There was no
doubt that it wasn’t James Madison in my living room so I had to assume it was
C.W. Why he chose this particular form would become obvious soon enough. With
his powdered wig slightly askew, he was sitting at my desk thumbing my pocket
edition of the U.S. Constitution and mumbling to himself.
“What’s
cookin’ Satch?” I said.
“Imbecile,”
he said.
“Well aren’t
we touchy?”
“This thing,”
he said, waving the Constitution at me. I noticed he the pages were crumpled, dog-earned,
and covered with notes and underlines. “This thing is so short. I don’t
remember that.”
“I thought
you wanted it that way,” I said. Why not play along?
“I can find
no provision for ‘aclona++snocry.’’’
“A- what?”
He thought
for a second. “It’s serious crime on our planet.”
“And it is?
“Something
of a cross between ‘knowingly uttering nonsense and scaring the children.”
“Examples?”
“Publicly
stating that a female of your species physiologically disables her reproductive
system after being beaten and violently impregnated against her will.”
“I see.”
“Or claiming
that data showing increasingly warming temperatures around the globe are false
because some mythical father-figure in the sky simply wouldn’t permit it.”
“Be careful
with that one.”
“Stating that
supply creates demand or that if you give all your riches to a few, much of it will
magically trickle down to the remainder.”
“I see.”
“Or denials
of the scientific processes of natural selection even after the Trogotherans dropped Charles Darwin off
here in 1859 to explain it all.”
“And your point is?”
“That there
no laws against this, as hard as we worked to produce such enlightenment?” He
waved the Constitution at me.
“Laws
against stupidity?”
“Laws
against spreading it.”
“And on
Falloonia?”
“On our
planet, we take it quite seriously.”
“And the punishment
is?”
He thought. “It
would be your equivalent of Vacation Bible School as produced at Alcatraz.”
I shuddered. “Maybe you better check your Eighth Amendment there.”
“Levity is
not appropriate when discussing this,” he said and he flourished the
Constitution again.
“So what do
you propose?”
“We would
have the punishment fit the crime.”
“So, the ‘supply-siders’ might be given a batch of Facebook stock and
forced to sell it?”
“Precisely.”
“And the ‘trickle-downers’ might be forced to live for a while at the
bottom of the pile.”
 |
| If it should happen that the proposed broom-handle remediation should prove unsuitable to the task of providing enlightenment to those of the species who would aspire to regulate the personal behavior of other genders, a more enlightened approach involving electrodes might suffice to provide mental reformation. - Publius |
“You are getting the picture.”
“And the ‘legitimate rape’ fellers?”
He straightened his wig, gave me a deliciously wicked wink, and began
to lift himself off the floor with the handle of a broom that he had laid
nearby.
“Glad you asked, Big Dope. Stand up and I will show you.”
“Uh, thanks Publius, I think I get the picture.”
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