1 Grant the leader of the nation sovereign power and sole authority over all federal law, to be bestowed upon the next of kin upon said leader's passing unless the leader abdicates and declares a successor. [Don't judge me until you've read the rest.]
2 Abolish all policies that promote, favouritize, or expressly discriminate for or against any religion.
3 Impose a maximum annual income cap of 2 million dollars upon all citizens, the remainder to be added to the education and health care budgets.
4 Nullify the legality of all patents and/or claims of ownership held by any corporate entity, and/or surviving their original holders by 10 or more years, and/or made upon any living organism.
5 Illegalize the use of government property and funding on the election campaigns, travel expenses, and personal security of any government official.
6 Illegalize the practice of lobbying, with a minimum sentence of 10 years for any government official found to be accepting payment or compensation exceeding the value of $1000 from any company or private industry found to receive support from said official.
7 Mandate that any non-federal budget or piece of legislation which is to be passed must be made fully available to the public no less than one month beforehand, and must be rejected if so petitioned by at least 10% of the regional populace, or 1000 individuals (whichever is smaller) within that time span.
8 Excepting the legally insane, legalize the option of assisted suicide for any person who is terminally ill or serving a life sentence, regardless of the wishes of any other person holding power of attourney.
9 Illegalize the destruction or intentional harm of any member of the genus Populus, with a minimum sentence of 10 years for any person found giulty of killing any such tree. [This should make sense soon; keep reading.]
10 Grant the government of each state/province/territory/whatever federal-level jurisdiction over its own holdings, excepting the power to amend, annul, rescind, subvert, or bypass any law made by the nation's leader.
11 Abdicate and declare a grove of quaking aspen as my successor.
Also I would elect @StormWalker as my personal bodyguard, with the promise that if she doesn't kill me she can be Queen, i.e. the Moderator, if I become leader again. We'll work that out later.
We can work it out now, @MattEmAngel. What's my salary? The level of my salary dictates how polite I am. And if I could ban people from the country, do I personally get to kick them out or are they deported? It's a little-known fact that I abuse my mod powers in the FGA chat when someone starts spouting blasphemy. How are my powers enforced? Information is key.
Edit: Also, I wouldn't want to run a nation. I'd screw that up royally (I don't want the responsibility anyway), and the economy would be going through the spiraling death plunge of Russia's right now, except probably without even having considered harvesting any resources. I'll take a nice job behind the scenes killing off the competition or something instead, thanks.
1.Introduce a mansion tax.
2. Increase corporation tax.
3. Give all the public sector workers a pay rise.
4. Abolish Ofsted, then rebuild it from the ground up.
5. Abolish any formal government connection with the church.
6. Replace the house of lords with an elected body.
7. Increase NHS spending.
8. Close the tax loopholes.
9. Increase the efficiency of HMRC.
10. Divert army funds to the Navy, Air Force, and Intelligence services.
11. Abolish the anti-terror laws that infringe on civil rights too much.
12. End the special relationship between the UK and US.
13. Legalise, then nationalise, the illegal drug trade.
14. Assign a committee to find every clinical trial the pharmaceuticals industry ever did.
15. Abolish university fees.
16. Increase spending on renewable energy R&D, and implementation.
I would be sentenced to 10 years in prison, but, since the nation must always have a leader (who is either next of kin or declared successor), and assuming Fish has no offspring, I would immediately succeed the grove.
That's an interesting plan, but I think your estimated prison term of 10 years is a little bit optimistic, as an aspen grove is a clonal colony of several trees. The largest to date has at least 47000 trees, all connected at the root. You must have a truly spectacular team of lawyers if they can reduce your sentence by more than 400 000 years.
Not that it would do you any good, of course, as the next of kin policy applies only to the current leader. Id est, the poplar grove. You would have to exterminate the entire genus first. Apparently, it's also the most widely distributed tree in North America. Go figure.
2. Increase corporation tax.
I knew I forgot something.
15. Abolish university fees.
By that, do you mean deprivitize post-secondary education altogether, or force privately owned universities to get their funding elsewhere?
Ah, but you missed the word "immediately." The grove would be dead, and as successor I would gain power immediately. If a king declared the one who killed him should be executed, then was stabbed by his son, his son would become king (assuming it was a monarchy and all) immediately and would most likely overturn that law at once to evade death.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that would only work if you were designed to be next to rule before you kill the trees. Otherwise, you are just that; an assassin of the ruler. Not the brightest perspective if you ask me.
But since you started well on the line of shady complots and manipulation, you'll figure a way out. Not sure I'd want you as leader then, though :P
I wouldn't go to jail at all, and even if I did, you managed to leave one little loophole in your carefully-worded plan: "Illegalize the destruction or intentional harm of any member of the genus Populus, with a minimum sentence of 10 years for any person found giulty of killing any such tree." In other words, you get ten years for killing one of those trees, not ten years PER TREE. It doesn't matter if I incinerated one or a million: I killed a Populus tree, so I receive 10 years behind bars.
[...] minimum sentence [...]
I see no loophole here. You would have to convince the court that every tree in the grove counts as only part of one tree, which is contrary to the meaning of the word "tree". Also, isn't assassinating a nation's leader usually an act of high treason?
It is likely that the grove in question did not create a whole new grove of trees, and it is also unlikely that the grove was created entirely by another grove.
Actually, that's exactly how it works. Each grove is made of genetically identical clones propagated via underground rhizome. They all originally stemmed from the same plant, so yes, all of them would have been created by another grove.
And, even if that were the case, it would be absolutely impossible to trace that grove's parents.
Almost. Technically, it could be done with an exhaustive amount of gene testing, but it really isn't necessary. Plants are physically incapable of writing laws. Therefore, the next of kin doesn't need to be located. As long as there are aspen, we can conclude that the leader is doing its job to the best of its abilities.
By that reasoning, if you had a human heir I would have to kill everyone from the genus Homo because you are of that genus, Id est the entirety of the human race and then some.
Well, no; unless you happen to be a member of some other genus, you would only need to exterminate every human on the planet who is more closely related to me than you are. It isn't that easy with poplars because every member of that genus (and, technically, every member of the Kingdoms Plantae and Fungi) is a closer relative than you are.
You would have to convince the court that every tree in the grove counts as only part of one tree, which is contrary to the meaning of the word "tree".
In that case, you'd need to demonstrate that the grove is a singular successor.
In that case, you'd need to demonstrate that the grove is a singular successor.
Well, because they are all genetically identical (aside from minor mutations), I could pick one tree and the others would immediately be the successors of that one. I'm sure I could iron out any inconsistencies with a bit of legal boilerplate.
By the way, Fish, there's really no need to actually type out "id est." i.e. works just fine and is less confusing.
I know, but the alternative would mean putting a comma right after a period, which looks odd. The same goes for having 'etc.' at the end of a clause.
