2084

ol' George had it backwards.

2084

WHY I LOVE DEMOCRACY

by

Enrique Batsnuwa LaCszynevitch McGomez

In researching this paper I could not help but be struck by how much we take for granted in this wonderful country, for, less than a century ago, ours was a very different nation indeed--a nation where femepersons were unbearably repressed, where mascupersons were allowed to perpetuate their myth of gender superiority, and where demopersons of diverse ethnicity were perpetually humiliated and brutalized.

I speak, of course, of the historical reign of terror concocted by that notorious agent of subjugation--that evil, xenophobic, and unbelievably self-serving hate-monger--the White Indigenous MascuPerson (WIMP).

Ever since the great, all-encompassing movement now known as Progressive Liberal Reform (PLR) prevailed, beginning with the effective dissolution of our borders (“Illegal Alien” Anti-Discrimination Act, 2028), the changes have been sweeping and dramatic, and today it is crystal clear that the concepts freedom and liberty can only be interpreted as absolute rights, and that finding objectionable the behavior--no matter how egregious--of any person other than a WIMP is de facto prejudice. Now once-suspect demopersons have the run of our streets, and law enforcement walks a very fine line between apprehension and lawsuit.

But before PLR became the single, imperative interpretation of our beloved Constitution, our great nation’s political atmosphere was divided into two basic camps.

These continuously bickering factions, originally known as Democrats and Republicans, grew even more estranged after the Unutterable Depression of 2033, evolving into those defunct camps still generally described, respectively, as Left Wing, or Government Instituted for a Meaningful and Merciful Economy (GIMME), and Right Wing, or the Grand Old Trustee Commission for a Humane America (GOTCHA).

Not until the so-called “Minority Revolt” of 2039 did the infamous conservative arm of our government see the light, disband entirely, and free itself of its barbaric ways.

To document The Transition, I hope my use of subtitles in this paper will assist in manifesting our nation’s tremendous advances.

The Economics of Compassion

Our country’s political progress has been nothing less than spectacular, for time and again PLRs have demonstrated just how relentlessly caring they can be. I could devote pages here to the dauntlessness of those liberal American femepersons, the renowned Screaming Sheilas, who selflessly breast-fed platypus ducklings during the Tasmanian Drought of 2029, pages more to the intrepidity of the venerated Poor Dearers of the 2030s, who risked life and limb to reach a golden eagle’s aerie, there to nest-sit the eggs in freezing weather for days while the crippled mother recuperated--and an entire document to the valor of the old Greenpeace organization, wiped out in a bloody confrontation with the Upper States’ Yukon “Eskimos” over the Constitutional rights of the arctic char.

But the noblest case in point--and the most striking example of how even zealous PLRs can go awry--would of course be the Great Drive of 2045, when it was discovered that that rarest of rare birds, the Funnytailed Pucebreasted Slugsucker, had in fact become an endangered species.

Overnight an unprecedented national campaign was undertaken on their behalf:

Parades featuring municipally-sponsored, appropriately costumed Funnytailers raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, while entrepreneurs of every sort made fortunes by dyeing their wares puce for the Conscientious Consumer. The public was inundated: it was all Slugsucker minutia, over every medium, around the clock. Millions were raised for the birds’ preservation through cuts in defense and astrophysical research, while homeowners everywhere became proud members of the nationwide Adopt a Sucker Society (A*S).

The results were fantastic, inspiring, heartwarming.

The Funnytailed Pucebreasted Slugsucker began to multiply in numbers that were absolutely staggering, their little fuzzy-faced offspring popping up in cornfields, backyards, nurseries, freighters, supermarket produce sections--you name it. However, one unfortunate consequence of this marvelous application of liberal engineering was that, with so many Slugsuckers about, the slug population began to diminish at an alarming rate, until slugs likewise became an endangered species.

Reformists lost no time.

