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“Per Veritatem Vis”

The Free Land of The Despair is a huge, safe nation, remarkable for its restrictive gun laws. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 454 million love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

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 Healthcare. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Utopia. The average income tax rate is 92%, and even higher for the wealthy. 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.

The nation is currently revamping its entire education system, politicians are losing their jobs in a plan to make the government 'leaner and fitter', The Despair's navy has been named the scourge of the seven thousand seas, and voting is voluntary. Crime is totally unknown. The Despair's national animal is the swan, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the utopal.

The Despair is ranked 311th in the region and 10,107th in the world for Highest Unemployment Rates.