A Complete Reimagining of Society

[Fernii]

How would all of you feel about the closest to a "free society" that would be possible without descending into total anarchism(we all know anarchy is ridiculous and would not work over a sustained period of time)? I see it like this.

There would be a complete rework of all current legal systems. All drugs would be legalized and decriminalized. Prostitution would be legalized and decriminalized. Abortion would be fully legalized. Gay marriage would be legalized. Many crimes would be removed, but a harsher more free punishment system would be put in place. The only remaining major crimes would be murder, theft, and political corruption. If you are caught and convicted of murder you would be killed by firing squad within weeks of being convicted. Those found guilty of theft would be imprisoned for a time scaling with the value of what was stolen. For these crimes there wouldn't be any chance of an innocent being convicted of the crime. The person in question would have to be found without a shadow of a doubt guilty, else they be returned to society. It opens up the possibility for killers and thieves to get off free, but it is a risk that would be taken. Some would say this is a system based on vengeance instead of justice. Killing those found guilty isn't about vengeance. It is about clearing out the undesirables in society at a significantly cheaper cost. There is no need to keep those around who would kill their fellow man.

Prison sentences would range from a few weeks to life. If found guilty of life in prison due to any law, then you will never get out. You are there for life.

Murder is a fairly vague term, due to things like second degree murder and so on. There would only be one form of murder punishable by law. Any killing of another human being that wasn't in self defense (including defense of property) or an accidental slaying would be considered murder. Those who killed a thief breaking into their house would suffer no consequence no matter the cause of death or if overkill occurred. Now if drunk driving resulted in the death of another person, then that driver would be sentenced to death. The driver knew the risk of driving while intoxicated.

Political corruption would be any abuse of power performed by those leading the government. There would be a Supreme Court elected by the people (one of their few chances to vote under this system) and they would abide by a set of rules giving them the power to enforce rules concerning political corruption. Political corruption would be a very broad term that dealt with various circumstances that could arise. This Supreme Court would also enforce an unchangeable Bill of Rights (explained below). Those found charged with political corruption would be removed from their position and sentenced to life in prison.

The government would be run by critical thinking intellectuals. Democracy is in my opinion a broken system. Sure, the Average Joe should govern himself, but on a larger scale, the Average Joe is an idiot. They don't honestly know what is the best for them on a global level. I am still unsure of how those put in power would be decided, and so this section is very iffy. They would be the voice of the people though. They would interact with other countries to make treaties, trade, and so forth.

The school system would be rebuilt as well. School would start at age five. They would go for the current amount of days, for the current amount of years. Summer break would be significantly shortened and those days would be spread through the traditional school year. After learning basic math, language, history, and science students would be given exams. These exams determined where their next source of material would come from. This exam would be given at the end of the eighth grade. From there students would go to one of two schools, a school based on academic success or what amounts to a tech school. Those who went to an academic school would choose between studying literature, creative writing, history, and language or mathematics and science. The next four years would consist of them expanding on their knowledge in the aforementioned subjects in a creative and stimulating environment. Those who picked the more physical path (mechanics and plumbers and so on) would train to be specialized in their area of interest for four years.

Things like tenure would be removed causing teachers to actually have to be knowledgeable and willing to teach in their course. There would be health and sexual education courses taken at distinct years in human development. These classes would be a year long and the years where these classes were taken the school day would be extended by an hour to accommodate. Teacher salaries would be raised. These people are heavily influential in the upcoming generations and their pay should be high to show their importance to society.

College would remain for the most part the same. There would be no basics to be required before jumping into the content you plan to major in. If you wished to be a journalist then you would not need to take Calculus or anything ridiculous like that. These classes would still be offered to those people, but they would not be required.



These would be the rights given to each and every human born into the country.
1. Freedom of Speech
2. Freedom of Religion
3. Freedom of the Press
4. The Right to a Peaceful Protest
5. The Right to Bear Firearms (assault rifles, shotguns, handguns, and so on)
5. The Right to Due Process

It's basically the Bill of Rights. Amendments could be added, but these main five could not be changed in any way even by other amendments. Any politician found proposing a bill to challenge any of these five would be charged with political corruption.



