One Nation Under G**
Shortly after the new arrivals had settled on the island and built makeshift huts out of Styrofoam, a meeting was called to discuss the governing of their new home. They met in the capital building, which was in fact a town hall that had been airlifted from somewhere in the Midwestern United States. The most charismatic of the bunch, a guy named William, took charge.
"All right everyone," he said, "settle down, settle down. The first item of business, I believe, is what we shall call our new country."
"George," someone suggested.
"Dave," said someone else.
"No no," said William, "something with a bit more umph to it. Something that conveys a sense of who we are, what we stand for, and all that jazz."
"Fabio, then."
"How about the Free Democratic Republic?" someone said. "It sounds very progressive to me."
"But then the citizens would be 'Republicans'," someone protested, "and I couldn't stand that."
"Plus what would the acronym be?" said someone else. "FDR, right? I think that's copyrighted or something."
"We can get to that later then," said William, glancing at his watch. "I suppose we ought to come up with a government of some sort now. I vote we dispense with the red tape of separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and consolidate the power for more streamlined efficiency."
"Yeah!" the citizens chorused. "One big exeleglisdicial branch!"
"All right then," said William, "do we have any women and/or ethnic minorities here willing to run for President?"
"I think we should have a Prime Minister," said someone. "It sounds fancier."
"I want to be Prime Minister, or President, either one is fine," said a man who was clearly neither a woman nor an ethnic minority. He looked like Johnny Depp, except that his hair was clearly a toupee resembling a dead woodchuck. "I know I'm not a woman or an ethnic minority," he added before the others could protest, "but I promise you hope and change we can believe in."
The others looked around. No one else wanted to be President or Prime Minister, because they realized all the nation's problems would be immediately blamed on them. And that change thing sounded rather appealing.
"All in favor," said William, and it was unanimous.
The man stepped up to the head of the group. "Thank you, fellow citizens," he said. "It is your perseverance and support that have gotten me here today. As my first act in office, I move for a compromise - I shall be a Prime Minister, but my name shall be Mr. President." The room burst into deafening applause. "A convenient arrangement, since that is my name anyway," he added.
"And may I be your Vice Prime Minister, sir?" asked Will.
"Heck, knock yourself out. I never even heard of such a thing."
"I don't think we'll be needing a cabinet for such a small nation," said Vice Prime Minister William, "but someone ought to help us. An aide, or a secretary, to take care of the annoying little details."
"Excuse me, sir," said an attractive redheaded woman named Candace, "I'd like to be a secretary."
"What is this," another woman protested, "the 1950s? Next I suppose you'll say you want to wear a skirt and high heels. You sicken me."
"Hang on, though," said Mr. President. "We're going to start out here with complete and total gender equality, so no feminist movement will be necessary."
"We don't want equality," said the second woman, "we want - "
"Besides," continued Mr. President, oblivious, "look at her. She's so attractive that anything said to her by a male can be misinterpreted as sexual harassment. We have to keep the lawyers in business somehow." The crowd roared its approval. "Sounds unanimous," he said to Candace. "I'm looking forward to working with you, if you know what I mean." He winked at her.
"All right, so the government is established," said Vice Prime Minister William. "Our new Prime Minister shall now -"
"Wait, wait," cried a citizen. "I'm all for the streamlining of processes and stuff, but this is just a tad bit too informal. We ought to at least have him swear on a Bible or - " He was instantly set upon by a crowd of enraged atheists that made up most of the assembly.
"Mr. President," said an militant atheist named Steve, "this is an issue that needs to be addressed here and now. Back in the States, we atheists had this 'God' stuff forced on us left and right. We don't want to see a repeat of that here." Most of the crowd roared in agreement. The citizen who had suggested the Bible thing silently nursed his bleeding face.
"What do you propose?" asked Mr. President.
"Let's not mention this God person in our Constitution, or in our Pledge of Allegiance, or on our money," said Steve. "Really, it's as bad as mentioning Santa Claus, and we have found it incredibly offensive and inconsiderate of our rights."
"I second this motion," said another man. "Though I am, actually, an agnostic, we have to look at this logically. Supposing, hypothetically, there was a supreme being out there of infinite power and wisdom, to whom our planet represented a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot within the sheer scope and majesty of His creation, and our civilizations, an inconsequential burp in the fabric of time; supposing all that, why would we want even the symbolic representation of soliciting His help with our affairs?" The crowd roared their approval.