“Save The Slugs!” they cried, “Save The Slugs!” and this became a Progressive Liberal anthem which galvanized the nation. Soon “Slugfests” were all the rage, and teenagers were “doing The Slime” from St. Petersburg, New Haiti to Los Angeles, New Central America. Cruising was out, oozing was in; the Ughmobile caught on like wildfire. The slug quickly became our Poster Pest, and billions were raised for its welfare. In no time slugs had not only made a comeback, but were absolutely ubiquitous. The slugs were happy, the Funnytailed Pucebreasted Slugsuckers were happy, and we Progressive Liberal Reformists were, of course, overjoyed.

But, with a superabundance of slugs, the state of American Vegetative Health began to deteriorate at an unbelievable rate. Scarcely any leafage was safe. Finally, in a desperation move, proud Liberals tightened their belts even further to finance the genetic crossbreeding of a number of supple American garden strains with a hardy, fast-growing variety of African swamp grass. The result was cultivated over wide areas to give the omnipresent slugs an alternate and plentiful food source.

The tragic result is known to every Liberal American schoolperson. The swamp grass trapped so much rainfall that vast areas became wetlands, the wetlands became spawning grounds for alligators, and the alligators ate all the Funnytailed Pucebreasted Slugsuckers.

“Let there be no misunderstanding here!” PuertoGeorgia senator Lolita Wang-Ho Kumba-Sanchezski said angrily as she, resplendent in Mourning Puce, confronted the Congressional Budget Committee. “Until we learn to stop throwing money away on defense programs and industry, and begin devoting more capital to the interests of meaningful domestic problems like the plight of the Funnytailed Pucebreasted Slugsucker, this kind of horror story is doomed to be repeated!”

Penal Rights

Modern, open-minded demopersons now understand that there are no bad human beings; there is only bad legislation. The realization that murderers, embezzlers, and arsonists were once actually punished, instead of treated with the love and compassion they deserve, still leaves many of us with an acute sense of embarrassment. This evolution--from the barbaric to the enlightened--can perhaps best be shown in the Penal Paradox Proposition, as served by Baja Louisiana senator Imran Wendell O’Mikosovitch: “They’ve lived lives of corruption, debauchery, promiscuity, vandalism, indolence, socioeconomic subterfuge, compulsive predation, and, in more than a few cases, unprovoked and ungovernable savagery...and now you want to put them in jail? For goodness’ sake, haven’t they suffered enough?”

Of course, Penal Rights has always been one of the major issues of Enlightened Liberal Reform. Ps. Helga Spatsznsteinski, in her groundbreaking work, Serial Killers Need Love, Too correctly pointed out that an overabundance of affection can have the same adverse effect as no affection at all. For example, in the early years of reformism a number of unlucky and misguided souls--formerly disparaged as “criminals”--were forced to sue the Federal Government for the right to privacy when highly competitive and overly arduous femepersons persisted in deluging many incarcerated rapists, compulsively assaultive misogynists, and child molesters, with marriage proposals. As famed debutante dismemberer Ps. Muhammed-Fritz Olgafenritz (The “Hacksmith”) complained, “They only love me for my genes, not for my mind.”

And just as intrusive were the lucrative contract deals from filmmakers and biographers, the unending requests for speaking engagements and intimate photo sessions, the toys-to-cologne endorsement proposals, the seemingly infinite queues of fawning dignitaries and celebrities. “Being a superstar,” Ps. Gorbafyoo I. Zeimensch-Umbawi proclaimed bitterly from the Tampa Federal Resort and Spa for Violent Repeat Offenders, “just ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

Even before The Transition, the curse of capital punishment was mercifully on the wane. It is now no more than a slew of ugly memories, perhaps best remembered by that powerfully patriotic moment when Raul Ignacio “Little Nate” Ivenski Deng-Foo berated his executioners even as he was about to be administered that despicably lethal dose of HGSN (early Reformism’s short-lived but well-intentioned Happy Go Sleep Now pill). Umbrageous at man’s mistreatment of his fellow man, Deng-Foo heroically and famously proclaimed: “You can take away my kiddie porn! You can rob me of my drugs and electro-orifice stimulators! You can deprive me of my God-given right to whip the tar out of my children, my grandmother, and even my Bichon Frise, but, damn you, you’ll never take away my dignity!”

