<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uncoached.com/2012/01/11/four-general-laws-that-will-never-happen-which-would-make-society-way-more-functional/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uncoached.com/2012/01/11/fou ... unctional/</a> Focus: You can enact four laws. Any four. What are they going to be?
1. Before being allowed to vote, you must pass a test that demonstrates a basic 9th grade civics equivalent understanding of how government functions, basic economics, and rudimentary international politics. Voting will make you eligible for a substantial tax break. 2. Before being allowed to breed, you must demonstrate that you have the current and future projected fiscal capability to support a child, and the fundamental skills required. You will then need to pass psychometric screening to demonstrate that you are able to raise a child as a fit parent. A license to breed is single use only, second child needs a second license. Unlicensed children will be placed with licensed parents on the adoption waiting list where possible, or recycled for parts. A failure to adequately educate your child will result in you being shocked with a cattle prod until the child is determined medically unable to learn or able to graduate high school. 3. Driving licenses will now be done only in manual vehicles. You will need to pass a theory test, then perform at least 80 hours of supervised driving in a vehicle fitted with a second set of brake and accelerator pedals at a minimum by a supervisor who has passed a supervising drivers exam. You will need to pass a provisional summer day test that includes city and highway driving before you are allowed to drive alone at restricted speeds during day light, followed by a summer night test that includes city and highway driving before you are allowed to drive at night, followed by a winter night driving test before you are allowed to drive in the snow. You will need to pass all of these tests before you can exceed 50 miles an hour or carry passengers. All vehicles will be fitted with an impairment assessment device that determines if you are drunk, tired, talking on the phone, or otherwise gambling with the lives of drivers around you by acting like a jackass and immediately limits your speed, gives you a five minute warning and immobilizes your vehicle for 48 hours if you haven't pulled over inside of 5 minutes. Should you pull over within the warning period, take stock of yourself as a human being and correct your behavior, your vehicle will resume operation. Should the detection channel determine that you are still intoxicated, the vehicle will be immediately immobilized and the authorities will be notified of your position to confirm the test results and beat you with their nightsticks as applicable. 4. Marriage is now a religious institution only with no more (or less) significance than a Mitzvah. Have as many or as few as you want with whoever you see fit - the government will neither recognize nor have an opinion on them unless they qualify as a recognized relationship. Recognized Relationships will receive the legal recognitions previously accorded to marriage when you have co-inhabited a primary residence and shared finances for a period of not less than 2 uninterrupted years. Disputes as to the validity of the relationship where one partner alleges a relationship where the other alleges simple room mate status will be determined with a bias towards room mate status with evidence presented to the contrary where applicable. Determinations of parental responsibilities of children will take no reference from the status of your relationship but only from the determined parentage of the child in question. These laws will apply without bias regardless of the gender, sexual preferences, religious choices, or number of involved parties. Should you wish to apply for a Recognized Relationship visa, you must pass a polygraph demonstrating that it is your sincere intent to maintain at least a 5 year relationship with the person in question supported by psychometric testing indicating that it is your sincere intent to maintain the relationship. Should I gain a second term - 1. Lawsuits may only be lodged against the commissioner of a crime. Building a device primarily used in the commission of a crime, but in itself legal and harmless is not a crime. Out of court settlements are no longer allowed. If you start the trial you abide by the courts decision. Court penalties will be reflective of the actual harm caused - downloading songs will result in penalties of no more than the cost of the songs. Finding a dead mouse in your soda will result in penalties no more than the cost of your therapy sessions. Punitive and deterrence sentences previously dealt with by financial measures will now result in prison sentences. Where a prison sentence is found to be appropriate for say a corporate CEO, the cost of maintaining the prisoner will be included in the fines levied against the company. But the CEO or other responsible party within the business will still go to jail. Using the court as a financial institution rather than as a means of obtaining justice will now be treated as an act of treason. Running your business like a dick is no longer a purely economic gamble. 2. Using public office to gain financial benefit in future career in breech of the best interest of the constituency will now be treated as an act of treason. Where the best interest of the public is inconclusive, and panel of five reasonable 10 year olds and 3 judges will asses the allegations and make a common sense decision. Because any reasonable 10 year old presented with the facts will inevitably agree that Mitch Glazier screwed musicians to get a job with the RIAA. Phill Gramm and Jim Leach repealed economic protection laws, got rich, and fucked over the economy. If you take public office and use it to fuck over the population of your country - you're a fucking traitor. 3. Implementation is more relevant then ideas. Patents will only be granted where they will be implemented and brought to market. Software patents will only be granted in the case of clear and narrowly defined new solutions to problems. Inventions that are obvious to any engineer who considers the problem will not be granted patents. Being the first person to do something obvious is not the form of innovation patents were invented to protect. All legal protections of intellectual property will be void should that property be abandoned or held off the market to prevent competition. Creative works that are not made available for publication or that cannot be attributed to an owner when the owner and all of his or her estate is deceased will enter the public domain. 4. The highest paid athlete on any professional sporting team or the five highest paid athletes in sole competitor sports cannot be paid more than the total charitable donation to science or medicine made by the team in any given reporting period. Kobe wants 25 Million? Guess who needs to make a donation towards cancer research. Sponsorships count as pay. I like to call these the 'You're why we can't have nice things' reforms. And I'm entirely confident that nobody would ever vote for me.
