Speaking of which, I would have supported retaliating over the practice of shielding child molesters by the Church by bombing the Vatican to flaming rubble. If they want to be treated as an independent nation, well I expect that if another nation had done the things it has done, they’d have been told to hand over the perpetrators or be visited by cruise missiles.
Your cost per year would have to go WAY up to make this a viable system. For example, in New York state, the average cost to register a car is $25 a year. So your plan would quadruple the registration fee but multiply the number of driving tests by 14.
I believe that criminal law should concern itself primarily with restoration of the victim(s), at the expense of the perpetrator. The law should no more concern itself with the outcome on the criminal’s life than we worry over the welfare of microbes when taking antibiotics.
I believe that adults who think that adult/child consensual sexual relationships are possible-forget the protective instincts that should come along with power over more vulnerable forms of life. When justifying pedophilia- one needs to realize how easy it is for an adult to trick a child, given the developmental stages of intelligent reasoning in human beings. I would like to say that pedophilia is one think I have no tolerance for.
I agree with you there, but it still is a rather extreme POV when you think about the consequences. I make restrictions though, not all animals are the same. Most reptiles thrive in a terrarium; intelligent mammals wither.
I think that people who believe in a God who has knowable wants and\or attributes aren’t very intelligent. Deists you’re off the hook.
I think that anti abortionists should be charged with international human rights offences if they ever get their abhorrent views codified into law.
I believe that human sexuality is in fact somewhat malleable. Perhaps not in all or even most or many cases, but people can reinvent themselves, in quite fundamental ways (for example, bachelors successfully reinvent themselves as fathers with some reliability - and that’s a huge, sweeping change in almost every part of a person’s life) - so why not this?
I don’t believe anyone should ever be coerced to do this, but neither should anyone be prevented, if it’s what they want. I doubt many people would choose to even try, and that’s about as it should be too.
(BTW, I have just read the ‘trying to become gay for science’ thread - and it’s interesting, but not conclusive.
I really dislike referendums as a constitutional tool. I think they’re populist and dangerous.
I think that drivers licenses should not be given to anyone under the age of 21.
I think that no one should receive welfare or food stamps without making some form of contribution to the community they live in. Unless you are physically disabled, you can pick up litter, clean graffiti or something like that to offset the assistance you are receiving.
Polygamy between consenting adults should be legal.
Guns should be severely limited to police officers, military, and standard hunting weapons used in the course of legally allowed hunting. Certainly no conceal and carry. I could be persuaded to allow a limited number of handguns per dwelling safely kept in homes but if you are found carrying one in public, immediate confiscation and ban from ever purchasing a new one.
There should be a universal healthcare system that covers the basics of necessary medicine, with options for those who want more coverage to purchase it or allow employers to provide extra insurance as a benefit.
Young girls should be given birth control implants/IUD or somesuch at the onset of puberty and can have them removed at any time after 18 and high school graduation or 21 if not a graduate, and put back in at any time, free of charge.
Military service is not inherently a good thing. In fact, it is rarely a good thing.
What’s a “non-workplace public place”? If it’s a non-workplace, why would anyone need to find somewhere else to work?
No lower age limit at all?
Just to clarify (but not debate): you don’t believe there are people who are sexually attracted to their own sex, but not to members of the opposite sex? Or you just object to there being a term for it?
Why not fit young men with a chastity belt?
Something tells me we’d see an unprecedented explosion in the popularity of metal shop classes.
I think pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to market recreational drugs. They would have to meet high QA/QC standards, just like they do for prescription drugs, but the drugs would be sold with warnings about the health hazards. They would be sold at government-run businesses–like alcohol is in Virginia. You could buy limited quantities over a certain time period, just like prescription drugs.
All kids get a tox screen as soon as they are born. If recreational drugs or alcohol is found in their systems, you are subjected to an investigation.
Poor people who want to get sterilized can get it done for free at any public hospital.
When violent crime reaches a certain threshold in a neighborhood, that neighborhood becomes designated as a “hot zone” and a special police force is deployed to bring it back under control. They can enact curfews, enforce loitering laws, and put gang members under strict survelliance.
White collar crime should be penalized just as severely as blue-collar crime. If a burgular gets ten years for stealing $15000 of jewelry, so should the businessman who embezzles the same amount.
The government should alleviate homelessness by creating free, no-frills housing communities. Take old shipping containers and make them into livable dwellings, equipped with heating and cooling and plumbing. Build small scale, self-contained communities where the inhabitants are required to do upkeep on the property and monitor each other for illegal activities, but put police presence there as well. Give grants to various non-profit groups for job training, social skills development and therapy, substance abuse treatment, community gardening, etc. Make it a requirement that all inhabitants allot a certain number of hours a week to community service (cleaning vacant lots, graffiti clean-up, etc.). Move the communities to areas far from schools, so that sex offenders can live there. (And don’t allow families).
Not the same thing. A woman on birth control can still have sex and otherwise operate normally; a man in a chastity belt can’t have sex and will probably have problems with basic functions like going to the bathroom.
So, everytime you and your partner have had sex without having expressed consent in clear, verbal terms, it should be presumed that you raped each other and should both go to prison?
Or did you mean that only women’s consent had to be expressed this way and not men’s?
You would actually send someone to prison for not having gotten consent in clear, verbal terms? No requirement for intentional, reckless or willfully blind performance of the actus reus (where the actus reus is sexual touching without consent)?
DO you want this standard for all sexual touching or just sex? If just sex, why not extent it to sexual touching generally?
This is a great thread. I wonder how many of these are going to spin off into new threads in GD, or the Pit…
I had almost exactly the same idea, except a bit more extreme. I think all people should be relocated, with fair compensation, from the country currently known as Israel. The Jews can be given automatic citizenship in the US, and the Arabs can be given citizenship in whichever Middle Eastern country they like. Then Israel itself will be turned into a giant UNESCO World Heritage site, and entered only via strictly controlled visa. After 100 years UNESCO may consider allowing people to move back in.
I really don’t care who has the original historical claim to the land. Both parties lost their right to it when they started acting like fundamentalist asshats.
The only reason I don’t suggest nuking the place (after the people have left) is that there is some cool archeology there…
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, and all forms of welfare and government subsidies should end.
If you’re not in jail or on probation, you should be free to own any gun of your choosing. Even a fully-automatic assault rifle. Even if you’re a felon.
The federal Department of Labor, Department of Education, Department of Transportation, FDA, and EPA should be shut down.
It should be illegal for government workers to form unions.
If you receive an entitlement check from the government, or you do not pay taxes, you should not be allowed to vote.