When I'm Queen...

People who are guilty of DWI/DUI will be shot. I'm getting damned sick and tired of the news stories where someone drives drunk and kills someone else. There is NO reason to drive drunk. NONE. If you enter a bar with the intention of having even ONE drink, you make it a solid, non-negotiable point to have a designated driver or some other way to get home. Why is this such a dificult concept?? Why do innocent people have to die because some idiot gets toasted and figures it's okay to drive in that condition? Just within the last few days here in Minnesota, a guy with four DWI convictions - FOUR!!! - was charged with murder because he finally managed to kill someone the fourth time. It's about damned time the murder charge came down on someone, who, let's face it, DID commit murder by piloting a two-ton wrecking ball down the road at 60 (or more) miles per hour while intoxicated. That's murder, if you ask me. I'm also getting sick and tired of the people who try to sue a bartender or drinking establishment because their precious just-turned-21 son or daughter drank him/herself to death, or left the bar so wasted that s/he fell into a lake and drowned. You know what? I'm sorry for their loss of a child BUT where's the personal responsibility here? Because gosh, *I* survived turning 21 just fine - didn't drink myself to an alcohol-poisoned death while celebrating that momentous occasion. Turning 21 is a rite of passage - but so is dying. I was careful to make choices that would allow me to stick with the former.

People who abuse animals will be subjected to the same torture they used on the animal. You dragged a kitten by a shoelace tied around its neck, broke its leg, and burned it with a cigarette? You just signed yourself up for being fitted with a noose and having a few intense meetings with a sledgehammer and a blowtorch. You put a puppy in the microwave? Sayonara, Mr. JiffyPop. You shot an arrow into a horse used in therapy with developmentally disabled individuals? Robin Hood and his longbow will be paying you a visit. Animals, especially young ones, are helpless and vulnerable, and if you are enough of a heinous monster to do evil to them, you will be terminated in the same evil - but fitting - manner.

Politicians who start unjust wars will be tried for war crimes. Hello, Bush and Cronies? To quote Denis Leary from the old MTV spots: I think you hear me knocking, and I think I'm coming in. Better still....

Wars will be abolished. If you can't sit down like mature adults and discuss your issues, get the hell off my planet.

Marijuana will be legalized. Why not? It's probably no worse for you than alcohol and if it's legal, you can regulate and tax it. Same standards of not driving while high would apply, of course. I find it highly hypocritical that we'll shove alcohol down people's throats (figuratively speaking - watch a sporting event and count how many ads there are for beer), but marijuana, which has medical applications, is a no-no. Betcha if Big Tobacco started growing the stuff, it would become legal damned quick.

Gay marriage will be legal across the nation. The idea of "marriage" should not be based on some archaic nonsense from a book [that would be the Bible] to which not everyone subscribes. George Takei (Sulu from "Star Trek") has been with his partner for 21 years - TWO DECADES - but he's not allowed to unite with this person and to receive the same benefits that married couples receive? But we'll allow people like Britney Spears to crazily flap in and out of marriage like a demented seagull with an inner ear infection and a broken wing? What's wrong with this picture?

Elderly people will be given much more assistance than they now receive. They would not die in their homes because they couldn't afford to turn on the heat or the air conditioning. They would have access to affordable medication and health care. Nursing homes and assisted-living facilities would carry out extremely rigorous background checks on employees to weed out the abusers.

Prospective parents will be required to pass a psych test and/or obtain a license before having a child. It won't catch all of the abusers, nutjobs, or otherwise unfit parents but maybe it'll catch a few. You need a license to drive, to hunt or to fish, to get married - but none to have a child, whom you could screw up to the point that he becomes another Ted Bundy/Charles Manson/Hitler. You need a license before you can go out and shoot a deer. But hey, you're free and clear if you want to have a kid to abuse or molest or allow to die because you stuck him in a bathtub and then went downstairs to shop online for shoes because you're too fucking stupid to be trusted with the care of a rock, much less a child.

Automobiles will be constructed so that speeding were impossible. With the exception of emergency responders, there's no reason that people need to drive faster than the speed limit. With gas prices going sky-high, one would think that drivers would drive so that they would conserve fuel, wouldn't one? Every day when I'm on the road, doing the speed limit (which during some of my drive is 65 mph), people blow by me like I'm standing still - and these are usually people in gas-guzzling SUV's which, if you go fast enough, probably get NEGATIVE miles to the gallon. These are the same people who will whine about gas prices while outrunning the speed limit, roaring up to red lights with slamming brakes, and then jack-rabbiting off the line once the light turns green. I want to get some of that car window paint and write SLOW THE FUCK DOWN on my back window...but I work at a church and I'm not sure that would go over well with the flock.

Recycling will be mandatory. It's sad to think that you almost have to FORCE humankind to stop fouling its own nest. We may have a bigger and more highly developed brain than our furry brethren, but we're morons. Where the hell do we expect to GO once we've destroyed this planet? I almost wish I'd be around to see the day when Earth simply says, "Okay, everyone out of the pool" and people extinct themselves. I believe Germany already implements a waste management process whereby you pay per pound of trash - throw a lot away, feel it in the pocketbook. Recycle most of your waste, put more cash back in your pocket.

I'm sure I have other edicts that I would enact, but I can't think of them at the moment. I realize that some of these ideas are quite radical but you know, desperate times call for radical measures, I think. People don't seem to get the hint when they only receive a slap on the wrist and will only fall in line after receiving a wallop to the back of the head.

I'm not naive enough to think these are perfect solutions. I know they have inherent snags because for every good intention, there could be an equally bad result. But I'm also not naive enough to think I'll ever be elected to the post of Queen of the World, so I don't think we have to worry about any of this coming to pass.