"Well," said Mr. President, choosing his words carefully, "perhaps it would offer at least a psychological advantage to the majority who do believe in Him..."
"It would encourage them to waste their time chasing fairies, that's what it would do," snapped Steve. "We need everyone to give 110% dedication to the important things so we can out-compete every other country in the world and lead the quest for the immortality of the human race."
"All right," said Mr. President. "No swearing on Bibles, and no mention of God on our money or in our pledge of allegiance. All in favor?" It was nearly unanimous.
"But that's not enough," said Steve. "The mere mention of this God person in public is still quite offensive to us and still takes simple minds away from the tasks at hand. Let us have no excessively conspicuous churches, no Nativity or Easter displays, and no Christian TV shows or radio broadcasts."
"That seems fair," said Mr. President. "I mean, what you're saying isn't to take away our right to worship, just to make it more subtle and inoffensive, correct?"
"Yes, Mr. President. I'm afraid that's the most we can do."
"All in favor?" Again, it was mostly unanimous. "Hang on," he said. "I just had a thought. Do these restrictions apply to Muslims?"
Everyone looked at each other sheepishly. They hadn't considered that.
"That's a good point," said William. "We can't infringe on Muslims' right to worship even a little bit. We aren't bigots, after all."
"No biggie," said Mr. President, "I'll just write in a little clause for that. So that's settled? Okay, Will, you're good at this stuff, why don't you take it from here."
"All right now," said William, "before we make any more rules we ought to establish some sort of constitutional framework to put them in so we're not just going all over the place with this. Since the constitution of our previous home, the United States of America, is the envy of the world, I propose we use it as a starting point but then make something even better."
The crowd stamped and whistled its approval. Mr. President beamed. "Great thought," he said. "I was just about to suggest it myself."
"Right then," said William, "somebody write this down. We the people... um..." he scratched his head. "Has anyone read farther than that?"
People shrugged and looked at each other sheepishly again.
"Guess that's out," said Mr. President. "But I just had a brainstorm. There's this other thing I've heard somewhere - something along the lines of 'Thou shalt not -'"
If not for the timely intervention of a few hastily appointed bodyguards, Mr. President's stint at Prime Minister would have been unceremoniously cut short.
***
The next Sunday, Citizen Bob went to church. He had a bit of trouble finding it because it was in the basement of an aluminum factory on the outskirts of town and no one he asked would admit to its existence, but somehow he stumbled onto it. The rest of the congregation stopped singing to welcome him in, and he shook hands with all three of them.
"Glad you could make it," said Pastor John. "We were just in the middle of singing Psalm 42. You may join us, but take care to sing very quietly so no one hears us and gets offended."
Citizen Bob knew that most people appreciated him singing as quietly as possible anyway, so he complied without difficulty.
When they had finished, Pastor John began to speak. "Brethren, this is a dark day for Christianity," he said. "I fear everyone else on this island is facing eternal damnation if we can't tell them about Jesus. But, we must look at the bright side through all our tribulations. If any Mormon missionaries show up here, they're in for an unpleasant surprise." The congregation laughed. "Anyway, let's get down to business. Proverbs 3:28 says - "
"Pastor John!" interrupted Citizen Bob.
Pastor John glared daggers at him. "What is it, ye unwashed heathen?"
"Forgive me, sir," said Citizen Bob, "but I just got this irresistible urge to contribute to the march of progress. I mean, here I am cooped up in this little building listening to a guy read out of an old book, when I could be making plans for a rocket to carry us to Alpha Centauri when the Earth burns up in a few million years. Is this the call of Satan?"
"Is it telling you to become a Mormon?" Pastor John demanded.
"No, sir," said Citizen Bob. "In fact, I don't feel like having anything to do with religion at all."
"Pastor John!" someone else cried. "I'm feeling something too!"
"Me too!"
"And I!"
Pastor John's face contorted, and he looked around. "There is something strange in the air..." He blinked, and a visible yet undefinable transformation came over his features. "Aw, heck, what are we doing in here?" He tossed his Bible to the ground and started for the door. "Come, brethren, let's go build that rocket!"
"Could you not call us 'brethren' anymore?" said one of the brethren, following him. "It's kind of sketchy."
"I'll call you whatever you want, friend," said Pastor John. "And from now on you may refer to me as 'Ex-pastor John'. I can't believe I've wasted so much of my life looking forward to another one. So much potential has been lost, down the drain! And I've led you down the same path!"
