Every time I watch “The Wizard of Oz” I snicker when the lion character dons a ratty looking robe and crown and takes up a scepter and sings, “When I am the King of the Forrrrreeeest!” I don’t know why, I just do. So many of his pronouncements and speculative edicts are silly or impossible, and along those lines, here are my silly and nonsensical speculative edicts for when I am (gendered titling aside) King of the Forrrrreeeest!
1. No more political parties. I am so sick of politicians toeing the party line and the ordinary, generally independent schlubs among us getting shafted for thinking we ought to be governed by good sense rather than ideological agendas. So, no more Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or whatevers. Anyone attempting to form a political party will be sentenced to 30 days in jail with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Federline, and Kato Kaelin, a collection of the most useless and self-absorbed users I can think of, so that, perhaps, wisdom and insight will strike them, and they’ll figure out what they, the political organizers, look like to the rest of us. It’ll probably be an eye-opener for their fellow inmates, too, but I’m not counting on that.
Candidates for office will have to fill out a form which asks questions of a basic nature concentrated on issues pertaining to the office they’d like to hold. They must answer in 250 words or less, and they will be held legally accountable, should they be elected, for holding true to these “promise” forms. If they deviate, engage in pandering to special interests, or merely piss me off, they get to go hang out for a “learning experience” in jail with a crowd of narsty exemplars of my choosing. Right now, I think Karl Rove would get to hang out for the better part of a year with Josef Mengele, Svengali, and Dr. Mesmer, and all of them would be under orders from me to Change His Mind about a number of things. I get to resurrect dead people as KoF, too.
2. No more celebrity news circuses. A little reportage is fine, but all day fests about people who are or were famous for excessive boobage, bad reputations, sorry behavior, criminal antics, being mean to other people, drunk, disorderly, royal, or any other thing that seems to fascinate our shallow infotainment news media, are banned now and forever. One or two line news blurbs, such as “Arrested for drunken driving, Mel Gibson made a number of racist remarks. He will be appearing in court on May 2.” If anyone wants more information, they can go to a website, buy a scandal magazine, or call his publicist. And no more speculating about anything on a news station or news channel. It would have to be a separate program, which clearly states that there will be references to news drowning in large pools of mostly witless and self-serving speculation.
3. School boards have to have balanced budgets or overages will be garnished on evenly distributed percentages from the members’ personal income until the overrun is paid back. I think that would pretty much fix the fact that my tax bill is 180% of what it was last year, and almost entirely due to one of three school districts getting cashola from my property taxes. They just keep selling bonds, manipulating finances, and adding school hours and programs with no regard for the taxpayers whatsoever, raising their share of my taxes without hesitation or conscience. I’m so sick of hearing “it’s for the children” when it’s really greedy or stupid adults with no understanding of the consequences of their actions. I, being a person of sense, think it’s more important for children to have a roof over their heads, food on the dinner table, and health care. If their parents are having to use credit cards, take out second mortgages, delay paying bills, and spend a lot of time arguing and creating a stressful environment for the kids, all because the tax bills are doubling, then that’s not really “for the children”, is it? (grumble, snort)
4. Congress has to do the same thing, and this time we’ll be garnishing the income and seizing the holdings of lobbyists (who will be abolished), Congresscritters, the administration – including past presidents who contributed to the debt (Welcome to workin’ for minimum wage, George! Yes, I would like fries with that!) and their appointees. By my completely speculative calculations, that would bring most of them down to the level of middle-class in terms of living standard, and then they’d have to get real jobs to pay the mortgages on their houses. Property taxes would be reasonable, though, because of #3 above. I am a compassionate KoF.
5. Lifetime achievement awards with annuities guaranteeing a modest standard of living for the rest of their lives to between 10 and 100 Americans per year for amazing innovations that:
a) recycle existing stuff, any kind of stuff, in environmentally friendly,
creative, and durable ways.
b) significantly contribute, in measurable ways, to the common good in
pretty much any area I decide is important, and for
c) whistleblowers in government, industry, whatever, where clandestine wrongs
are being perpetrated against the populace, important information is being
withheld, machinations are happening, etc. These people do not deserve to
be blacklisted and demeaned, they deserve to be rewarded for doing what is
right.
As KoF, I intend to REWARD THE BEHAVIOR I WISH TO ENCOURAGE. There would also be funding available for promising research.
Well, that was fun. I should probably go let the dog in and wipe down the kitchen counters again. Have a great weekend!
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5 comments:
Wahoo! I wanna live in your forest! Pretty please? That was delightful. Thanks for allowing your inner snark to run free for a day. That's what Friday's are for, isn't it? It must be...I was snarky on my post for today too.
Do we have to narrow it down to the top 5? There are soooo many things on my itinerary for when I become The Omniscient and Omnipotent EMPRESS of the UNIVERSE!!! (Sorry, my personal version of KoF) :-)
Amber, I'd love to have you in my forest, where there will be no uninteresting technical writing. Brigitte, I like your vowel-intensive position of OOEU, and you can share the forest, too and make rules for sane and swell people along with Amber and me.
Interesting post, I am not sure I agree with it, but perhaps further discussion can clarify the concerns.
1. Its pretty easy to talk about having "governed by good sense rather than ideological agendas" as its crowd pleasing statement.
But consider, that most of the people who follow an ideology do so in the belief that they are following their "good sense and common sense"
Also I think the lack of political parties would lead to the super-rich dominating national elections even more since they would be the only people with the resources to run without a group of like minded people to help them on a nationwide level.
Second in regards to this: "They must answer in 250 words or less, and they will be held legally accountable, should they be elected, for holding true to these “promise” forms."
What happens if they got elected and had fundamental misreading of the budget, lets say in the case of a school board member, after school programs, and they found out that no in fact that there isn't money to fund the band and votes against doing so, while he had previously promised to vote for it. Would your system throw him in jail for learning and adapting to new information that would cause him to contradict his election promises?
2. Isn't really worth commenting about.
3. Is nice idea, but its pretty hard to implement considering all the various factors that go into financing a school and events that bring and take away money.
4 Seems to be just plain vengeance on a group of people you dislike and don't agree with. Its rather dubious punishing people for who doing legal activities to fulfill some what appears to be an emotional need to see them brought down a level.
5. I think could work, but one have to keep a close eye on it for corruption and such.
Silence, I am glad you found so much in my fey Friday post to stimulate thought. The majority of it addresses my disgust with pandering and the forms in takes in politics, including making morally questionable clandestine and overt alliances for the purpose of attaining power.
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