I think there is some hope that we’ll avoid debate here in this thread. Let’s let it go yes?
If you shoot someone who is up to no good, you should get a medal. You only thought your “good kid” had only fallen into a bad crowd until he decided to hang out at night in a dark house uninvited with a really bad crowd: me.
I think people should give me stuff like monkeys and stuff.
I’ll give you my monkey when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!
I want a return to chain gangs!
Well not really. But I want people in prison to work hard, everyday. (No Gyms, no cable tv, no free uni degrees, until you’ve done 5 yrs of hard work. Their terms do not get reduced any other way, it’s the only out. I want them put to work doing massive national projects. Being Canadian, I say, let’s build us another national corridor that spans the country. High speed rail, a few hundreds of miles north of the Trans Canada Highway. That ought to keep them busy for years, open new areas to development, etc. They get paid $1 per hour, .50 is set aside for them, when they get out (though the prison holds it, in the mean time, and profits from doing so), the other .50 goes to their families, their victims, or the state.
Sex offenders are given the option of being exiled to a remote mountain city, purpose built. Or chemical castration if they wish to re enter society.
White collar crime becomes truly criminalized, with severe penalties, and enormous restitution amounts.
Special laws for public officials. I want them to tremble when they take their oath of office!
Crimes against fashion really would be crimes. 
Or how about making it illegal to go out in public without bathing? (Your right to stink ends at my nose.)
*Absolutely no wars. Anytime something seems headed that way, everyone must meet up in a single room and hash things out like pre-schoolers fighting over a toy. No one can come out or have supper until the conflict is resolved.
*All religion is forbidden if you want to codify any of your beliefs into law. You can think and worship whatever way you want, but the first time you try to impose that on anyone else, you’ll see serious jail time.
*We’re all citizens of the world, so no borders or bounderies. That way, it’ll make it impossible to have illegal anything and stop a lot of the ridiculous expansionism that caused problems since the beginning of humanity.
*Free college / trade schools to teach careers. Like universal healthcare, this should be a given.
*No children unless you can pass an ethics review. If Michelle Duggar can’t prove that she’s equally present in the lives of all 19 of her current living kids and isn’t passing off duties of raising them to their siblings, she’s not allowed to have another. By the same token, if you have something harmful that you’ll genetically pass on to your baby, despite how badly you may want one, adoption will be the only choice you get.
I also agree with some that have already been posted (like euthanasia) and don’t find others that extreme (legalizing pot, keeping abortion open to all), but would certainly find some of these very interesting to see debated. I wonder if any of these, like had been previously mentioned, will spin off some threads in GD. I’d definitely at least watch from the sidelines.
I think there’s something wrong with people who hunt primarily for sport.
People who hunt for primarily for sport are unbelievably rare. I’ve honestly never even met one. I mean, given how good most animals taste, why would anyone waste the meat?
I’ve never encountered anyone whose idea of hunting was that old-fashioned, Teddy Roosevelt, safari trophy kind of hunting. I’m pretty sure that’s almost totally obsolete, and would be severely looked down on by serious outdoorsmen.
End all civil-rights-related laws. Have a privately-owned club, school, apartment building or business? Want to restrict patrons or members to all-Catholic, LGBT-only, only people you find sexually attractive, smokers yeah or nay, restricted to ethnic minorities, what the heck-ever?
Go for it. Publically-funded at any level businesses, clubs and organizations must be even-handed, of course. All others, as long as they don’t receive public funding of any sort, can choose whoever’s patronage they want. The general public can, of course, decide whether they want to support a restrictive business.
You can eat the meat, and still have sport be your primary motivation for going hunting.
Maybe this is just hashing semantics, but doesn’t the very notion of hunting in modern society imply that it’s always primarily for sport even if the meat is eaten, considering that the same meat could have been obtained 100x more easily by going to the supermarket and buying it already prepared? If people choose to hunt, its because they like all the sporting aspects of “connecting with the great outdoors”/their primal instincts, firing rifles, and all that hardcore DIYer-type stuff. It’s not like a person thinks “I need meat to eat” and their first logical thought is “go hunting” as the best/easiest way to obtain it. Ergo, it’s always for “sport” whether the meat is preserved and eaten or not.
ETA: I see Blackberry had the same thought as I did while I was writing that. Great minds…
After reading through this thread, all I can say is, Holy Shit, yes!
Here’s mine: Anyone receiving a direct payment from any level of government should lose the right to vote at that level of government. This would avoid the noxious practice of buying votes by providing government freebies at taxpayer expense (welfare benefits, defense contracts, union contracts, Social Security, etc.). Note that I am a state employee, and thus would lose my right to vote for state offices.
I think that some form of eugenics can be done in an ethical, non-racist way and that if we can figure out such a way we should try to improve ourselves thus.
I think the concept of cognition is fundamentally flawed. I think a lot of times, people just do something and their brain then invents a rationalization for what already happened. These two activities get lumped together in your mind and people assume they must have had a reason for doing what they did.
Once you’re done using your body, why should you have any control over it? In what sense is it still “yours” after you have ceased to be?
I’ve head of this, in Pinker’s The Blank Slate, as a conclusion from split-brain experiments, but nit never seemed very convincing. Can you elaborate on why you believe this?
…And this thread is why I hang out on this board…
While I can generally get behind ideas such as the repeal of all civil rights legislation, forcibly removing children wholesale from their homes and placing them into state run education programs, and the public promotion of eugenics as legitimate science, I have to say that none of these ideas go nearly far enough. I’ve been thinking about it since I went to university in France: if I had my way, the government would be run by a single, ideologically sound political party, devoted to a return to a simple and pure argraian way of life. The nonproductive economic vampires of the business classes would be forcibly marched out of the cities to do honest, hands on work in the farms and fields. If they balk, they must be shot. It sounds harsh, but ultimately I firmly believe that it would be for the best. I haven’t heard of it being tried before, but I really can’t see a downside.
Off the top of my head, echoing what some others have said, I believe:
–Free college. It seems like rates for it go up all the time, and makes it more and more difficult to get a degree (at least in the US)
–People should be required to pass a test in order to have children. They need to prove they can support the child–emotionally, financially, etc. No child deserves to grow up impoverished or to suffer because of issues their parents have.
–Make birth control free for women. Equip men with condoms from an early age.
–If someone absolutely hates high school, or whatever form of education they’re involved in, let them leave it. If they fight their teachers/professors/parents tooth and nail about it, let them leave and deal with the consequences.