They climbed the stairs and emerged onto the street. Seeing them in their Sunday best, a pedestrian tried to convey with his facial expressions that they had better not say anything about religion. But he needn't have worried.
"Death, I understand now, is a completely irrational thing to be afraid of," continued Ex-pastor John. "It's nothing more than lying down for a refreshing endless oblivion after a few decades of misery. Nothing more sensible. And exercise we shall have indeed, breth- er, friends, for this rocket shall prove a worthy challenge! To the hardware store!"
"Gee," said Citizen Bob, jogging to keep up, "I was just thinking about drawing up the plans. I assumed that would take a while."
"Not if we apply ourselves properly," said Ex-pastor John. "The capabilities of humanity are increasing exponentially at an incredible rate. Our prospects of success on this project get better by the second, and if we do our best this will take a fraction of the time of the first moon landing. Yet we must not wait, for sloth is one of the seven deadly - er - it's okay for some people but not my thing."
They went into the hardware store and began looking around at the available options. Citizen Bob was way out of his element. "How about I draw up the plans, and you guys pick the materials," he said. "I'm more of the artsy type."
The store's proprietor scowled at his new customers, then at the clock over his desk. "I thought church wasn't supposed to let out for a good forty-five minutes yet," he said. "You tryin' to proselyte me? Look here, Pastor, while you're in my store I better not hear one word about God."
Suddenly, a pair of policemen crashed through the window and grabbed him. "Hey, Jack," one of them said, "watch it with the c-word and the g-word. We don't accept intolerance in this country, understand?"
As the storekeeper yelped and struggled, Ex-pastor John looked up absently from comparing two shades of silver paint. "One word about what?" he said. "Oh, yeah, that. Don't be ridiculous. There's nobody up there watching us that we need to worry about." He turned to Citizen Bob. "Artsy type, huh? Which of these do you think best symbolizes progress?"
***
On a space station orbiting a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, an extraterrestrial underling brought his superior some startling news. "Sir!" he said breathlessly. "Remember that new landmass the Earthlings colonized? Well, now they're going to build a rocket and come here."
His superior snorted. "Those arrogant, insufferable binderzunks, here? Not happening. If that thing gets past their atmosphere, destroy it."
Next: Welfare is, Well, Fair
"All right everyone," he said, "settle down, settle down. The first item of business, I believe, is what we shall call our new country."
"George," someone suggested.
"Dave," said someone else.
"No no," said William, "something with a bit more umph to it. Something that conveys a sense of who we are, what we stand for, and all that jazz."
"Fabio, then."
"How about the Free Democratic Republic?" someone said. "It sounds very progressive to me."
"But then the citizens would be 'Republicans'," someone protested, "and I couldn't stand that."
"Plus what would the acronym be?" said someone else. "FDR, right? I think that's copyrighted or something."
"We can get to that later then," said William, glancing at his watch. "I suppose we ought to come up with a government of some sort now. I vote we dispense with the red tape of separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and consolidate the power for more streamlined efficiency."
"Yeah!" the citizens chorused. "One big exeleglisdicial branch!"
"All right then," said William, "do we have any women and/or ethnic minorities here willing to run for President?"
"I think we should have a Prime Minister," said someone. "It sounds fancier."
"I want to be Prime Minister, or President, either one is fine," said a man who was clearly neither a woman nor an ethnic minority. He looked like Johnny Depp, except that his hair was clearly a toupee resembling a dead woodchuck. "I know I'm not a woman or an ethnic minority," he added before the others could protest, "but I promise you hope and change we can believe in."
The others looked around. No one else wanted to be President or Prime Minister, because they realized all the nation's problems would be immediately blamed on them. And that change thing sounded rather appealing.
"All in favor," said William, and it was unanimous.
The man stepped up to the head of the group. "Thank you, fellow citizens," he said. "It is your perseverance and support that have gotten me here today. As my first act in office, I move for a compromise - I shall be a Prime Minister, but my name shall be Mr. President." The room burst into deafening applause. "A convenient arrangement, since that is my name anyway," he added.
"And may I be your Vice Prime Minister, sir?" asked Will.
"Heck, knock yourself out. I never even heard of such a thing."
"I don't think we'll be needing a cabinet for such a small nation," said Vice Prime Minister William, "but someone ought to help us. An aide, or a secretary, to take care of the annoying little details."
