Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc removed religion because they realised what control it had. Then they replaced it with their own personality cults. Just replacing one religion with another.

And play diplomacy15/7 (sleep and eating time allowed) :-)

*I* accept you, Diplomat33...lol...

*sigh* missing the point.

I accept you too! :-) :-P

No, right on the point. Acceptance means accepting EVERYONE. Even me.

My one thing to fix the world would be to eliminate the A-Bomb freeing us from atomic threats.

Eliminate the A-bomb... And how do you propose we do that? You could have the superpowers truly do away with theirs, bu tthe material form them would still be around and you would always have insane dictators wanting to get their hands on the stuff and build their own.

If education equals success and freedom please explain to me the college degree holders in all the occupy encampments. They are so in debt for their "education" their lives are crippled before they begin. Their "education" didn't teach them how to make a living either.

Education isn't freedom. Education isn't even intelligence. In this day and age a lot of education in colleges is indoctrination.

Common sense is in short supply in the Ivory Tower.

Problem is that US tuition fees are out of proportion compared to the degree you receive and knowledge you gain. Also the difference between public and private schools is far too great. Education should be sponsored by government up to a certain level (yes, paid for by additional taxing) and barriers of entry should be removed from primary school level. Now you're just trapped in a vicious circle it seems.. costs have spun out of control and become affordable only for few- but in order to get a decent job people really don't seem to have much of a choice other than putting themselves in massive debt.

Establishment of a people's democratic dictatorship in the United States.

solutions guys!
i liked orathaic idea of volontering 4 hours a week,maybe not teaching but there are many things to do
feeding homless or anything you are good at it

lawyers can give free advices

Perhaps we can all start working for free :/. No, but seriously, volunteering is fine but only if people possess the necessary skills. If you make it obligatory it's no longer voluntary and it would probably just end up being counterproductive. In law you already have the pro-bono concept and in a lot of European countries the government pays for legal aid if people can't afford it. It would be good if the pro-bono concept would become more widely-spread in other industries, too.

Slaves worked for free.

Where do these idiotic ideas come from? Inexperienced children who know nothing of the real world outside of books they hold in reverence like a bible. What a rough life they face in the school of hard knocks until they develop experience and common sense.

In some countries you have mandatory military service, though i believe in germany you can do service in a fire department instead of the army... (ok, wikipedia tells me that germany abolished this last year)

However i like the idea of service, whether it is 4 hours per weeks, or ~5 weeks per year or 1 year per decade (some service would be better done all together than split over time...) in any case it amounts to about 10% of your (working) time.

@Mr_rb - Education *is* funded up to a certain level. Everyone is funded through high school. College is not for everyone and, therefore, should not be fully funded. State schools (like the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University where I live) have in state tuition rates and out of state reates. In state is greatly reduced as it is suplemented by taxpayer dollars. Out of state students don't contribute tax dollars to the school, therefore must pay the full tuition. It is a fair system, just freaking expensive. But until there is a national education tax that can be applied to colleges, that is the way it will be.

Remember, the US is not just a country like many countries in Europe. We are a collection of states, mini-countries as it were, much like the old Soviet Union. As such, each state has rights and those included the right to determine where state tax dollars go. The only nation I can think of even remotely close is the UK and I'm not even sure about their regional divisions and how that governing happens (sorry, I'm blissfully unaware of the governmental landscape of the UK).

UK is a unitary state despite devolution. Germany & Australia are more similar to the United States than the UK.

But Germany and Austria require a passport to travel between them. They *are* independent countries as far as that is concerned, are they not?

no, germany is a federal republic...

also Australia is not Austria. Australia has some territories, but i don't know much about them. (and besides Germany and Austria happen to be in the Schengen zone, so you don't need a passport to travel between them...)

but yes, in the sense the austria and germany are separate countries they are separate. Except in the sense that they are both members of the EU, just like Washington and California are both members of the Union of States of America...

@ Draugnar, I understand the reasoning behind the US state system when it comes to education and related taxation. It doesn't really seem to encourage students to broaden their horizon and look outside of their own state though. In my opinion a shame as people benefit from the experience of stepping outside of their comfort zone. I knew that within the US different states have some sense of autonomy when it comes to lawmaking and whatnot, but I didn't know it had such an effect on education too. Is there any pending legislation or intent to introduce such a national tax or harmonize the state laws?

Here in the EU every country has its own system of funding but many countries have treaties to promote students to go and study abroad. Within the Schengen zone students who go abroad pay the fee of the country they go to study. E.g. German students coming to the Netherlands would be sponsored by the Dutch government and only pay €1,600 a year, and students going to Nordic countries would pay no fees at all. Also not a perfect system as costs in some countries are quite high, but it does make higher education affordable for practically everyone.

It is a sad commentary on a government that has to make service "mandatory." If citizens believed in the direction of their country there would be no need for "mandatory."
You only need mandatory service when government is taking the country in a direction the people don't want to go.

@orathaic - When did they remove the requirement for a passport (or some travel papers) going between Germany and Austria? When I flew in and out of Switzerland back in '05, I could have sworn I had to show my passport at both the Austrian/Swiss border and the Austrian/German border on the train ride from Zurich to Lindau and back as well. But my memory could be wrong and I only had to show it from Switzerland to Austria and back.

Oh, and I didn't notice he had said Australia. But is it much different from the structure of Canada?

Germany has sixteen Laender that are similar to the US states in that they each have considerable autonomy over their own affairs. Indeed, one could say they might have more autonomy than the US states, in that it has not been unusual for German states to have direct control over industry and the media. The Bundesrat, upper house of parliament, also provides a kind of guarantee of German federalism in that each state sends representatives to this body rather than direct elections. Which is how the US Senate used to be prior to the 17th amendment. The Australian states have wide-ranging autonomy over their own affairs that is directly modeled on the US system, minus the whole republic thing.

A clear example of why the UK is not a federal system is the fact that Wales has very limited devolved powers compared to Scotland. Scotland was given full control over its police, to my knowledge, also the ability to write original legislation and control over the basic rate of taxation. Not Wales.

@Draug, Schengen agreement, em, 1985? though switzerland and austria didn't sign that original treaty, and it's not a treaty now, it's a part of EU law (meaning non-EU members don't have any say in changes made to the agreement, they just have the choice to accept and changes made or leave the schengen area)

I know Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are part of the Schengen zone while not being EU members (while the UK and Ireland have their own common travel area while remaining outside of Schengen)

I don't know why you'd be asked to provide passports on any of the borders you mentioned, apart flying in and out of Switzerland...

@Putin, don't forget that England has no devolved government, and Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs still get to have a say on all matters of English law. Whereas Northern Ireland and Scotland have large measures of independence.

Of course the independence does not include matters of currency, union wide taxation levels, and foreign affairs.