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“The right to vote will not fill your stomache.”

The Benevolent Dictatorship of Laerod is a gargantuan, economically powerful nation, ruled by Andrew Lasius with a fair hand, and notable for its national health service. Its compassionate, cynical population of 11.331 billion are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Social Welfare, and the Environment. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Cascade. The average income tax rate is 100%. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising fourteen-year-old boys selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.

Surveillance cameras are banned, a well-funded social safety net protects the unfortunate, children deemed 'disorderly' or otherwise unfit for public schools are shipped off to military academies, and the government has started a campaign to crack down on road rage and encourage alternate means of commuting. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Laerod's national animal is the raven, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the tarad.

Laerod is ranked 576th in the region and 5,487th in the world for Most Godforsaken.