hypothetical--- you have absolute power for 24 hours

[tabbycat31]

however you are only limited to making ten decisions that would be permanent. What would they be.

My list
1) Single-payer healthcare for all. And the government will now negotiate with Big Pharma for lower prices (drugs will be cheaper due to the new TV advertising ban)
2) Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanastan starting 7/1 and done by 12/31. In order to assist the rebuilding of the country, start with the infrastructure the bombs destroyed, and build schools for girls.
3) Campaign finance reform. A corporation may not give any single candidate more than $25 per term. An individual's limit is $100 per term. In order to keep their licenses, media must offer free advertising time to political candidates.
4) Abolish NAFTA and bring back tariff-based trade. That way we can start making goods here instead of buying cheap Chinese made goods
5) Raise the minimum wage to $15.00/hour and index it to inflation
6) Close Gitmo and try them all in our court system. If they are exonerated send them back to their country of origin. If convicted place them in the Montana prison that wants them.
7) End the H1-B Visa program with very limited exceptions. In addition, make corporations who outsource jobs pay taxes on the American salary equivalent (for example if a 40K job is outsourced, the company must pay taxes on the 40K).
8) End the use of military contractors (Blackwater, Halliburton, etc) and do a complete audit on their books.
9) Subsizide the cost of solar panels and wind turbines to any homeowner who wishes to install them (and HOAs must allow them), and the subsidized panels will be made at old auto plants in the rust belt. Make alternative energy (solar, wind, etc) cheaper than traditional energy (coal, oil).
10) Make college affordable for anyone who wants to go.

[RandomThoughts]

1. The first decision would be not to let someone else define what decisions I can make.

The second would be to realize the lack of humility of such a hypothesis, and the decision to not accept that either.

:)

[Warpy]

2. Well, I'd add a few

Raise the minimum wage. Determine the cost of the 1969 market basket today and base the rise on that.

Enforce anti monopoly laws already on the books.

Fine any employer caught exploiting illegal immigrants per illegal according to the laws already on the books.

My quibble with your list is #2. I wouldn't build schools for girls. I'd do whatever they asked me to, even if they ask me to leave, period. Giving people what you think they need instead of what they tell you they need just never works, even when your motives are pure.

[Posteritatis]

3. I'd change Planck's constant to pi. (nt)

[queenofcups]

4. My first one would be to end BOTH WARS today. That alone

will free up billions of dollars to go to all the states. Next, I would raise the minimum wage to about $12/hr. Then I would do something about HUD properties: all homeless people would get assigned to foreclosed houses.

[vadawg]

5. my list

build some nuclear power plants real fast, some solar mayby half of arizona or so, wind turbines all along the east coast

single term limits for congress and the senate, make it by lots rather by popular vote kinda like jury duty (now wishing)

Glasgow rangers to go out of business and the hellhole that is Ibrox to be turned into an asda carpark, and their strips barred from the planet earth

everyone must pay me and my line homage by donating a penny every year from every person for all time

on DU everyone must respond to me as your majesty

ill keep my other ones secret as they involve certain famous actresses and my wife dosent need to know

[anonymous171]

6. My 10 are very similiar to yours:

1) Single payer
2) End Corporate Personhood
3)End NAFTA
4) Raise minimum wage
5) Close Gitmo
6) Higher corporate taxes and increase funding for enforcement of those taxes
7) Lower taxes for the common man
8) Completely withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan (also means no rebuilding.)
9) End H1-B visa program completely.
10) End the Drug War

[Joanne98]

7. I would round up all the conservatives and put them in FEMA death camps.

Then the whole list would get done.

[anonymous171]

8. Aren't we going to do that already?

;)

[vadawg]

9. fucking hell, over my dead body, the same as if it was all the liberals being rounded up

or blacks or jews, etc i cant believe you dont get how offensive it is to even suggest something like this.

[anigbrowl]

12. Scratch a paranoid, find an authoritarian.

[timeforpeace]

13. Oh my. Angry much? Hate is not the answer.

Calling for the death of those we disagree with is not our way.

[MineralMan]

10. Just one thing I'd do:

1. Resign immediately. I have no desire for such power.

[cali]

11. Corporations are already barred from giving campaign contributions

Do you mean that anyone who works for a corporation will be barred from giving more than 25 bucks per term? So media should offer free time to anyone who says they're a candidate? Really?

As for me, I'd do the following:

1) cures for all diseases

2) solve world hunger

3) solve the I/P situation by creating a viable Palestinian state

4) wave my magic wand and banish all religious fundamentalism

5) worldwide equality for GLBT folks

5) worldwide equality for women

6) end child abuse

7) create decent work conditions worldwide

8) create a living wage for all workers

9) end all wars

10) end all murder and rape


I mean as long as we're doing fantasy stuff, why not go whole hog?

[JNelson6563]

14. I'd figure out how to fit in

the recognition/legalization of gay marriage in the form of some sweeping equal rights decree and I'd legalize pot, get many of those who are in prison on charges related to pot out of there.

I think the lists on this thread so far are excellent, just didn't see those two items and think they should be in there somewhere.

