Thursday, January 06, 2011

It'd Take A Dictator To Fix The USA

I think I could fix the USA if I were POTUS and were allowed to order just 10,000 to 20,000 assassinations. Following is a fairly comprehensive list of what needs to be done. I came up with 84 items off the top of my head:
  1. get rid of all prestige military projects like F22 "raptors", aircraft carriers, destroyers and stealth bombers
  2. pull out of military commitments
  3. get rid of all energy subsidies
  4. all agricultural production subsidies
  5. ethanol and "renewables" mandates
  6. make energy subsidies illegal
  7. order all states to claw back their past subsidies
  8. put a moratorium on highway construction
  9. switch all transportation funding to trains
  10. fund a vast high speed train network using sovereign debt
  11. fund city-owned fiber-optic networks
  12. claw back the billions given to telcos for this purpose which they never used
  13. condemn, dismantle and return to greenfield status any shrinking cities like Detroit
  14. reduce and repeal the laws underpinning the nuclear regulatory commission
  15. use sovereign debt to fund a fleet of nuclear power plants
  16. get rid of the federal reserve assholes
  17. get rid of the interest on federal reserve held money, holy fuck that's despicable
  18. claw back all money spent on the finance industry
  19. destroy the big American "banks", not just "let" them fail
  20. guarantee small retail banks
  21. use sovereign debt for building coal to liquids and gas to liquids plants
  22. put a moratorium on ALL greenfield private property construction
  23. kill speculation on land by a land value tax
  24. kill currency speculation by a currency exchange tax
  25. kill wall street by making publicly traded corporations illegal
  26. kill the finance industry by nationalizing the deed lookup company and making illegal all the shenanigans
  27. encourage cooperatives and credit unions
  28. force aristos' vehicles, the "civil society" to disclose at least 95% of their fundings' sources
  29. put in a punitive tax rate
  30. put in a punitive inheritance tax
  31. repeal tax-free status for charities, trusts and religions
  32. cooperate on money laundering and tax havens
  33. end the war on drugs, institute sin taxes for marijuana, heroin, cocaine and ecstasy
  34. recognize marijuana and ecstasy as first-line medical drugs for persistent nausea and PTSD
  35. institute wholesale taxes, repeal sales taxes
  36. keep services taxes
  37. end all paroles - commute all past sentences accordingly
  38. end all prison labour
  39. end copyright
  40. end patent law
  41. pardon any offenders of copyright and patent law
  42. institute clawbacks for copyright violation verdicts in favour of media companies
  43. move to a scandinavian model for prisons
  44. deprivatize prisons
  45. repeal all surveillance
  46. institute transparent government
  47. fund a negative income tax with a livable floor
  48. end the welfare bureaucracy
  49. institute and fund parenting places to teach best practices from pregnancy on up
  50. criminalize the beating of children, with no exceptions or allowable defense
  51. depoliticize FEMA
  52. refloat New Orleans by injecting seawater into the petrol reservoir underneath the city, charge the oil companies that have emptied it sinking the city
  53. end all bioweapons research
  54. dismantle the CIA
  55. declassify and release all its files
  56. repeal the national secrets act 
  57. sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  58. turn over highest jurisdiction to European Court of Human Rights
  59. submit to the International Court of Justice
  60. unilaterally relinquish the USA's seat on the UN Security Council
  61. submit to the International Criminal Court
  62. consent to the judgement against the USA in favour of Nicaragua in the International Criminal Court, pay reparations for waging war without ever declaring it
  63. turn over all present and previous US state officials and members of the CIA who have international warrants pending for war crimes and crimes against humanity
  64. cut off all aid to Israel, embargo it
  65. condemn its Apartheidal national fascist regime
  66. normalize relations with Cuba
  67. invite Cuban doctors to teach and practice preventive medicine
  68. deprivatize all emergency services like ambulances
  69. fund universal single payer health care
  70. buy and order a comprehensive survey of the effectiveness of all medical treatments and practices
  71. make second best more expensive practices illegal
  72. break the balls of pharma, use generics wherever possible
  73. make it a criminal act to glorify psychopaths or narcissists
  74. institute and fund universal mandatory HIV testing, make sure non-disclosure of status to sex partners counts as attempted murder
  75. institute mandatory testing for psychopathy for anyone in a position of authority, make them pariahs on failure
  76. pull out of ITER
  77. end NASA's manned space programs, dismantle the space shuttles, fire NASA's top directors
  78. turn over the International Space Station to the Europeans and Russians
  79. permit the leasing of nuclear explosives for the purpose of space launch from remote regions
  80. make the possession, production, importation and exportation of any gun shorter than the longest hunting rifle everywhere illegal and revoke all licenses
  81. give police the power to make random searches for guns with only the possibility of arresting for gun, ammunition and explosive-related offenses on such a search (not even finding a dead body would count)
  82. dismantle SWAT teams, drug units, and other ineffective specialized units (homicide?) everywhere
  83. outlaw fascist parties and cults, have the FBI crack down on them
  84. condemn waving of the flag as fascist
  85. institute comparative religion classes in all schools
  86. institute comparative history classes in all schools (Russian vs German vs American history in particular)
  87. publicize the truth about the Russians beating the Nazis, not the Americans
  88. cap the maximum size of schools at 200 students, make hall passes and other totalitarian practices illegal
Alternatively, I could institute sortition and let all of the above follow as a natural consequence. Of course, this gradual way would result in a greater total number of deaths since the status quo is quite deadly. 

