STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

• Gay marriage would be legal.
  
  
• Politicians and journalists would have to pass tests about their knowledge of the history, culture, etc. of a place before making policy on it or reporting on it. After learning a fair amount about Islam in South Asian (and I've still barely touched the surface) it is APPALLING how ignorant the people in charge of informing us about it and acting on our behalf are.
  
  
• One or two year service requirement for eighteen year olds. This would certainly not necessarily be military service, but something to give back, preferably internationally. People need to get out of the US; I'm not anti-US, but it gives some perspective to see another way of life.
  
  
• Child abuse intervention programs. I really believe that the crime rate would plummet if we were more aggressively combating child abuse. For the most part, people who are causing problems in society did not come from happy, healthy homes. There's an organization called Childhaven in Seattle that is a preschool specifically for abused and neglected children. They provide a nurturing environment for these kids as well as offer parenting classes. The long term success rates of their children (in terms of getting good grades, staying out of trouble with the law, keeping away from substance abuse, etc) compared to that the average abused child are amazing.
  

People who abuse animals would get done to them whatever they did to the animal.

I'm tired, I'll post more later but that one rule is a big one for me.

Fun game!

If I were queen, I'd....

create arranged friendships.  like everyone would be assigned friends at birth (of course a person would be free to make as many other friends as they wanted to), so that if anyone ever felt lonely, they could call on their designated friend.  and in my kingdom, my citizens' number one civic duty would be to be a good friend.

create a dream come true program.  like anyone who has a dream would have a place to go where there would be people who would draw up a plan to make that person's dream come true, and in return the person with the dream would be bound to try as hard as possible to help make their own dream come true, because no one can do it for you.

support the arts.  anyone with a talent or interest in art, any kind of art, performing, written, visual, whatever, would be able to go somewhere and enjoy that art for free, and be inspired by it. 

create a haven for people who have had unfortunate things happen to them.  anyone who has ever been abused or treated badly would be able to go somewhere for help and support and no judgment. 

have a stellar public education system, and have it be free.  teachers would be the most compensated professionals of all in my kingdom. 

taxes would be high, as these programs wouldn't be cheap.  but the taxes would be proportionate to how much use the programs were to the individual tax payer.  for example, if a person never needed help, never needed a friend, never needed help making their dream come true, never used the public school system, they wouldn't have to pay a dime. 

with regard to crime--i'd bring back banishment as punishment.  if someone was in violation of the law, they'd be banished from the kingdom.  for the most serious violations (i.e. murder, rape), they could never return.  for less serious offenses (i.e.theft), a violator could only return if their petition to return proved they were rehabilitated and demonstrated they had made a positive impact on the world since their banishment.  oh and during banishment, the above programs are not available to violators.  so there, i'm not a total softie

A couple of mine you guys already said:

Gay marriage would be legal.
Rapists would be castrated
People who abuse animals would get done to them whatever they did to the animal

But my real biggie, and I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I feel extremely strongly about it:

Some kind of system is instituted whereby everyone is born infertile by default. There's no hooplah over condoms, birth control, plan B, whatever, because no one can conceive on their own. People who want to conceive children have to pass a series of tests before they can be approved as parents. The same rigorous restrictions that are currently imposed on people who want to adopt children are imposed on everyone before they are permitted to conceive. This way the process weeds out the violent, the abusive, the mentally ill, the financially unstable, the financially irresponsible, etc. Then they have to go to a special bureau to get the infertility reversed until they conceive and give birth to a child, after which they revert to infertility until they go back to the special bureau again. I think unfit parents, unwanted pregnancies and their consequences are one of the world's greatest causes of suffering and evil.