{"id":8675,"date":"2005-09-09T01:10:46","date_gmt":"2005-09-09T08:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/09\/09\/man-with-a-country.html"},"modified":"2005-09-09T01:10:46","modified_gmt":"2005-09-09T08:10:46","slug":"man_with_a_coun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/09\/man_with_a_coun.html","title":{"rendered":"Man with a Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne<\/a> — a very strong economy, excellent civil rights, and excellent political freedoms.<\/p>\n

The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne is a very large, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its absence of drug laws. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 68 million are either ruled by a small, efficient government or a conglomerate of multinational corporations; it’s difficult to tell which.<\/p>\n

The large government juggles the competing demands of Education, Law & Order, and Social Welfare. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 24%. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Door-to-door Insurance Sales, Cheese Exports, and Information Technology industries.<\/p>\n

Mobile phone masts are being erected all over the country, ‘The Anti-Government Hour’ is a popular programme on many of Applethorne’s radio stations, the Applethorne Mental Asylum Party have recently won seats in parliament, and protests are legal but strictly supervised. Crime is a serious problem. Applethorne’s national animal is the polar bear, which is also the nation’s favorite main course, and its currency is the pound.<\/p>\n

And it’s all mine <\/em>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne — a very strong economy, excellent civil rights, and excellent political freedoms. The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne is a very large, economically powerful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personality-tests","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8567,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/10\/applethorne_upd.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":0},"title":"Applethorne update","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Oct-05 3:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne may not be perfect, but it ranks #2 on political freedoms in its region, and #7000-odd of over 111,000 nations in the NationStates game. Yay....","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8461,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/10\/meanwhile_off_i.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":1},"title":"Meanwhile, off in Applethorne …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Nov-05 11:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"My little island kingdom has been declared a \"world benchmark\" for political freedoms. Yay. UN Category: New York Times Democracy Civil Rights: Excellent Economy: Good Political Freedoms: World Benchmark The...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":99,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/13\/friction_makes.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":2},"title":"Friction makes you warm","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jun-03 1:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Next time you get antsy and irritable at political gridlock or separation of powers or legal technicalities or the various checks and balances that keep your pet program from being...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20891,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/29\/thought-for-today-monarchy.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":3},"title":"Thought for Today: Monarchy","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 29-Apr-11 7:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 7 (1776-88) I mean, if heredity were all that perfect of a system,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/royal-wedding.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/royal-wedding.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/royal-wedding.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8902,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/03\/27\/i_promise_to_do.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":4},"title":"I promise to do it unless I think I don’t have to","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 27-Mar-06 1:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The new PATRIOT Act renewal included a smattering of new oversight and reporting provisions to make sure that the government doesn't overstep its bounds in ensuring our national security. Except,...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/09\/thats_a_remarkable_first.html","url_meta":{"origin":8675,"position":5},"title":"That’s a … remarkable First Amendment argument","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-May-07 3:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Verizon, fighting a law suit for turning over phone records to the government, is making certainly one of the more audacious legal defenses I've heard of late:\u00a0 it's protected speech,...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}