Opinions, Please?

1. Quality of Life for the citizens would be first priority as this would cause other things to go up or require that you pay attention to certain issue such as peace and ecological preservation.

2. This is a bit harder but I think I would lean towards a large fleet. While the cost would be hard initially, the effect upon the economy plus making sure your enemies think twice before attacking you pay off in the end. IMHO

3. Best quality of life possible. How to achieve that is a bigger issue. Obviously giving them certain rights is important but also make so that they are not depended upon the government too much. Public schooling on all levels is important as an educated people are a powerful people. Keeping people off a welfare system is also important but must be weighed with the understanding that sometimes ones need a helping hand.

4. To me the two are both important. The two must be balanced or you would either destroy the resources or you wouldn't get any where.

5. No

6. Creating the best soldiers in the Universe is difficult. The most important is giving them something to fight for. If you raised a child in a closeted world like the Spartans did would make a technically powerful soldier but they wouldn't always have the heart to fight. On the other hand a child who was brought up to appreciate what they have (education is important here) and the cost, when they made the decision to join the military then their heart will always be in the fight. A soldier who fights for what he/she believes in will always fight hard and sometimes better then one who is just trained to fight.

7. No. They would be able to elect a legislative group (maybe the two tier system we in the US are familiar with) but a strong nation needs someone with an able to see long term sometimes multigenerational .

For myself...

1.(From highest to lowest) Prosperity/quality of life, tech/science levels(since those breakthroughs generally improve prosperity and quality of life), peace(kinda hard to have a good quality of life when at war), ecological sustainability, territory controlled(more resources generally equals more prosperity, but that can be made up for by efficiency from tech),

2. Depends on the people around me. Assuming interstellar travel is possible and there are aggressive/untrustworthy 'neighbors' then I would certainly have a standing military fleet. If we're alone in our area or close by to peaceful people then a small defense fleet would be fine.

3. As an engineer, this is places where you have to ascertain opportunity cost. I would love to give everyone the best things possible like in some perfect utopian communism. At the same time, the economics of any situation makes that impossible. I would emphasize a regulated free-market economy so that people can do whats best for themselves.

4. Sustainable. What good does exhausting the resource in 50 years do when with a little management you could make it last 500.

5. FUCK NO TO CENSORSHIP! Censoring thoughts and ideas, even those as offensive and vile as supporting terrorism and other atrocities, should never happen. A person should be able to speak his mind on anything without legal repercussions. Don't confuse this will lack of societal consequences, as you stating your opinion is just as valid as some stating that your opinion is full of shit and that they won't hire you over it.

6. I would encourage children to focus on what they find interesting. Of course you need some basic education, but at this point I don't think forcing a young adult to read something like 'The Odyssey' or "The Iliad' is doing anyone a favor unless they enjoy ancient history as I do. Of course, you will always have people who just don't want to learn period; but I feel if education was tailored more towards a kid's interests than there would have been far less people like me who did the bare mimum through school because I found it to be 75% of time a complete waste. Even as an engineering graduate, I feel with 100% certainly that high school math is useless to the vast majority of people. The problem, though, is that even basic math is difficult for too many people. They should be focusing on the math required to manage money, and not matrices which no regular person will ever use,

7. Democracy is tyranny of the majority and should never been used by itself. I think the US has a pretty good system of democratic/representative government. Unfortunately, too many changes have been being made in the last decade or so that circumvent that system of checks and balances that were originally there protect one 'side' from gaining too much power. I also don't like how only two parties play any significant role, stifling support for moderate/non-right/non-left politicians who generally have a much less bias opinion on how things should be since they don't have a massive party to oblige to.

1. Science and Technology.

Everything else will experience a cascade-effect of benefit.

2. Large military fleet.

For one thing, it provides excellent standing defence. For another, it also provides excellent in-space infrastructure, which will be crucial to an interstellar-capable polity, which I assume is what we're discussing.

It also provides a basis for a merchant marine, commercial transit, and rapid colonization prep.

3. Infrastructure is key. Quality of life, is not.

That's not to say that quality of life is unimportant, but that it would be supremely difficult to give everyone max quality of life, and would probably also promote a highly lethargic populace that can't get anything done.

OTOH, give them something to work for, to do, and you get a high-productivity, happy populace.

4. Both. As Ryat mentioned, balance here is essential.

5. Yes.

There are some things that the public just should not know. Whether due to suppressing information to prevent general panic, or to prevent outbreak of war, that's the difference.

6. Military power is important, but not all-powerful.

I'd actually have a much larger merchant marine (armed merchant vessels/warships with high capacity cargo handling), and a relatively small purely militant navy. This provides excellent armed merchant convoy capability (crucial in wartime), and also increases prosperity in peacetime (high trade traffic).

7. No.

As I see it, generalist democracy is a failure. Even a mixed-democracy is exceedingly difficult to implement. OTOH, I'd go with a combination meritocratic/technocratic system. This is, incidentally, an effect of emphasizing technology and science advancement.