"Excuse me, sir," said an attractive redheaded woman named Candace, "I'd like to be a secretary."
"What is this," another woman protested, "the 1950s? Next I suppose you'll say you want to wear a skirt and high heels. You sicken me."
"Hang on, though," said Mr. President. "We're going to start out here with complete and total gender equality, so no feminist movement will be necessary."
"We don't want equality," said the second woman, "we want - "
"Besides," continued Mr. President, oblivious, "look at her. She's so attractive that anything said to her by a male can be misinterpreted as sexual harassment. We have to keep the lawyers in business somehow." The crowd roared its approval. "Sounds unanimous," he said to Candace. "I'm looking forward to working with you, if you know what I mean." He winked at her.
"All right, so the government is established," said Vice Prime Minister William. "Our new Prime Minister shall now -"
"Wait, wait," cried a citizen. "I'm all for the streamlining of processes and stuff, but this is just a tad bit too informal. We ought to at least have him swear on a Bible or - " He was instantly set upon by a crowd of enraged atheists that made up most of the assembly.
"Mr. President," said an militant atheist named Steve, "this is an issue that needs to be addressed here and now. Back in the States, we atheists had this 'God' stuff forced on us left and right. We don't want to see a repeat of that here." Most of the crowd roared in agreement. The citizen who had suggested the Bible thing silently nursed his bleeding face.
"What do you propose?" asked Mr. President.
"Let's not mention this God person in our Constitution, or in our Pledge of Allegiance, or on our money," said Steve. "Really, it's as bad as mentioning Santa Claus, and we have found it incredibly offensive and inconsiderate of our rights."
"I second this motion," said another man. "Though I am, actually, an agnostic, we have to look at this logically. Supposing, hypothetically, there was a supreme being out there of infinite power and wisdom, to whom our planet represented a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot within the sheer scope and majesty of His creation, and our civilizations, an inconsequential burp in the fabric of time; supposing all that, why would we want even the symbolic representation of soliciting His help with our affairs?" The crowd roared their approval.
"Well," said Mr. President, choosing his words carefully, "perhaps it would offer at least a psychological advantage to the majority who do believe in Him..."
"It would encourage them to waste their time chasing fairies, that's what it would do," snapped Steve. "We need everyone to give 110% dedication to the important things so we can out-compete every other country in the world and lead the quest for the immortality of the human race."
"All right," said Mr. President. "No swearing on Bibles, and no mention of God on our money or in our pledge of allegiance. All in favor?" It was nearly unanimous.
"But that's not enough," said Steve. "The mere mention of this God person in public is still quite offensive to us and still takes simple minds away from the tasks at hand. Let us have no excessively conspicuous churches, no Nativity or Easter displays, and no Christian TV shows or radio broadcasts."
"That seems fair," said Mr. President. "I mean, what you're saying isn't to take away our right to worship, just to make it more subtle and inoffensive, correct?"
"Yes, Mr. President. I'm afraid that's the most we can do."
"All in favor?" Again, it was mostly unanimous. "Hang on," he said. "I just had a thought. Do these restrictions apply to Muslims?"
Everyone looked at each other sheepishly. They hadn't considered that.
"That's a good point," said William. "We can't infringe on Muslims' right to worship even a little bit. We aren't bigots, after all."
"No biggie," said Mr. President, "I'll just write in a little clause for that. So that's settled? Okay, Will, you're good at this stuff, why don't you take it from here."
"All right now," said William, "before we make any more rules we ought to establish some sort of constitutional framework to put them in so we're not just going all over the place with this. Since the constitution of our previous home, the United States of America, is the envy of the world, I propose we use it as a starting point but then make something even better."
The crowd stamped and whistled its approval. Mr. President beamed. "Great thought," he said. "I was just about to suggest it myself."
"Right then," said William, "somebody write this down. We the people... um..." he scratched his head. "Has anyone read farther than that?"
People shrugged and looked at each other sheepishly again.
"Guess that's out," said Mr. President. "But I just had a brainstorm. There's this other thing I've heard somewhere - something along the lines of 'Thou shalt not -'"
If not for the timely intervention of a few hastily appointed bodyguards, Mr. President's stint at Prime Minister would have been unceremoniously cut short.