There are still a very large amount of things that I haven't touched on, but this is getting increasingly long and so I will stop here for now. There are also things that I may have forgot to add while tying this, but I'm human; I forget things. I would like to see all of your opinions on this MMO-Champion and any changes that you would like to see happen to society.

[Deleted]

Summer break would be significantly shortened

No please.

[Fernii]

It would be spread out amongst the school year. You would still have just as many days out, just more smaller breaks.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 12:55 AM ----------

I guess I'll throw out some additional ideas as well. I should have added this earlier, but this is based on laws and social issues in a country like the US.

There would be marriage and then civil unions. Marriage would be for anyone desiring to be married in a religious ceremony. Civil Unions would be for those who do not desire a religious ceremony or those unable to have religious ceremonies (gays at certain churches for example). I realize that marriage was a thing before religion was even established, but in this era marriage is considered a religious ceremony for the most part.

Tax rates would be increased to 20% of your income. All loopholes would be closed. Things required to survive reasonably would become government supplied though, for example: water, heat, electricity, and so on. Welfare and disability would be ended. If you cannot take care of yourself or are too lazy to then you don't need to be around. The only exception would be soldiers heavily injured in war (amputees and so on). They would be taken care of by the government for the rest of their life.

Military spending would be severely cut. This increased revenue would be put into schools to increase quality of life for the students and increase the materials available to them. Teachers shouldn't have to struggle with printing off sheets due to a lack of paper.

Lying in the media would also be considered political corruption due to the nature of most lies propagated by news sources.

[Sagittaria]

Sounds like an unworkable dream destined for disaster, really.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 07:41 PM ----------

If you cannot take care of yourself ... then you don't need to be around.

Okay now this has turned full on despicable. This goes against the very basics of human society: compassion and empathy. I'm glad this is nothing but a forum pipe dream.

[Fernii]

Well this wouldn't be based around empathy or kindness, more about working together for mutual benefit. I don't see why compassion or empathy are actually needed to work as a society. I'm sure selfishness with a willingness to work together for one's betterment would be just as effective.

[Sagittaria]

Well this wouldn't be based around empathy or kindness, more about working together for mutual benefit. I don't see why compassion or empathy are actually needed to work as a society.

Are you capable of compassion and empathy? What will you do if your parents or children can't take care of themselves?

I'm sure selfishness with a willingness to work together for one's betterment would be just as effective.

The fact that it is a species capable of compassion and empathy that now rules the world says you are wrong. What successful society can you name that glorifies selfishness? Galt's Gulch?

[vizzle]

You want to allow people to indulge themselves in any type of drug with no restrictions and no laws preventing them, and then you want to execute them without exception when they murder someone in a drugged up haze?

There has to be some restrictions when it comes to drugs imo.

Edit: Just read your part about "the driver should've known getting drunk could've killed someone." Your society seems very harsh. You allow people to do anything they want, but as soon as they forget themselves, they're done.

Editedit:

So basically you want people to have as much freedom as possible, as long as they don't hurt anyone else. That sums it up, right? But as you said yourself, the Average Joe is an idiot (and I agree with that). You're letting people take as much drugs as they want, letting people have whatever religion, whatever free speech, and the right to bear arms. Your society is pretty much a ticking timebomb and you plan to kill everyone who steps out of line.

People will never be happy with that because you'll be forced to imprison for life or execute a multitude of citizens regularly.

[Warwithin]

I find it hard to read your wall of text when your avatar is giving me that look.

[Fernii]

I wouldn't be the decision maker in what would happen to my parents, and I don't plan on having children. You bring up a valid enough point. I would enjoy seeing it happen though just to observe.

[vizzle]

Well this wouldn't be based around empathy or kindness, more about working together for mutual benefit. I don't see why compassion or empathy are actually needed to work as a society. I'm sure selfishness with a willingness to work together for one's betterment would be just as effective.

Compassion and empathy are the reason people want to do things. You can't have a functioning society if you've turned people off from your society because it's like a dystopia of freedom.

Think about it like this: Your society right now is a giant candystore, and you're filling it with children. But you tell the children, "You can only have one piece of candy per day." The rest of the day they just sit there in agony, staring at the bundles of tempting candy. You're assuming that they'll all cooperate, but no, humans don't work that way. Many people will take more candy, and you will have to deal with that through life in jail or execution.

