It was 2039 and it turned out that the futurist, Ray Kurzweil, was -- for the most part -- correct (something approximating a "coming singularity" had ensued). The stadium was filled to the brim with voluntary value exchangers. Then came a drum roll and all eyes became glued on the stage. She walked out with a purple cape wrapped around her with gold frills braided into it, and her diamond studded crown perched atop her flowing black hair, seemed to light up like a beacon at the top of the purple silhouette.
Behind her walked her 3 guardians, Troy Jules was her primary bodyguard and he trained Carlos and Luigi in hand-to-hand combat for those special cases where there were more than 8 or 9 attackers (otherwise, Mr. Jules would easily dispatch the small group of ne'er-do-wells). Carlos Menger and Luigi von Mises were exceptionally good at dealing with enemies of the North American state of New Justice. There was no robust threat against them.
Princess Praxis approached the microphone at the center of the stage. Playfully, she leaned in to the microphone, smiled, and said:
Hi, guys! ... [audience silent and eagerly awaiting the next 3 words] ... Princess Praxis here! The audience burst into applause and in unison shouted:
Hi, Princess Praxis! She gazed over the crowd with her deep and sultry brown eyes, as if taking in all the details of all the faces in the crowd and then her eyes lit up and she raised her hands to the sky and burst forth with a loud question:
Are the markets FREE?! The crowd went crazy in affirmation, with many people fist-pumping into the air.
Are your minds FREE?! The crowd was emboldened in affirmation with a standing-ovation and many people stomping on the ground and yelling in unison:
Free minds, free markets! Free minds, free markets! Free minds, free markets! The crowded quieted down for a third and final question:
Is there unprecedented prosperity in the land, with the non-government GDP (NG-GDP) increasing by over 10% every year?! Banners went up in the crowd as they yelled back in the affirmative, many people holding up large signs showing how either their own wealth had increased specifically, or how societal wealth had increased in general.
The princess burst forth:
Bring out the Egals! The "Egals" were so-called egalitarian power brokers who cunningly played on under-informed public sentiment in order to obtain personal wealth and power without actually producing anything of any value.
Butch George, Brock O'Brien, Bo Jiden, Reed Harrington, and Pandy Nelosi were brought out strapped to upright stretchers. Their punishment -- a year in captivity, subjected to repeated public ridicule -- was arrived at by the High Council of Fifteen (HCF). The HCF were the following:
Jacob K. Browski, Deborah Deancey, Hutch Edgins, Thomas Edwards, Summerlee T. Eisenhower, Bart Fredlett, Michael D. Gores, Henry Jimshaw, Seth Lukester, Jed Merliner, Marlon E. Michaels, Malcom Roberts, Erica Sams, Wolf Stevens, Dwight Williams
[These 15 were selected not because they always got along with each other -- indeed, they often bickered with each other -- but because they unanimously respected the human mind, and had made themselves aware of how it is that you might be able to use a human mind to arrive at the truth of a matter, and last but not least had arrived at the conclusion that the truth is better than lies.]
The story of how the Egals were caught perpetrating their enormous injustice is fascinating. Butch George had drawn up a plan that was carried out by Brock O'Brian. Normally antagonists to each other, they were never suspected as to be working together to profit off of dramatically increasing the injustice in the world. Butch drew up plans for a super computer designed to spy on the citizenry.
During his 3rd presidential term, Brock O'Brian completed construction of the super computer and proceeded to use the information obtained by the computer against his own citizens, as and where it was expedient to do so. However, there were a couple of intellectuals especially adept at computer programming -- Michael D. Gores and Wolf Stevens -- who managed to hack and then alter the functioning of the super computer.
Utilizing advanced algorithms, the super computer was able to determine with logical finality that the Egals were citizens of the country, too -- and therefore needed to live under the myriad laws they were creating for the rest of the citizenry. Justice demanded that. For instance, there was a single-payer, universal health care system -- but the Egals did not have to use it. And there were laws against insider trading and, at the same time, the Egals were perpetrating this kind of action with impunity.
Further, it was discovered with the same logical finality that the laws and policies of the Egals were actually doing more harm than good -- as had been indicated by the historical record of past societies. It turns out, policies were being used as a weapon. Because all of this information was made clear and unmistakable by the workings of the super computer, the public rose up and took over the administration of government -- as had been prescribed in the Declaration of Independence.
Under the value rubric provided by the super computer, constitutional amendments were passed and new politicians were elected as the old politicians were removed from office -- with the more egregious offenders receiving criminal sentencing.
In the beginning, as in the French Revolution, there was accidentally too much of a backlash -- with straight-jacketed politicians being publicly harmed for every tenth of a percent increase in unemployment, all deemed to be due to their suboptimal policies. This was too harsh, but reflects the level of emotional backlash you would logically get after unnecessarily hampering someone else's livelihood, just so that you could somehow gain from their loss. It was not justice, but it was something to be expected as increasing information progressively revealed to the public all the layers of harm that politicians had unnecessarily caused them.
The Egals had perpetrated and profited off of the false notion that security was better for humans than was freedom. With the advent of the super computer, and a little-known moral equation arrived at a couple thousand years ago by Aristotle:
A is better than B if A is good even without B, while B is not good on its own -- if there is not any A in your life. The super computer, in a surprising flash of insight for something only artificially intelligent, substituted "freedom" for one of the variables, A or B, with "security" -- and discovered with logical finality that freedom is a more important value to humans. Early dissenters among the public were asked to submit themselves to a life without any freedom -- and to then see if they really did enjoy the "security" they had originally preferred.
Many of them made it for as much as 8 days without any freedom, stubbornly enduring the idea of not being able to take any actions on their own (a total loss of personal agency). A few made it a month, but by then they were so mentally disturbed that the public actually began to fear them. And so the public immediately adopted Aristotle's moral equation -- with the appropriate substitutions -- into the constitution as an amendment.
After the year-long sentencing of those top 5 Egals, few politicians attempted to utilize ideological corruption for their own short-sighted, narrow-scale gain. In short, humans never looked back.
Oh yeah, and Thomas Edwards -- a member of the High Council of Fifteen -- eventually got to marry Princess Praxis.
The End
|