1. Term Limits, no more career politicians 2. Only voters get tax rebates, and there is one election each year on a 4 year cycle. (President, 1st half of congress/senate, State elections, 2nd half of congress/senate) And voting is over a ten day period (Friday to Sunday with a week in between) 3. a) Massive Brutal tax reform, starting with a 15% sales tax, giving rebates to people who earn less then an amount, so if you want be part of the underground economy you'll still getting hit with a 15% tax 3. b) no more tax exemptions, church, cult non-profit doesn't matter anymore 4. a) Protesting outside of abortion clinics is now a hate crime, with a spiteful fine, and jail time. 4. b) Advocating a behavior makes the advocacy group guilty of conspiracy if a member commits a crime.
I would also like to enact a law about who gets to procreate. If it's that difficult to adopt a child, it shouldn't be that easy to just have a kid. This one's minor compared to what this power could be used for, but: I would reform the internship system. I don't know how, exactly, because I understand that if I eliminated it completely a whole bunch of industries that I love would implode, but as it works now, it's illegal in my eyes. I would also makes sure it actually gets enforced. I would be much harsher on separating church and state. The largest act this would result in would be legalizing gay marriage, but it would trickle down to cover all of the little ways it slips in. And most importantly, I would create some kind of blanket law where you couldn't fuck with women's health care, and iron out all of the "being a woman is a preexisting condition"esque idiocy that exists currently.
1) America is to abstain from involvement in all foreign affairs, unless asked. 2) Courses in economics, cognitive biases, and logic are part of the mandatory high school curriculum. 3) All previously existing laws and agencies are to undergo a cost benefit analysis. If they fail, they are repealed. All future laws will be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis in a similar fashion. Analysis is outsourced to a research team located in another country and in the absence of any communication from all parties who will be affected by the law. Those who believe some things cannot be priced are declared fools and must wear a cap with the word "fool" on it until they reconsider their position. 4) No more jews.
1. Elections are publicly funded. Up and down. 2. There are no exemptions to insider trading laws, especially Congressmen. Make it really fucking difficult for a Congressman to make money on the stock market legally. 3. There is no such thing as a limited liability corporation. If your water company poisoned a bunch of rivers and gave a gaggle of dolphins cancer, and the CEO knew about it, said CEO goes to jail. 4. Legalize it. For my second term, 1. Everyone shares in a company's success, just like it's failures. If you pay CEO's 875 times what you pay a secretary or a janitor, you pay a tax rate of 70%. If you get that ratio to something reasonable, say 15:1 or less, your tax rate goes down. The idea is the less they make, the more they rely on Uncle Sam anyway. For companies that are too huge, you get a reduced rate if you provide a profit-sharing plan, or other revenue distribution scheme that's equitable. Basically establish a living wage, instead of an executive revenue funnel. 2. Any conglomerate that is too big to fail is too big to exist, monopoly/anti-trust laws get some teeth and are told to break up any entity that can afford a lobbyist, an offshore bank account, and an entire accounting firm, but can't afford to pay taxes. 3. Prosecute to the fullest anyone involved with indefinite detention, and throw up a few war crime charges based on what happened in Iraq/Afghanistan. Also known as "practice what you preach". 4. Reduce the military-esque capabilities of the various police forces in the US. They need more cops, fewer assault teams, and better training. Cops protect and serve, they don't go to war against criminals. That's Batman's job.
