In the spirit of increased entropy (which interestingly enough I believe schroedinger claimed was a measure of the value of life in his little book [whatislife.com] which envisioned DNA as a crystal (and wouldn't that make a bunch of skanky hippies happy) before DNA was known and is a good read for anyone, except skanky hippies) and value added chaos (which jon requested) coupled with the pints of lunchtime stella [stella-artois.be] I propose a series of solutions for the worlds problems. Primarily to show that the bastards of the world are actually not interested in their agenda, instead they want to just be right royal pains in the arse for the rest of us (I assume it is chromosonal).

My first proposal:

Dealing with abortion and the outlawing thereof.

Make a law that says all females must register as either pro or anti abortion. This vote carries through to put the sexual partner of this female to the same side.

Anyone that is anti abortion may not have an abortion. It is illegal. They go to prison for it and their name is moved into the list of "ineligible to join either side" people.

Anyone that is pro may do as they damn well please.

A male has no vote to cast specifically. Instead they give their vote to the female they choose. They may choose to sleep with females that are pro or anti in order to affect how their vote is cast. The female partner must have the males signature to be able to cast his vote. Any duplicate signatures remove the previous signature casting (I suppose the choice whether to notify the previous female with power of casting or not is contentious).

If one side holds a serious majority for a significant period of time (these definitions are open to a public mandate) that side becomes the law of the state / land.

Alternatively keep this system in effect for all time.

I think that this system would apply to many issues which tend to split the populace and would lead to something even closer to a democracy than most of us currently live in now. Of course both sides would expect to win (I know which side I think would win) and so one side would be sorely dissappointed to discover that they don't live in the state / country / world that they think they live in. And that can only be for the better.

First, I'm not sure that abortion is such a contentious issue that we need to have a radical nationwide policy about it. Sure, it's controversial, but no more than gay marriage or the death penalty or even school vouchers. Why can't individual regions have their own views based on the majority moral decisions of their local populations, and have the national government stay the heck out of it?

"If one side holds a serious majority for a significant period of time (these definitions are open to a public mandate) that side becomes the law of the state / land."

I was with you up to there. The concept of making laws which exist only because the majority/vast majority/arbitrary amount over 50%/ of people feel a certain way is known as tyranny of the majority, and it's counter to the intentions of the framers of the constitution. That's not just wild interpretation - in this case, there's pretty good documentation for it. The Bill of Rights was a response to these sorts of ideas, and, in fact, the Bill of Rights are intended to protect the individual from the masses.

And since most everybody agrees, that's the way it's going to be, by law.

In Response to BoxJam (#3951):

Tyranny of the majority is only discouraged by the American Constitution when it interferes with something the Founding Fathers thought were god-given natural rights, like free speech or freedom of unreasonable search. If a locality wants to ban the transport and sale of alcoholic beverages within its borders, or mandate that every citizen of the town keep five rubber bouncy balls in his home in case of emergency, and 51% of the town council/aldermen/whatever vote on it, it happens.

The Founders weren't against normative social behavior, or having laws that represented the will of society; they just wanted a government that was stable against the fad of the day, or a bunch of angry farmers trying to shut down the courthouses. They didn't stop the Blue Laws from keeping businesses closed on Sundays, nor did they end slavery (although some of them really wanted to). They let various large groups of people decide their own fate through the unfairness that is democracy.

In Response to Akhmed (#3952):

Keep in mind that the guy who started this discussion is from Australia, and isn't subject to the American Constitution. Law becomes much more interesting when constitutional guarantees are no longer absolute or implied.

Not that they apply in the US anymore, anyway.

In Response to jon (#3954):

>>Not that they apply in the US anymore, anyway.

My solution to that is that I've started spelling my town "Chikago." That's going to eventually bring down "The Man."

Which I'm going to start spelling "The Myn."

In Response to BoxJam (#3965):

Sorry, "myn" is already taken with a "wo" prefix.

How about this as an alternative:

Take away all people's gonads at puberty.

When a couple (gay or straight) is ready to commit to raising a child together they take a series of tests.

If the couple is able to show beyond a reasonable doubt they are committed to raising the child together they may borrow their gonads (and an agreed upon third party's gonads in the case of a gay couple) to make the fetus.

All gonads must be returned to the storage facility after the fetus is carried to term and safely birthed.

The process starts over again if the couple is ready for another child.

In Response to Oedipa_Maas (#3970):

I like Huxley's Brave New World system. It means more sex and drugs for me.

In Response to Oedipa_Maas (#3969):

wouldn't that be a corrollary?

In Response to tor (#3976):

Which one, womyn or myn? Myn always follow womyn. :)

And what is the plural form of womyn or myn?

In Response to Oedipa_Maas (#3977):

aggh bad brain trying to make jokes about the word root... bad brain

In Response to tor (#3980):

Yes, but you mean something entirely else by root than we do. We say pohtatoh, you say... well...