Julie

[Optical.Catalyst]

15. List

1. Put Bush 43 in jail for life

2. Put Dick Cheney in jail for life

3. Put Condoleezza Rice in jail for life

4. Put Donald Rumsfeld in jail for life

5. Remove John Roberts from the Supreme Court

6. Remove Samuel Alito from the Supreme Court

7. Start an 'Apollo Program' for clean, renewable energy

8. End the Strategic Missile Program

9. End the F-22 Stealth Fighter Program

10. Change the tax code to recoup from the rich the tax breaks they have enjoyed under the Bush Administration

[Cleita]

16. I would change number ten to

make college free for all those students who want to go and who make the grades to continue after their first year. It's done in Europe you know all the way through PhDs.

[Uncle Joe]

17. My list

Domestic top ten.

1. Do a Marshall Plan here at home converting our energy to sustainable, renewable sources, including a smart energy grid allowing the people to sell their surplus electricity and green the cities. This would include a works program for which the homeless can participate. I also believe our industrial base can be redirected toward the manufacturing of those needed beneficial products.

2. Single-payer universal public health coverage for every American.

3. End the war on drugs, legalize Marijuana, and turn the issue toward an educational, medical and or personal privacy issue, instead of an insane, criminal one; exploding our prisons with non-violent drug offenders.

4. Outlaw for profit prisons and for profit mercenaries, the former only serves to destroy the American Peoples' freedom while the latter is a loose cannon, leach on the publics' defense appropriations. They're both dysfunctional institutions working against the American People's best interests. This is in conjunction with ending the unjust, and unConstitutional concept of corporate person-hood.

5. Public financing of and election reform; all voting procedures throughout the nation should have a paper trial, be verifiable and universal in their means of action. If we need a Constitutional Amendment, so be it.

6. Eliminate the so called Patriot Act, and outlaw wiretapping without judicial approval.

7. Education reform with a greater focus on critical thinking and debate in order to a reach an intelligent consensus, this also includes affordable college, community or trade school.

8. Tax reform, a national sales tax on high end luxury items, increase tax rate on the mega-wealthy, eliminate or greatly reduce payroll tax on anyone making less than 100,000.

9. Create a livable wage scale; this may have an age requirement 18 or 21 to kick in.

10. Full marital rights for the Lesbian, Gay and Homosexual community, individual religions can't be required to marry them, but the government must respect those that can be married by churches, justices of the peace or any other respected institution with the authority to do so. I believe to do otherwise violates the First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

Foreign top ten.

1. Respect the Geneva Convention Treaty, and send appropriate high level enablers of torture and war crimes from the previous administration to the Hague, I don't believe they ever can or will receive a fair trial in the U.S.

2. Pull out of Iraq and allow the Iraqi people to govern them selves.

3. Form a world wide coop in helping developing nations evolve to sustainable forms of energy, working to wean the planet away from fossil fuels.

4. Create a global institution or college for all the Earth's most mentally gifted individuals specializing in green technologies, and the environmental sciences. They could call it, The University of Earth.

5. Resolve the territorial dispute of Punjab between India and Pakistan, press the Pakistanis for education/civil reform, their people shouldn't have to turn toward the Madrassas for food.

6. Establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba, if we can have full diplomatic relations with Communist China, I see no reason as to why Cuba should be excluded, besides Cuba has some really nice older American automobiles still begging to be upgraded to more efficient modern models, this might be a boon to our car industry and our antique car collectors.

7. Send mighty leader in North Korea some Elvis C.D.s and tell him to chill out, if that doesn't work and he threatens to fire a missile at Hawaii, threaten to fire one toward North Korea. Explain to him how he can join the world and cement his legacy as a promoter of peace and bringer of democracy to North Korea, win a Nobel Peace Price, and have a possible career in music, or stay isolated allowing global warming climate change eventually leading to ultimate starvation of the North Korean People whereupon they will turn him or his descendants in to Soylent Green. The choice is his.

8. Israel and Palestine should come to a two state solution, I believe this is the only fair, just, wise long term solution to the dilemma of Israeli security needs and of legitimate Palestinians' claims to their own home land.

9. Push the U.N. toward promoting and establishing a stable, sustainable, democratic government for Somalia.

10. Combine with Canada and Mexico to become one nation, we might as well.

Cosmic top two.

1. Establish a permanent base on the moon as the best logical step for expanding in to space.

2. Place a permanent satellite half way between the sun and the Earth with a high resolution camera continuously focused on the Earth, giving the people of the planet an ongoing full length mirror view of the Earth. This may alter humanity's perspective toward the fragile blue marble, we call home.

Thanks for the thread, tabbycat.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Correction to # 5 on foreign list.

I meant Kashmir, not Punjab, I thought about this as I was drifting off to sleep last night.

[Doremus]

18. This is fun.

1. For every lobbyist who gains access, 10 average constituents must have equal time.

2. 100% public financing of elections, no exceptions.

3. Immediate investigation/indictments/trials for members of Bush cabal.

4. Corruption in office: treble sentences and fines

5. Free secondary education

6. Universal healthcare

7. Reinstate Fairness Doctrine and repeal media deregulation

8. End corporate personhood.

9. End energy dependence ASAP

10. Bring manufacturing back home and pass EFCA.