Mormons are no longer allowed outside Utah. Buh-bye, losers. Now you have an entire State officially dedicated to magical underpants and a Jesus that hates black people (both facts). Any guy that thinks the "stripper is SO into him" must lay down in the parking lot and have his buddies drive their car back and forth over his body until he realizes he is lying. Once again: NO PLAYING HARMONICA AND GUITAR AT THE SAME TIME. It can be done. It can NEVER be done right, even by Springsteen. You also look like an asshole while doing it, so stop it. Rich people must pay higher taxes. You are not "job creators". You are the cast of Jersey Shore. You can also afford it. You HAVE no excuse. It's your turn to sit down and shut up.
This thread needs some balance: - Poor people must avert their eyes when people with money walk by. - Paying the homeless to fight in gladiator battles will be tax deductible. - People paying less than $5,000 a year in federal income tax will have to make a written apology for not contributing their fair share and spend three days in the gallows with people spitting on them. - Grocery stores will issue memberships based on income, I'm sick of waiting behind poor people filling up at the bulk bins in Whole Foods, I shop here to avoid you clowns, go be poor somewhere else.
I would enact two 'laws.' The first would be this. The second would be that the above actually be followed.
Prostitution, gambling, and recreational drugs are all legalised, government-controlled, and taxed. People want to sleep with hookers, bet on shit, and smoke weed/do blow/take pills, and NOTHING anyone can ever say or do is gonna change that. If they can't get those legally they're going to get them illegaly, so legalise the whole fucking lot of them, supervise them, and tax them like a motherfucker. Organised crime will begin to decline if not vanish altogether as their main revenue streams are throttled. Kids won't die horribly from taking bad drugs cut with fuck knows what in some shithole lab a hobo runs out of his hollowed-out den in the local garbage dump. Sex workers will no longer get abused, beaten, and hooked on drugs by the people exploiting them, and will get regular STD testing. The increased revenue from all the taxation might even allow government duty on other goods (such as gasoline) to be decreased, or help fix the shit state half the world's economies seem to be mired in. Conditional Free Speech You have the right to say whatever fuck you please. However, your statements can then be presented to a random sampling of 100 people from all walks of life AND a panel of 20 judges who have proven to be highly intelligent and rational individuals. If over 70% of both groups think what you said makes you look like a cunt, you are forbidden from expressing any more views on the subject publicly. Wise Up, or Shut the Fuck Up Law All entertainment providers (film studios, TV channels, etc) have an obligation to provide, at a reasonable cost, a service at least equal to all the "pirate" websites they're trying so desperately to snuff out. That is, they must allow internet users to immediately stream and/or temporarily download all new film and TV releases on the day of their release in cinemas or broadcasting on TV, and up to a month thereafter. They must also provide an internet archive where users can do the same for all old shows and movies. This will be a paid service, but users will be charged no more than the price of a movie ticket for a single viewing of a new release, and no more than £20 a month for access to the film/TV database. This service will also not be limited to any one country (FUCK YOU HBO PLAYER, I WANT TO WATCH THAT SHIT TOO). Failure to comply will mean that users are free to pirate your shit and no lawsuits may be brought against them.
Lobbying & Special Interest All public officials will now have publicly funded & capped campaigns. Anyone convicted of lobbying and/or accepting bribes will be punished by public hanging. Organizations found guilty of lobbying will be stripped of all Government contracts and be forced to forfeit 75% of annual profit for 5 years; to include profit from other global units within the company recognized or not via court mandated audit. Czar positions shall be dissolved. Should the need rise for an individual to oversee a certain aspect of governance then it will be put to the people via referendum. Term Limits Both houses of the Legislature as well as the Supreme Court will now be held to strict term limits. Further, any former public official who joins a private enterprise or board of such enterprise in any way attached to the federal government shall face a 5-year, 50% surcharge tax on income gained. Welfare Welfare and training will be provided for individuals who meet certain benchmarks to include disability, proof of citizenship and/or proof of exhaustion of all labor efforts. People on welfare will be required to meet with councilors regularly to review their efforts at leaving welfare and becoming a productive member of society. Welfare recipients will be forced to use birth control.. Violators of these policies will be sent to perform farm labor during planting and harvest season and be paid the prevailing wage for this position. War on Drugs, War on Terror War on drugs ends today. It is a failed policy that has done nothing more than create more crime and enrich businesses tied to law enforcement and prison building. Border security will be tightened, drug lords foreign and domestic will be given tax ids and the formal ports of entry will be opened to their products. With the new found tax revenue, the Government will set up both testing laboratories and treatment programs to ensure the quality of the substances being sold as well as provide services to individuals addicted. The Department of Homeland Security shall be shuttered. The Patriot Act abolished and certain sections of the NDAA 2012 repealed. There is no need for this expensive theatre of the absurd. Homeland Security will be handled as a law enforcement effort; they will be looking for something to do now that they can't harass teenagers caught with dime bags. Screening of airline passengers will be privatized and follow a model similar to that used by the Israelis. Border and port security will be handled by Immigrations and Customs bureaus.
