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If you could create a law, what would it be?

Asked at Massachusetts Street on August 4, 2011

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Photo of Stephanie Haskett

“I’d create a law to eliminate all the stupid laws.”

— Stephanie Haskett, journalism major, San Diego

Photo of Heather Jackson

“I would make it to where bodies have to be cremated. I think cemeteries are a waste of land.”

— Heather Jackson, student, Lawrence

Photo of Josh Jackson

“I’d like for Kansas to be made to stop working on roads unnecessarily.”

— Josh Jackson, Walmart employee, Lawrence

Photo of Justin Parr

“I’d change all of them.”

— Justin Parr, audio engineer, Lawrence

Comments

ku_law 6 years, 1 month ago

First. None.

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jonas_opines 6 years, 1 month ago

Well, they could just enjoy how everybody flips out about their post on a daily basis, which I can't claim to understand at all.

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ljwhirled 6 years, 1 month ago

This would be pretty easy to script in perl. Since the story is posted around the same time, you could grab the RSS feed and automate the login/post.

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riverdrifter 6 years, 1 month ago

Nice try, Thuja but this is ku_law's life. It's all he/she/it exists for. Must suck to be ku_law.

My law would legalize marijuana use, with some limitations. And I don't even smoke the stuff. Anymore.

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riverdrifter 6 years, 1 month ago

Tie for first would be that a woman's body is private between her and her doctor. Any politician who messes with this...

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riverdrifter 6 years, 1 month ago

Wait a minute, I'm catching on now: By law: Roundtrip tickets to Gatwick: $200.

The finest single malt: By law: 5$ per half-gallon.

Away we go...

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

Like. Maybe the flood of expensive, frivolous, "issue" legislation pouring out of statehouses would finally stop. (There are some, however, that skirt the line closely enough that I would suspend such penalties. Roe V. Wade would have never happened in such a climate and the Supreme Court is there for a reason.)

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Bill Lee 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd rewrite the income tax laws, making it a very simple graduated flat tax with no exemptions and no deductins. I you make "x," you pay "y." Let's try 5% for each $50K of income. Most of us would pay less, but the government would have more to work with to get things done.

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ljwhirled 6 years, 1 month ago

Make it linear rather than table based. This way there is no incentive to try and tweak your income to get it into the next lower tax bracket.

I'd go a step further and use the Federal Reserve to clear all transactions, then take a small percentage of every transaction. Then set up a simple system that forces all transactions to be electronic. Maybe based on cell phone technology with biometric two part authentication.

Check payment and credit cards are both cleared electronically and already make up a majority of transactions.

Whether it is a stock purchase, pay check, doughnut sale, vehicle purchase, or yacht sale, each transaction would pay a very small tax. The rate would be determined by the class of the purchase (i.e. you'd pay a higher tax on a yacht, medium tax on a vehicle, and no tax on staple foods, natural gas, electricity or rent under a certain threshold)

This would eliminate tax cheats. There would be no way to move money from one person to another without paying taxes on it.

Hell, if we just eliminated tax cheats in the current system it would add $4 to $5 Trillion in new revenue to the treasury. http://tinyurl.com/4x9gpq5

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

Multi, put the pipe down and back away slowly. Love ya!

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

I would actually add the words "wall of separation between church and state" to the First Amendment. Despite the fact that there is a ton (and I do mean a ton) of historical evidence of just exactly what Jefferson meant when he wrote the Establishment clause, it would shut up those idiots forever that continually whine that "those words aren't in the Constitution" and would prevent the attempts made, like Texas, of doing an end run around it by banning the study of Jefferson and his life's work. My son, otoh, would normalize and legalize marijuana. Figures :)

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H_Lecter 6 years, 1 month ago

Bring back witch burning

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

Nah. Wiccans just give me heartburn. Now evangelicals, they're tough to swallow.

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RoeDapple 6 years, 1 month ago

Capital punishment for habitual cut'n'pasters! And Threaders!

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RoeDapple 6 years, 1 month ago

Of course not! Not if I get to make the law!

;-)

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

LOL! I originally read this as "gravy optional". I was about to say, "But that's a crime!"

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boxers_or_briefs 6 years, 1 month ago

When laws are outlawed, only outlaws will have laws.

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tweetysvoice 6 years, 1 month ago

I would make it against the law to build roundabouts in stupid locations.

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Cant_have_it_both_ways 6 years, 1 month ago

To actually be paying federal income tax to be able to vote.

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ljwhirled 6 years, 1 month ago

Yeah, because eliminating the franchise for the poor won't result in a class war.

How about this - the number of votes you get is proportional to your net worth? One vote for every $100,000 in assets.

So bill gates gets 500,000 votes and the 166,000,000 Americans with less than $100K in assets get 0 votes. http://tinyurl.com/439ra8o

Seems fair.

All of this Tea Party talk about founding fathers seems to conveniently forget that the founding fathers worked hard to prevent the establishment of a US aristocracy. Progressive tax policy prevents the rise of an aristocracy. That is a good thing.

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kernal 6 years, 1 month ago

Full disclosure of all campaign contributions by any political candidate in the U.S. and no more pork attached to any Congressional bill - none, nada, zilch.

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HW 6 years, 1 month ago

Term limits for all politicians.

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wmathews 6 years, 1 month ago

In college I did a story on a company that takes cremation remains and turns them into gem stones. Then you wear your dead loved ones as haunted jewelry.

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Randall Barnes 6 years, 1 month ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

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Flap Doodle 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd make it the law that in order to buy a pack of cigaretts, a smoker has to turn in 40 cigarette butts. Every six months the toll goes up by 20. That'd clean up the mess that smokers have been creating the past few decades.

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Pastor_Bedtime 6 years, 1 month ago

1st DUI = 3 years no drive. 2nd DUI = never own a car or drive again.

