Let’s say you have Superman-level invulnerability against being punished, and the entire world economy is dependent on the Unobtainium only you can provide. You could in fact be god-emperor of the planet if it wasn’t too much work. So you simply decide you’ll do whatever you feel like and the whole world can suck it up. What assholish things would you indulge in?
The forcing of arbitrary laws seems like fun.
In Namibia, all cars must be outfitted with a horn that blares to the tune of “Walk the Line.” On an unrelated note, horns must be sounded whenever the driver sees a blue vehicle of any kind.
In Portland, Oregon, saying the word “fast” is illegal.
In St. Petersburg, the sixth of every month is Fragrant Fish Day. This day must be celebrated with the public display of a minimum of two fragrant fish per citizen. No moving outside of the city is allowed for current residents.
Hmmm… my fantasies seem to be about a mostly benevolent ‘it’s for your own good’ kind of absolute dictator. Europeans must now use a period for a decimal place (but the U.S. must write dates correctly), shrimp tails must be removed from shrimp in any dish where the shrimp are not typically picked up by hand, that kind of thing. Efficiency, people!
Well, there is the mandatory daily George Clinton playing. But again, that’s for their own good.
I think obnoxious hood ornaments would come back into style… with a vengeance.
I would make myself commissioner of every major sporting league and change fundamental rules of the game on a whim, often just minutes before critical games.
For instance, I may want to ban field goals right before the Superbowl starts but allow forward passes by any player at any time. For the World Cup, you can use your hands this match but you have to freeze in place when you hold the ball. Baseball - everyone has to bat and throw with their non-dominant hand in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th innings.
Like Quercus, mine mostly seem to be “Let’s fix this crap.” decrees of various degrees. Plenty of those would strike some (indeed, many) people as assholish, I imagine. Not that I wouldn’t attend to my own selfish wants, but I don’t think I’d be a jerk about it.
Right, for Your Own Good I’d abolish Big Tobacco. (Both of my parents’ deaths were related to their cigarette smoking.) For everybody’s good everybody who’s skilled starts working on climate change solutions/alternate energy NOW.
I’d make Carly Simon write songs about me.
I’d probably engage in more benevolent examples of assholery than anything- I’d probably send out goon squads to beat the crap out of climate change deniers, and levy an oppressive world-wide tax on things like dirty coal plants, gas guzzlers, etc… with the proceeds to be used for geoengineering and fossil fuel alternatives.
I’d make a lot of environmentally unsound practices illegal and punishable by death- things like overfishing, evading quotas, etc… and have my goons stomp all over the sovereignty of countries that didn’t comply.
I’d have the air force take me to wherever I was going at Mach 2 in a F-15 or some other fast fighter, and take precedence over all other air traffic. No holding patterns for me.
I’d introduce testing into everyones everyday lives. For example: Part of the drivers license process would include a test of stuff taught in the 8th grade. You can get out of misdemeanors by correctly answering 8 out of 10 questions from a variety of subjects. Applications for bank loans, professional certification, or the like would include high school level test sections.
Basically, I’d discriminate against the ignorant by making education important at a very immediate level.
I’m just not a very good asshole. I’d mostly play Bartleby and passively aggressively not do whatever I don’t want to. Hire a staff of minions to cook and clean…except, knowing me, I’d be cooking and cleaning right along with them because I can’t stand to watch anyone do work without helping.
But the roads and expressways will be vacated at my whim whenever I want to drive somewhere without delay. 'Cause fuck you, that’s why.
Could be? COULD BE?
First up would be my “Better Off Dead” list. Followed by the “You Don’t Have Any Say In Anything Anymore” list.
Then I’d order Warner Brothers to bring back Animaniacs, Whedon to make more Firefly and the Food Network, MTV, History Channel and A&E to actually live up to their names.
So there’d be more of these types of signs?
Are you really that vain?
Yes. But underneath them will be jackbooted thugs with grenade launchers waving everyone over to the shoulder so I can pass at any speed I want! 