Or, of course, that shocking moment when six of the early adherents of Progressive Liberal Reform burst into the “Death Chamber” and clung tearfully to convicted cannibal and corpse rapist David Hartford’s body while chanting the chorus to Danny and the Democrats’ 2027 hit Love Them Everlasting as Hartford was insensitively murdered by society in that notorious instrument of evil, the “electric chair”.

The odious death sentence’s abolition ensures us all that these precious individuals live to a ripe old age with dignity and in comfort, resting assured that their constitutional rights will be adamantly protected by every attorney we liberals can possibly afford.

Semantics

Nomenclature has powerfully affected our nation’s political evolution. Symbiotic Domestic Partners, for instance, used to suffer terribly under their humiliating appellation “pets” (Faunal Emancipation Agreement, 2047). Efflorescing Abode Enhancers were finally granted the dignity they deserve by abolishing their former embarrassing title of “houseplants” (Floral Rights Act of 2051). And of course “Mr.” and “Mrs.” These antique and degrading terms of non-equivalent address have found a noble replacement in Person (Ps.), a shared honorific that finally and thankfully evokes equality. In the social arena, it is now entirely unthinkable that Ejaculation Engineers could actually have been demeaned as “prostitutes”, or that Ecobraves were once variously demeaned as thugs, hooligans, deadbeats, junkies, and muggers. Nowadays it is painfully obvious that such unfortunates would never have been forced to sink to their unhappy state had our nation previously been compassionate enough to bestow the tremendous grants they presently receive. Yet some throwback radical extremists, generously allowed by our great country to express their outmoded views, continue to point out that the more money our tax dollars provide for these poor victims, the more they indulge in the very behavior the policy is intended to alleviate.

What could more clearly demonstrate how lack of compassion can befuddle the thinking process?

These continuously suffering souls are of course martyrs, willing to maintain their grievous condition for the sake of preserving a cultural phenomenon which has long been the whipping boy of the Haves.

And even our own precious American childpersons have been the target of slur slingers. When Ps. Mongo LeRamalama Deng-Hwong had the audacity to publish her viciously titled book, Our Kids, Our Treasures, the national outrage was phenomenal. “Our children are not goats!” cried millions of offended parents. Ps. Mongo LeRamalama Deng-Hwong was ostracized, and the quickly formed Attorneys Vying for Adolescent Rights Involving the Curtailment of Epithets (AVARICE) found themselves entertaining more lawsuits than they could handle.

Once we the people were made aware of the insidious subterfuge of negative semantics contrived by WIMPs, it became evident that all heterosexuals are really homophobic, and all homosexuals heterophobic; that all mascupersons are in actuality femephobic, and all femepersons mascuphobic. These irrational fears and prejudices, we now understand, come from a deep underlying envy of one’s opposite pole. Enlightened Liberal Reform has allowed us to realize that, since all persons are created constitutionally equal, one’s opposite pole is in actuality one’s Natural Counterpart. Just as mascupersons and femepersons are Natural Counterparts while being diametrically opposite in nature, so too are atheophobes (“theists”) in reality the Natural Counterparts of theophobes (“atheists”). Finally, after decades of dealing with bestiphobes, dementephobes, prostiphobes, narcophobes, politiphobes, lucrephobes, penuphobes, ad infinitum; of legaphobes fearing crimiphobes and crimiphobes fearing legaphobes, of natuphobes living in mortal terror of urbaphobes while the urbaphobes lost sleep worrying over natuphobes; while illaphobes dwelt in horror of wellaphobes and wellaphobes locked doors against the encroachment of illaphobes; while necrephobes anguished over vitaphobes and the vitaphobes, presumably, were turning in their graves due to the necrephobes, PLRs were struggling to find a truly democratic solution. This solution eventually came to light in the national acceptance of Phobophobia.