Fuck that noise if we are aloud any law we don't need stupid ass conditions that are only used to entice legislators in our current flawed system. I don't want my hookers, blow, and gamblin' to be overly taxed just because they are seen as vices, easy windfall cash registers, or because it sounds good when advocates are trying to legalize something. Standards and practices controlled by government is fine up until a point. Just give me my weeeeeeeed maaayn and don't skimp on the fat black hooker sitting on my face*. I would tax fatties though. You're a drain on our society through your slothful unhealthy ways. Medical and insurance companies can discriminate against disgusting fat bodies is as much as appropriate to recover cost associated with your fatness. Not so much direct taxation from the government but if you engage in unhealthy behaviors, smoking included, you should pick up the tab instead of the rest of society. *shamelessly stolen from an early nineties comedian.
Sorry, maybe my internetdar is fuzztacular, but I can't tell who's joking here. It's not really possible that a group of people that don't want to the government restricting their ability to torrent episodes of Breaking Bad wants laws that police their sex having and weight gain, right? You're kidding about that?
Adding to this, no more government health care after your term limit expires and no salaries/pensions for life either. You will abide by the same laws you pass for us, the same tax brackets, everything. Political correctness If you prefer to be politically correct in the terms you use that's ok but you don't have to be. If you choose not to I need to have thick enough skin to deal with it. In the words of Felonious Monk, stop being a pussy B.
1. If any election turnout is less than 30%, none of the candidates can run for office for the next 10 years. 2. US homeland security/border patrol/police/everyone will bring thank you cards to every immigrant that comes to this country to study, or honestly work. If said immigrant is getting a master's degree or higher, they get automatic citizenship. Americans that complain about this will have their citizenship revoked unless they have a master's degree or higher, and deported wherever their ancestors came from. 3. Instead of jail time, criminals will be publicly shamed or beaten by victims/victim's families, proportional to the level of the crime. Every time someone commits a repeat crime the fine gets multiplied by 10 (and next time by 10, etc), and after committing the same thing 3 times, their offense gets tattooed on their forehead to warn the public. Money saved/earned this way will go towards education. 4.90% of funds used on US military spending will instead be used on healthcare and scientific research. 5. people who are suggesting we impose limits on procreation will have to write a 20 pages thesis about eugenics and what it lead to in the past and why we are never going there again.
1. You can have as many kids as you want, then you're sent to la di da fuck off land where you take your screaming little shits with you. More realistically, crying babies are kept in a separate section of the plane. Kids are no longer allowed in sports bars, shopping malls, or other locations that are conventionally thought to be family oriented. If you can't find a baby sitter, you can shuffle along to a 'parenting entertainment center'. Here, parents can lock their kids in sound proof booths, and drink themselves stupid before they drive home. It will be a place to criticize other people's parenting and find solace in your miserable lives. 2. Prostitution is legal, and all whores will have their vaginas' and the inside of their mouths power washed between seeing clients. Weed will be legal, but not harder drugs such as cocaine and meth. I don't trust 18 year olds to be smart enough to realize that legalizing such drugs doesn't mean the government is implicitly telling you they really aren't that bad after all. Late teens can however fuck a hooker, should they so choose. The drinking age is also lowered to 18. 3. You can now hunt anything, including guidos (but not real people). If an animal is on the verge of extinction it will thought too slow and weak to be considered worthy prey. Chickens can be stuffed in 4 by 4 cages up to the count of 50. All laws regarding animal abuse are suspended with the exception of 'non-profitable torture'. Every citizen must take courses in both gun safety and cooking, with no exemptions pertaining towards their intention to do either. 4. Dance clubs are all bulldozed to the ground. If you want to dance you will do it out in the street while wearing the sign 'make us laugh clown'. Any men who shave their legs and chest, wear tight shirts, head bands, tight jeans, hair longer than golf club, etc will immediately be sent to the military and that will be their uniform, including such body modifications that indicate being a faggot.
Thank you all for helping me understand the depth to which these United States are completely fucked. Law #1: None of you fucking people are allowed outside. Law #2: None of your loved ones are allowed outside. Law #3: No one who has ever been responsible for teaching you anything, at any time, is allowed outside. Law #4: No one who any of you has ever been responsible to teach anything, at any time, is allowed outside.