme dictator would be to encourage people to think about that question. And then once we've decided what we want to do, find a way to do it. When we decided to go to the moon, we went to the moon. If we set our mind to accomplishing any of the above, I believe we could accomplish them.

But it starts by deciding what we want.

[sprinkled chariot]

How to fix the country thread discussion: USA

Suggestion: before discussing solutions, can we agree on what we think the problem is that we're supposed to be fixing?

if you were to suddenly have total power to change every law and policy and such in the United States, to fix it basically, what would you do?

I would start by holding a weekly live television show, I would talk to the country about potential and possibility. I would ask what we want our future to look like.

What do we want?

Do we want to be a spacefaring civilization? Do we want to end war and poverty? Do we want to blow ourselves up in a blaze of glory? Do we want to have robots doing all the work so we can focus on other things?

What do we want?

My first step as supreme dictator would be to encourage people to think about that question. And then once we've decided what we want to do, find a way to do it. When we decided to go to the moon, we went to the moon. If we set our mind to accomplishing any of the above, I believe we could accomplish them.

But it starts by deciding what we want.

What if winning result would be not some sort of lets go for the bright future, but something like  nuke chinese communists, as they hate jesus and make the sunday religious school and learning bible by heart mandatory.

[Reelya]

Remove the clause in the constitution that requires the president to have been born on American soil.

John McCain was born in Panama and nobody ever questioned that ... Romney's dad ran for president in 1968 and he was born in Mexico. His grandparents had left the USA in 1886. There were some questions about his eligibility, but it was generally decided that he was eligible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Romney_presidential_campaign,_1968