***
The next Sunday, Citizen Bob went to church. He had a bit of trouble finding it because it was in the basement of an aluminum factory on the outskirts of town and no one he asked would admit to its existence, but somehow he stumbled onto it. The rest of the congregation stopped singing to welcome him in, and he shook hands with all three of them.
"Glad you could make it," said Pastor John. "We were just in the middle of singing Psalm 42. You may join us, but take care to sing very quietly so no one hears us and gets offended."
Citizen Bob knew that most people appreciated him singing as quietly as possible anyway, so he complied without difficulty.
When they had finished, Pastor John began to speak. "Brethren, this is a dark day for Christianity," he said. "I fear everyone else on this island is facing eternal damnation if we can't tell them about Jesus. But, we must look at the bright side through all our tribulations. If any Mormon missionaries show up here, they're in for an unpleasant surprise." The congregation laughed. "Anyway, let's get down to business. Proverbs 3:28 says - "
"Pastor John!" interrupted Citizen Bob.
Pastor John glared daggers at him. "What is it, ye unwashed heathen?"
"Forgive me, sir," said Citizen Bob, "but I just got this irresistible urge to contribute to the march of progress. I mean, here I am cooped up in this little building listening to a guy read out of an old book, when I could be making plans for a rocket to carry us to Alpha Centauri when the Earth burns up in a few million years. Is this the call of Satan?"
"Is it telling you to become a Mormon?" Pastor John demanded.
"No, sir," said Citizen Bob. "In fact, I don't feel like having anything to do with religion at all."
"Pastor John!" someone else cried. "I'm feeling something too!"
"Me too!"
"And I!"
Pastor John's face contorted, and he looked around. "There is something strange in the air..." He blinked, and a visible yet undefinable transformation came over his features. "Aw, heck, what are we doing in here?" He tossed his Bible to the ground and started for the door. "Come, brethren, let's go build that rocket!"
"Could you not call us 'brethren' anymore?" said one of the brethren, following him. "It's kind of sketchy."
"I'll call you whatever you want, friend," said Pastor John. "And from now on you may refer to me as 'Ex-pastor John'. I can't believe I've wasted so much of my life looking forward to another one. So much potential has been lost, down the drain! And I've led you down the same path!"
They climbed the stairs and emerged onto the street. Seeing them in their Sunday best, a pedestrian tried to convey with his facial expressions that they had better not say anything about religion. But he needn't have worried.
"Death, I understand now, is a completely irrational thing to be afraid of," continued Ex-pastor John. "It's nothing more than lying down for a refreshing endless oblivion after a few decades of misery. Nothing more sensible. And exercise we shall have indeed, breth- er, friends, for this rocket shall prove a worthy challenge! To the hardware store!"
"Gee," said Citizen Bob, jogging to keep up, "I was just thinking about drawing up the plans. I assumed that would take a while."
"Not if we apply ourselves properly," said Ex-pastor John. "The capabilities of humanity are increasing exponentially at an incredible rate. Our prospects of success on this project get better by the second, and if we do our best this will take a fraction of the time of the first moon landing. Yet we must not wait, for sloth is one of the seven deadly - er - it's okay for some people but not my thing."
They went into the hardware store and began looking around at the available options. Citizen Bob was way out of his element. "How about I draw up the plans, and you guys pick the materials," he said. "I'm more of the artsy type."
The store's proprietor scowled at his new customers, then at the clock over his desk. "I thought church wasn't supposed to let out for a good forty-five minutes yet," he said. "You tryin' to proselyte me? Look here, Pastor, while you're in my store I better not hear one word about God."
Suddenly, a pair of policemen crashed through the window and grabbed him. "Hey, Jack," one of them said, "watch it with the c-word and the g-word. We don't accept intolerance in this country, understand?"
As the storekeeper yelped and struggled, Ex-pastor John looked up absently from comparing two shades of silver paint. "One word about what?" he said. "Oh, yeah, that. Don't be ridiculous. There's nobody up there watching us that we need to worry about." He turned to Citizen Bob. "Artsy type, huh? Which of these do you think best symbolizes progress?"
***
On a space station orbiting a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, an extraterrestrial underling brought his superior some startling news. "Sir!" he said breathlessly. "Remember that new landmass the Earthlings colonized? Well, now they're going to build a rocket and come here."
His superior snorted. "Those arrogant, insufferable binderzunks, here? Not happening. If that thing gets past their atmosphere, destroy it."
Next: Welfare is, Well, Fair