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verity 6 years, 1 month ago

I always wondered what came after bajillion.

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Fossick 6 years, 1 month ago

All women should have to carry their sidearms at all times.

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

Or have a Viking funeral. Build a raft and set it and you on fire and float it out to the middle of Clinton Lake. Then everybody can set up their lawn chairs, get drunk and throw their lines in the water.

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he_who_knows_all 6 years, 1 month ago

A law to make women wait on me 24/7 and be wearing lingerie.

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KSChick1 6 years, 1 month ago

you can wear lingerie while the women wait on you without a law to force it into happening....just sayin! and btw....why can't you wait on yourself? pig!

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he_who_knows_all 6 years, 1 month ago

"and btw....why can't you wait on yourself? pig!"

Because I have trained the right little lady to wait on me chick.

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

When you get around to making the little nooses for them.

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Terry Sexton 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd abolish the electoral college. Can anybody give any reason why we should keep the thing?

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Sheryl Wiggins 6 years, 1 month ago

In college I did a story on a company that takes cremation remains and turns them into gem stones. Then you wear your dead loved ones as haunted jewelry.

*we've had a Lindsey sighting***

I wonder if the remains are turned into a specific gem stone based on the personality of the deceased. Cuz if that's the case I would have a LOT of onyx jewelry if I were to do this.

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eotw33 6 years, 1 month ago

Make cigarettes illegal!

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Kontum1972 6 years, 1 month ago

Electing stupid sh*ts to run the city.....

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

And '80's hair still worn by women over 40.

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somedude20 6 years, 1 month ago

everyone here knows that we are all going to die at some point in time, correct? That can be a rather depressing thought so due to this fact, I say that every Friday (or Saturday) becomes the "international day of vices" day when any vice that you may have becomes free and legal and you can do it. drugs, hookers, riverboat gambling, whatever you would like

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Paul R Getto 6 years, 1 month ago

Require that all dead people be converted into ammunition: For example--- "If you’d like to go out with a bang, Holy Smoke LLC offers to pack your cremated ashes (or those of your loved ones) into ammunition cartridges. You tell them the caliber or gauge, ship the remains to them, and they’ll load the cartridges."

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bevy 6 years, 1 month ago

ROFL! You could have the ashes of people you don't like turned into skeet, then go out to the farm and blow 'em out of the sky! LIKE.

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Cait McKnelly 6 years, 1 month ago

I actually had a friend who sort of did this. He was a professional performer at Renaissance Festivals and Faires and went all over the country with his wife touring these places and doing gigs. He died fairly young (late forties) from cancer. At his direction, his wife cremated his remains and sent small amounts of ashes in film canisters to something like 50 different Ren Faires. Each one of them, on their opening day, shot his ashes out of their cannons. The remainder of his ashes were shot up into space ( a la Carl Sagan) by some private space rocket company that's doing that sort of thing.

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LadyJ 6 years, 1 month ago

I know someone who has had his dog for many, many years. He plans to have the dog cremated and then have the ashes made into tattoo ink. Then he is going to get his first tattoo with the ink.

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mom_of_three 6 years, 1 month ago

new law - you have to pass an American history test to become a politician.

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KUnlv13 6 years, 1 month ago

Minimum IQ requirements for procreation, please.

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bevy 6 years, 1 month ago

I would pass a law against those ugly throwback bug-eye sunglasses the girls are all wearing these days. They were ugly in the 70s, they're no better now. How long before the Buford T. Justice Sheriff-style reflecting sunglasses come back for guys? What then? Feathered hair, bell bottoms? When will the madness end! On the bright side, my avocado green bath tub is back in style now...

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bevy 6 years, 1 month ago

One more - term limits for every elected office in the nation. Period. If your approval rating falls below 75%, you are on probation and get half pay until it goes back up. In other words, hold our reps accountable for their actions and have options in place to smack them upside the head when they get out of line.

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giveitsomethought 6 years, 1 month ago

As barbaric as it may sound, I would allow every person the ability to kill one person for free in their lifetime. No one would know if you had used your freebie yet. Maybe if the threat was there, everyone would be a little nicer to each other. Just a thought :-J let the comments fly :-J

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Terry Sexton 6 years, 1 month ago

Well, if you get that passed, let's get a lethal rumble goin' between Free State & LHS. That way we'll only need one high school. You'd use your freebie for the old school spirit, wouldn't ya, giveit? what in the...? the whole idea sounds like a bad twilight zone episode

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goodcountrypeople 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd outlaw hideous lies and corrupt, incompetent local-grown garbage people such as currently inhabit the Kansas University-Lawrence HR office.

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Flap Doodle 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd make a law that anyone posting the same set of links more than 20 times gets disappeareded with extreme prejudice.

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Terry Sexton 6 years, 1 month ago

Just read on another award winning site that the stoners in Ohio needed only 1000 signatures to get legal pot on the ballot. They managed 534 that were valid. Buncha disorganized slackers. They must have some good sh!t in Ohio.

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del888 6 years, 1 month ago

Any U.S. company who's products are produced in a foreign couuntry are not given any tax breaks. If you want tax deductions your products must be 'made in the USA'.

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cato_the_elder 6 years, 1 month ago

Term limits at the national level.

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whats_going_on 6 years, 1 month ago

I'd force people to have licenses before they procreate.

kidding, but ugh, sometimes I feel like we need it.

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whats_going_on 6 years, 1 month ago

in all honesty though, no more lobbying, no more campaign money from businesses, no more PACS and a limit on how much one person or a corp (SAME amount) can donate to politicians.

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speedy47 6 years, 1 month ago

Make it illegal for politicians to to lie to their constituents. For instance, "I will not cut funds for education," Brownback would serve a mandatory year at Leavenworth.

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