I’d withhold Unobtainium if the regressive tax system were not changed into a progressive tax system of my liking. I’d insist on appointing the US President and all cabinet level appointees as pleasure appointees. I’d appoint judges for life. Judges that misbehaved – I’m takin’ bout you Scalia!-- would be personally spanked bare-assed on the courthouse steps until they promised, through wailing tears not to do it again. Corrupt officials who took or demanded bribes, directly or indirectly would be sent to Joe Arpaio for 48 month stretches. Arpaio required to serve the rest of his life in such a facility. (Hey, I finally found a use of that asshole!). Pensions for public employees would not exceed two times the minimum wage for full time workers, private pensions four times. CEOs and execs would not make more than 10 times the wages of the lowest paid employee of the company.
Single payer health care system for the US, with opt out for rich people who want to hire their own.
Senate to be broken up and run by normal parlimentary rules, each Senator to have shares of the overall vote like stock shares based on the amount of population their state has. State governments to be outright inferior to the federal government and subject to laws by the Congress, except election of officials, all courts to be federal courts.
I didn’t realize I’d thought about it so much.
Much less spending on military worldwide, US military to be cut by 75 percent.
Israel to be returned to 1967 borders, Palestine established in West Bank and independent Gaza. Jerusalem to be nobody’s capital, but an international tourist city under UN’s complete jurisdiction.
Roads would all have potholes fixed and be smooth to German standards. Our national project would be to develop automobiles (and trucks) to travel by computer, like Google’s project, but add that the computerized cars could travel inches from each other, drafting. Require lots of research and development on energy storage on small car scales and large wind-farm scales.
Make vegetarians eat offal. Hey, I have to be a little despotic!
Have all junk mail pay a 100 percent tariff. Make people with Cayman Island style bank accounts forfeit all money in them. They just wake up one day and its gone into the US Treasury, and then they do 12 months. Your local grocery store, such as Safeway, is not allowed to ask you to donate to help diseases, that’s what national health and taxing Safeway’s f’in profits are for.
Music and art classes and shop classes back in schools. Schools run nationally, enough with local idiots running local school boards. Horace Mann be damned. No teaching creationism except at religious services. No incursion of religion in government beyond “In God We Trust” on coins and “under God” (who the heck is undergod? A relative of underdog?) as a sop to the people who want to mix church and state, but that is it. Okay, chaplins in the military, but that’s it, I mean it. No religious invocations or chaplins in f’in Congress or anywhere else. Religions pay taxes like everyone else.
Congress would no longer be allowed to have any hearings on any professional sports issues or the BCS.
Rupert Murdoch would be required to be in Australia at all times. Sorry Australians, he’s your asshole, you keep him down under where he belongs. Same for his spawn.
Set up intoxicant dispensaries run by the NHS for drug addicts who would have a card so they could buy enough for personal use for a day at a time, and rehab for those who want to get off it. Seize all other supplies. Anyone outside an official dispensary with more than a week’s supply get’s a month with in rehab minimum security prison for every day’s supply they have in excess.
The NHS would have access to all mental health records, including rich people opt outs, and dangerous people would not be allowed to have guns. Make Wayne LaPierre and other NRA officials personally go get the guns from the mentally ill.
Move accounting officials to different departments every 24 months to keep cronyism at a minimum.
Establish one method of accounting for the government and stick to it.
Make Peter Jackson fix Lord of the Rings to stick to the story.
All chikdren under 16 years old… are now 16 years old.
From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish
The first thing is have my minions go beat the shit out of the guy across the street for not only having an extremely loud motorcycle, but that he is also blasting music while he is riding it.
I was going to make everybody play musical wealth, politics and religion, jumble everybody up, move them around, make everybody see how hte other half lives.
Screw it!
All wealth is mine, all decisions are mine.
I can’t fuck up the world anymore than it already is, so the world is mine, tremble before me.
I can only be appeased with chocolate, and it better not be the cheap shit.
I would stop threatening South Korea, and let all the prisoners out of my concentration camps.
Catching everyone who smokes inside the Montreal subway system, and putting a curse or something on them that forces them back outside if they ever try to go back inside the metro system.