After a while, sure, they'll figure it out. But that'll be a society built off of fear instead of fairness. You're beating them into submission while telling them that you're not.

[Fernii]

Huh. Went to delete my double post and it deleted both posts.

Anyways; it isn't like they are forced to eat the candy, if you don't like sweets, then simply don't eat them. Eating too many sweets will run the risk of diabetes, just don't complain if you pig out for years and then develop it.

I personally do things to amuse myself and use the time I have alive to enjoy life. I could care less about other people so long as they didn't get in my way.

[vizzle]

Yes, but you could prevent this by not giving them that option in the first place.

Let's recap:

Your society has:

*as much and any drugs it wants
*as much and any religion it wants
*as much and any freedom of speech it wants
*as much and any GUNS it wants

If history has taught us one thing, people do not mesh together, and when you build your society that has to be expected. You don't put two people who hate each other in the same room each with a gun in his hand and then eventually punish the survivor for killing the other. The answer is not giving them the guns in the first place.

And if we use the candy store analogy, you give everyone a piece of candy every day, and then you lock everyone out until tomorrow.

[Warwithin]

FYI, what you're suggesting is a libertarian oligarchy. Works in principal, but not in practice.

[Itisamuh]

College would remain for the most part the same. There would be no basics to be required before jumping into the content you plan to major in. If you wished to be a journalist then you would not need to take Calculus or anything ridiculous like that. These classes would still be offered to those people, but they would not be required.

To be honest, other than your list of rights given to everyone, this was the only area in the entire post that I fully support without restraint. This very thing is why I refused to go when I could have for free. Now, of course, my reason is a combination of this and the ridiculous expenses of going without scholarships. I suppose I would back teachers getting more money too, though I would add police, firefighters, etc to that list.

However, if I were still in school, I would much prefer the longer summers over having the days scattered out. I am completely against drug use of any kind and think it should all remain illegal. I am against gay marriage. I might be against reworking what qualifies as a crime.

A few of the other things, such as no innocents ever convicted and no political corruption, are of course nice, but not realistic.

[Deleted]

What you propose is a horridly jumbled dystopian mishmash of Marxism and right wing Republicanism, and is both unworkable and highly undesirable.

[Fernii]

That is very true (in response to vizzle). This is just my dream society. I could easily handle the freedom, but it would be nice if everyone else could as well; it would definitely increase my quality of life.

So what are all of your dream societies?

[vizzle]

That is very true (in response to vizzle). This is just my dream society. I could easily handle the freedom, but it would be nice if everyone else could as well; it would definitely increase my quality of life.

So what are all of your dream societies?

My dream society is that nobody would be a zealot. People could argue, but they should also know when to stop, so that we don't have things escalating to the point of "EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH MY RELIGION/POINT/IDEAS SHOULD BE BEHEADED!" and then we have a war.

But since we can't stop people from being that way, the only way you could really have a perfect society is if it were dystopian. Much like what you're proposing, except I wouldn't give the people so many freedoms.

But I wouldn't want to live in that perfect society, either. Too much perfection would just make it boring, wouldn't it? I'm glad my death will come before the future gets too controlled.

[Sagittaria]

More fun talking about how we can take concrete steps to improve our current society, than to fantasies about a dream society that's almost certainly going to not work as intended, IMHO. There's far too many wishful thinking and assumptions built into the latter.

Yes I'm a killjoy.

[Flaks]

Edit: Just read your part about "the driver should've known getting drunk could've killed someone." Your society seems very harsh. You allow people to do anything they want, but as soon as they forget themselves, they're done.

People will never be happy with that because you'll be forced to imprison for life or execute a multitude of citizens regularly.

Like it should be. A person who commits heinous acts under the pretense of "losing themselves" to a drug deserves no less than execution. You're not fit for society if you give in to such things.

[Sagittaria]

Like it should be. A person who commits heinous acts under the pretense of "losing themselves" to a drug deserves no less than execution. You're not fit for society if you give in to such things.

It's not a pretense, some drugs literally screws with your mind. Their error is in taking them in the first place.