But even without any of the above, I honestly think the world would be a better place if I got the option of assassinating all:
  1. American state and federal congressmen, senators, and judges
  2. preachers and televangelists
  3. economists everywhere
  4. American CEOs and board members
  5. corporate lawyers
  6. bankers at any of the big fake-banks
  7. prison guards
  8. air force pilots
  9. celebrity journalists and media owners
  10. directors of wealthy American charities or other "civil society" organization

I would also add American cops, criminologists, doctors and all anthropologists to the list, but those are less clear cut so there's much less of a benefit to humanity from killing them.

Note that I would not NEED to assassinate every single one of them. Just start with killing 100-100-100 congressmen, preachers, and economists on the first day, then kill the most prominent and annoying 20-10-10 each and every day. That's a solid year of death, more than long enough for absolute terror to settle like a fog on those professions and for their evil practitioners to bug out like the rats they are.

So you see, yes I really could fix the USA if I was POTUS and could arrange the assassinations of 20,000 people with impunity. Whether the USA could survive the blowback and hysterical panic of my fixing it is a totally separate question. And one I haven't got an answer to.

There is an awful lot of schadenfreude stored up in ordinary Americans so I think they would go for it. I think China would love it and the Saudis would hate it. Saudi Arabia would no doubt sponsor more terrorists to attack the USA in retaliation.

Billionaires would try to flee of course but I could always have them assassinated, or even make an example of the first twenty. By which I mean, wait until at least twenty leave then have them all assassinated at once to make sure a clear message is sent.

6 comments:

Stephen R. Diamond said...

>give police the power to make random searches for guns with only the possibility of arresting for gun, ammunition and explosive-related offenses on such a search (not even finding a dead body would count)

Of all of them, this is the worst—if only because there's a serious possibility that it might be adopted. The problem is its total naivete—the general problem with them all. (Apart from the impossibility of telling whether you're serious at any given time. I don't think even you know.) It's naive because of this sequence !) Cops search for arms, and find only drugs (or if drugs are legalized, which they should be, evidence of some other crime). Now they know their target distributes heroin, so they focus on finding evidence for that offense. Then they get a warrant for the drug (or other) offense a few weeks or months later.

The other thing that's wrong with the proposal is it would make it harder to stage a revolution. (I'll let you decide whether _I'm_ serious now.)

Richard Kulisz said...

