Some Modest Plans

I have decided that I am going to start, at some random point in time, a colony. A place where I will be master, the people will be happy, women will be safe, and children won't be cute little vicious vipers. . . they'll just be cute. How will this happen? Well, there will be a few rules/laws that will be in place that will ensure that my kingdom will be a utopia.

Rule Number 1: All citizens of Devenportopia will be required to become ninjas or samurai. Actually the fighting class really doesn't matter, they could be summoners or black mages for all I care, as long as they have some sort of serviceable self-defense ability. The reasons for this stem from a crime TV show that I was watching the other day. People in our modern society are too vulnerable to those who prey on weakness, especially women. The solution? No more weakness. The people of my kingdom will be lions, especially the women, who will beautiful, graceful, and deadly--like the above Israeli military woman with a rifle. Children in my schools will have ninja lessons every day instead of recess. The result will be a society where everybody can kill each other, which would effectively reduce the opportunity cost of crime; it just wouldn't be worth it. And the best part? If somebody did get kind of crazy the result would be a spectacular ninja battle with people crashing through windows, running up walls, high kicks to the head; it would be spectacular.

Rule Number 2: All buildings will be built with the same architectural themes: sweeping arches, fluted columns, graceful spires, all built from stone. Nobody builds with stone anymore. Why? Look at all the ancient civilizations: Egypt, Rome, China, the Mayans, they all built with stone and guess what? Their stuff is still around to look at. Stone lasts; it's almost permanent. Therefore my cities will be built from stone, preferably black stone because that would be cool, dramatic and ninja-esque. This would be a city that says, "we're sophisticated and dangerous."

Rule Number 3: No obnoxious status icons. You won't catch anybody in my kingdom sporting a Hummer just for the sake of having a Hummer. If they need something that big and obnoxious for a legitimate reason then that's fine, but otherwise if you want a status symbol it will have to be sleek and sophisticated, like an Aston Martin, black of course.

Rule Number 4: Every man, woman, and older child would be self-reliant. That means they clean up after themselves, do their jobs, etc . . . . If they break something, they fix it. They dirty something, they clean it. They offend somebody, they apologize--which would be advisable since the offended person could kill them. Basically they take responsibility for their actions. What a novel idea!

Rule Number 5: They wouldn't have to obey me. I'd probably try to make them anyway, but because they would all be ninjas and sorcerers they could ignore me if they want too. Of course once issues of national Utopian security--do utopias have to worry about that?--arise, then I rise in status to super-chief-of-battle ninja and everything I say is law.

Amendment A: People would leave me alone because they would govern themselves. All I want is to take care of the magnificent garden in my back yard and watch my kids play in the forest, I don't want to babysit a bunch of whiny citizens. My concerns are with threats from the outside, I can't help it if my people destroy themselves.

Anyway, those are some of the things that I thought of for my new colony. It would be a good place to live. Want to join?