Progressive Liberal Spirituality

That old paper tyrant, the “Bible”, was originally sullied by references to the deity as “He”. Such an obvious disparaging of femepersons was first tempered by the inclusion of an “opposite-but-equal” deity, resulting in the infamous “Mrs. God” trial of 2034. This quandary was democratically resolved through the admission of an androgynous deity, the very SheHe now worshiped nationwide. Then there was the matter of the former “Old” Testament, so offensive to senior citizens--vividly expressed in the great coast-to-coast Walker Brigade. Step by step, each WIMP-enforced bias has met its demise.

And there were of course great difficulties involving religious symbolism. Public displays of Nativity scenes, stars of David, etc., have all gone the way of the dinosaur. No single religion shall have visual dominance in our great democracy! A “Christian nation”, indeed! Our sole Yule symbol is now a giant one-eyed Buddha wearing a crown of thorns while sitting on a tortoise-shaped prayer rug before a serpent-entwined cross. From the arms of that cross dangle a crucifix, chakra, swastika, and menorah. And on every Nationally-Integrated Non-specific New Year’s (NINNY), all we Progressive Liberal Reformists take a neutral breath in unison and “Thank Blank” that no group has cause to be offended.

Sexual Liberty

Certainly, the alienation of homosexuals has always been a tremendous social blight. Their persecution knew no bounds. So, in today’s truly liberal democratic society, homosexuality, bisexuality, and transvestism are proudly taught to all schoolpersons as wholesome, upstanding lifestyles. Once a small percentage of the overall population, homosexuals now occupy over half the legislature, and it was one of the finest moments in our country’s history when, only last year, we elected our very first transsexual president. Now every National Gayday celebration features long lines of self-flagellating, terribly repentant former heterosexuals, while our military divisions proudly mandate co-sexual bunks and showers, and many thriving businesses devote themselves wholly to the production of lingerie for pre-adolescent mascupersons. Our founding mothers certainly would be no less proud than we.

Compassion For The Masses

Arguably, the greatest breakthrough of Enlightened Liberal Reform came about with passage of the Victims’ Relief Bill of 2077. What a glorious, emotion-packed day it must have been when those 170,000,000 Progressive Liberal Reformists linked arms across all 103 of the contiguous United States and chanted, “Subsidization, Not Subjugation! Subsidization, Not Subjugation!” until the very walls of the Rainbow House shook in the District of Vespuccia. And what an uplifting experience to be part of that gigantic assembly, tearfully escorting the hundreds of thousands of Aromatically Diverse and Morally Deprived unfortunates as they shuffled and jabbered into their tax-subsidized apartments to freely and democratically express themselves as Excretory Artists and Sensuality Scientists.

Freedom Of Expression

In closing I must again remark upon the stimulus for our awesome national pride. Only a truly liberal society such as ours would have the greatness to demand that every televised newscast crew include at least one Practicing Octogenarian Nudist, that every church sermon devote equal time to the oration of an atheist, and that every Intelligence Agency be made open to the General Public. It is we, the Progressive Liberals, who have exercised the vision to ensure that every major league team contain at least one paraplegic outfielder, that the Pentagon employ a fair quota of narcoleptics, and that, some rosy future day, the meek shall indeed inherit the earth.

Ps. Antoni-Levonitszchstein, I understand it is my legal obligation to inform you, prior to your grading this paper, that any mark below passing would compromise my sense of worthiness, and possibly result in a case of Student Afflicted by Misguided Educatory Officer Leading to Despair and Broken Self-esteem (SAMEOLDBS), a gross violation of my precious and hard-won Civil Rights. Please have your attorney contact mine if you have any questions.

Ps. Enrique Batsnuwa LaCszynevitch McGomez