Your objection is not wrong but stupid on so many levels. First, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the sequence you painted. Except for the fact that drugs are illegal at all. And reversing THAT was what prompted this list in the first place so I could say it was the FIRST item.

Consider this:
1) cops do a weapons search and find drugs
2) they leave the premises to call in for a search warrant
3) victim flushes drugs down the toilet
4) cops come in and find nothing

Is that correct or incorrect? It's correct! And if they find a dead body, well assuming you're an expert butcher and not squeamish at all then ... um yeah.

The most ridiculous thing about your objection, and the thing that makes it blatantly stupid, is that you're projecting. It is YOU that is being naive if you think the cops don't already use extra-legal means to identify who is dealing drugs. My proposal wouldn't worsen the already bad situation.

AND my proposal has a built in time limit, since obviously within a year there would not exist any more guns in the USA (not even in the hands of the cops) and so the cops couldn't use that as an excuse. Certainly not with me around - or did you miss my contempt for legalisms?

Not only that but you didn't for one second extend to me the benefit of the doubt. As if I hadn't already considered all the permutations within hours of posting. Hell, I even considered putting in a time limit of one year or less until cops' gun licenses are all revoked. That way they all have the utmost incentive to get rid of ALL guns as fast as possible with no fucking around. I even considered having the military do it instead. Pacification is exactly the kind of thing the French and British militaries have experience in. And why the US Army is just untrained gung ho incompetent hacks by world standards.

> The other thing that's wrong with the proposal is it would make it harder to stage a revolution. (I'll let you decide whether _I'm_ serious now.)

Yet again, you're wrong, naive and stupid. You're talking about ARMED revolutions only, which are completely unrealistic, and undesirable in any case. You've discounted social and technological revolutions (sexual, quiet, 1968, computer), which are the very best kind.

Oh and I am being perfectly serious with ALL of them. I would also add to them 'abolish pre-med and pre-law', and abolish the offense 'practicing medicine / law without a license'. And I would replace them with 'criminalize alternative medicine'.

You forget that communist revolutions, and the whole ideology of communism, involves disrespect for the past and reaching for justice at any cost, especially when the costs are only some silly "procedures" like private property. And you forget that I'm fully aware of all aspects of the second communist revolution, the chaos and death that attended, and that it was STILL a net win for russians because the circumstances going in were THAT bad.

Finally, your comment is exactly why I don't like most human beings and why I put up steep barriers to interacting with me. Not only did you automatically dismiss everything on my list as "naive" on the basis that I'm supposed to publish a 5,000 page 5 year month-by-month plan ON A FUCKING BLOG. Not only that, but you didn't even bother to read the fucking list!

You know what went on in your brain when you read this list? "change bad". I'm convinced that's all that went on.

Richard Kulisz said...

The objection you SHOULD have had to keep my respect is that judges would use the "overwhelming injustice" excuse in American law to nullify the concept of specific random searches.

I would then have pointed out 1) my plan allows me to kill off any judges that get in its way, 2) it was only a small oversight for me to not write down "and all members of SCOTUS" on the list of first-day assassinations, 3) a very easily rectified oversight.

And if I were drafting a 5000 page document, then I would certainly have included "repartitioning all the US states along logistical boundaries" and "adopting the Venezuelan constitution" which I doubt most people can understand.

In fact, let's make this really simple. Pick ANY topic of your choice on the list and we'll see whether I know more about it than you do. And we'll see whether I know the repercussions and consequences better than you. Whether they actually are as overwhelmingly positive as I claim them to be. Feel free to challenge me on interactions between my proposals too.

Unknown said...

The US does not have a "state secrets act". Did you mean the Espionage Act?

Also, your list does not include the implementation of a guaranteed income. Is that intentional?

Unknown said...

Ah, I just looked up "negative income tax", so never mind that second question.

Anonymous said...

I'm running for President in 2028. Maybe you can be my Vice President, if you want.