what type of dictator would you be? What laws would you envoke? What country would you rule, etc.?
214115
I would be like good King Josiah. I would restore the law, treat the people with righteousness. I would abolish idol worship. I would be altruistic and full of kindness and mercy. Sounds awesome doesnt it! (heh, i said awesome!)
536293
How would you feel if some foregion nation came in and invaded and installed their puppet?
236934
I would abolish my kingdom.
120297
It depends on if it was a monarchy or a republic
391570
It would be the straw that broke the camels back, if they banned fishing! That would be the end of cicilization as we know it, i would form a posse of rebel anglers and cast my method feeders, loaded with rock hard groundbait, through the windows of no10. Id form my own govt, and overthrow the pen pushing pillocks that make up our over controlling cabinet, and just for good measure, i would raise the house of lords to the ground, forcing the un-elected plonkers out of their cushy ego manic lifestyles.\n\nBring on the revolution!!!!\n\nWhat did you have in mind then?????
123582
Oil, delusions of grandure, and an experiment to see where are the limits of authoritarian power can be projected at home and abroad. \nYou can supress civil liberties easily if there was a war on.\nWe have people, unqualified, of limited vision, poisened by greed in charge of things.  I guess these people wanted to see them selves glorified in equestrian statues.
117166
in classical usage, a dictator referred to a constitutional extraordinary chief magistrate without a colleague in Ancient Rome, who temporarily received absolute power during times of emergency. Their power was neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, however, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification. There were no such Roman dictators after the hated Sulla (81BC), and later de facto dictators were otherwise styled (such as Triumvir and the Princeps or Roman Emperor), and exercised power more personally and arbitrarily.\n\nDictatorships in the modern sense tend to exert their power without any regard to the moral or ethical consequences of their actions. They hardly ever come to power by democratic means, often being installed by a coup d'état or revolution. Often they will assert that they are using their powers, like ancient Roman dictators, to deal with the enormity of some emergency, real or imagined. However, dictators and their governments rarely lay down their power once any such crisis has abated. In the lack thereof, they sometimes invent their own, such as in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.\n\nSuch regimes survive out of the fear the people have for the government. Dictatorships often use armed force, propaganda, and arbitrary detention to enforce their will, and usually suppress any opinion which runs counter to their own. Dictators in single-party states, as opposed to military juntas, often create single-party states without elections, or with rigged or heavily biased ones.\n[edit]\n\nPower\n\nThe existence of dictatorships often relies solely upon the power which they are capable of exerting over their citizens. Without it, they usually disintegrate or are completely ineffectual, such as the Bolshevik government of Russia shortly after it came to power. Modern dictatorships have used not only force and coercion, but also the mass media as tools of control. In China for instance, a communist single-party state, the government controls all news broadcast in the country, censors the internet, and often simply detains those who resist.\n\nThe cultures created by many dictatorships foster what has been termed the "cult of personality", where not only is the media controlled by the state, but serves to glorify it and its leader. In Nazi Germany, a picture of Adolf Hitler appeared in nearly every building. Under Saddam Hussein, every news broadcast in Iraq began with a reference to himself. Entire art museums were filled with paintings of the leader. The underlying tendency to want absolute power and control has been termed megalomania. Governments which impose absolute control and personality cults are sometimes known as totalitarian, a term originated by the dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy.\n\nSome dictatorships are supported by much of the general public, such as in Nazi Germany. These regimes often usher in a period of calm after civil war or economic hard times. Again, the governments justify their methods as responses to the current crisis, even after it has abated. Dictatorships rarely retain lasting support, however. Eventually the people begin to push for greater freedoms, and the dictatorship is forced to employ more coercive tactics in order to survive. Such was the case in the communist regimes of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, many of which enjoyed initial popular support.
133318
A few rules to rule a country.&#92;\nWho has the biggest guns.\nWho has the most money.\nWho can geographically own the most land.\nHow one uses his or her leadership.
459197
I would teach people to be tolerant of others, too respect the diversity and differences of the human race....hoping to ensure that everyone lived in relative peace, acceptance and tranquility......\n\nCan dream can't I.   .... coz I know it will never happen.mores the pity.
124937
I couldn't pick just one thing......I would do away with all evil, hatred, ignorance and intolerance. If those things were wiped out, the world would be a beautiful and safe place to live!
672367
Republic.\n\nAnd I am partial to republics.\n\nHowever, a tyranny with me as supreme leader would be best.
627936
Undercover Traffic Cop.\n\nSince we are fantasizing, instead of giving the a-holes tickets, I would have the power to immediately impound their cars and suspend their driving privileges.\n\nI would drive around in a Kermit-the-Frog Green Gremlin and catch everybody who is the recipient of the finger from other drivers.
82500
I would claim to be ruler of the world and use those powers for good such as causing peace in the world and so on and so forth. I would never use them for bad and selfish reasons
572858
I would outlaw ignorance by penalty of death.\n\nBoy would that leave room for the rest of us, and Yahoo Answers would lose about 95% of their users. If you have posted an answer with a misspelling, because you did not use spell check, or you simply write like an unintelligent moron, then you would be in that 95% that would be gone. Load them on a bus, and off they go, straight to death row, no appeal!\n\nBecause I have a low tolerance for ignorance!\n\nThe question was "If you were elected president today what would be your first act and why"\n\nSo this would be my first act, there would be many more to follow some listed in the other good answers.\n\n\nEDIT:\nAfter looking above (at the first 23 answers) I was surprised to see so many well written answers. That is very unusual. However I did notice one that used the word president were they meant precedent. Get on the bus!\nOne that misspelled illegal as "illiagal" Get on the bus!\nOne that misspelled legalize as "legalise" Get on the bus!\n\nIf you referred to yourself as "i" instead of I or if you wrote "id" instead of I'd. Get on the bus!\n\nIf you separated words only with punctuation. Get on the bus!\n\nThis is American Yahoo so obviously he meant President of the US. If you were not born in America, you are not eligible to be President, so if you you were not born in America and you answered. Get on the bus!\n\nOlcay the first seat would be yours!
590711
I would make everyine a perfect telepath. It is pretty damn hard to lie when everyone can tell when you are telling the truth or not.\ntransparency in government is a good thing.
421095
I would shoot myself. If I became so detached to where I didn't know what was going on in my country enough for that to be a suprise...I would not consider myself a viable citizen.\n\nIf I knew it was happening, I would do what I had to do.
327136
Don't know about your sub-questions, but my answer to your main one is that you would see two very different kinds of government, each with its own varying degrees of stability.\n\nThe first would be strong, centralized governments.The obvious threat to the stability of these governments is that they could be taken over by dictators.\n\nThe other would be decentralized governments divided along clan, tribe and ethnic lines.  The obvious threat to the stability of these governments is civil war between the different factions.\n\nThe Middle East is very preoccupied with social order, so both of these systems would value justice over personal freedoms and create laws to match.\n\nAs for the rest of your question, well, they would do exactly what all other nations do: relate to their neighbors in whatever way best suits their needs and adjust those relations as their needs change.