Okay, so, in the community of The New Order: the Last Days of Europe, a Hearts of
Iron 4 mod set in an incredibly dystopian alternate cold war where the Axis won World War 2, the term “REALLY GOOD IDEAS” is used to refer to political ideas that are actually, in fact, very very bad and will fail miserably.
Now, how does this relate to Democracy 4? Well, I think it’d be really cool if there was a Democracy 4 DLC focused around policies that are REALLY GOOD IDEAS™ to implement. While I do understand that typically, the goal of a Democracy 4 game is to fix a country’s problems, I think it would still be very fun to have some policies that are just very obviously bad ideas to implement, but could still be implemented for roleplay purposes if nothing else.
These policies would typically be very extreme, with incredibly limited benefits and stiff drawbacks, in addition to generally being rather expensive. In general, they shouldn’t be something you’d want to implement. That’s the point.
Here are some suggestions:
- Legalize Drunk Driving: Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, legalizing Drunk Driving to various degrees. Results in a very small bonus to motorist and liberal opinion of you combined with a very large penalty to everyone’s opinion of you, health, and car usage
- Regressive Income Tax: Inserted of charging a series of increasing percentages like the traditional progressive income tax or a flat percentage like a flat income tax, a regressive income tax requires everyone to pay a specific amount of money regardless of income. In effect, the more you earn, the less you pay. Beleive it or not, I have seen people actually suggest this, but it’s very obviously horrific so it shouldn’t cost less than 50 political power. Makes a lot less money than Income Tax or Flat Income Tax, boosts the wealthy’s opinion of you, but dramatically decreases poor and middle income opinion of you as well as equality.
- Enact Matriarchy: Legally gives women explicit privileges over men. Dramatic decrease in gender equality and everyone’s opinion of you, incompatible with Gender Discrimination Act and Ban Women from Driving.
- Competing Police Forces: Based on an idea an anarcho-capitalist I once knew had that he very enthusiastically shared with me. Each jurisdiction, instead of having one police force, has two or more police forces who compete over the number of arrests they can make. This… very obviously provides a perverse incentive, and would lead to a dramatic increase in both crime and violent crime.
- Ban Vaccinces: Relatively popular REALLY GOOD IDEA™. Leads to dramatic decrease in health and everyone’s opinion, but very slight increase in Religious and Conservative opinion.