Public Policy Panic

The Heurich Society was not happy about having a meeting the Sunday before the 4th of July, but several of its grumpy old members had invoked the emergency meeting clause, and so here was Henrietta ("Button") Samuelson, passing around bowls of whipped cream, chopped nuts, berries, and candy sprinkles for her membership to build their own ice cream sundaes and calm down a little with the help of milkfat, sugar, and chocolate.  She rapped her gavel and tried to chair the opening of the meeting, but chaos continued to reign in the upper floor meeting room of the Brewmaster's Castle.

"The Pope's encyclical on climate change is the greatest threat to capitalism the world has ever seen!  The compassion for the environment and the poor--where does he get this stuff?  It's dynamite!  He's trying to get rid of survival-of-the-fittest!"

"The terrorists are coordinating their strikes all over the world--it's only a matter of time before Washington is hit!"

"The race war will hit us first!  It's time to trade all our assets for food and water and hunker down in the bunkers with our families for the next 100 years until 75% of the world's population slaughters each other or dies of bird flu!"

"There are sixty million refugees in the world!  This is the largest number since World War II!  Cannibalism and slaving pirate ships are right around the corner!"

Samuelson blew her rape whistle, and the grumpy old men finally shut up.  "Alright, well I'm glad some of you are finally noticing that maybe we should be focused on more important things than getting Condi named the new Commissioner of the National Football League."

"I resent that!" crackled Condoleezza Rice over the speakerphone.  "This is a small project that uses very few Society resources!"

"Whatever," said Samuelson.  "Our mission statement is to maximize wealth, power, and freedom.  There are serious threats in the world today, but we will deal with them as we always have--rationally, intelligently, and strategically."

The ghost of Henry Samuelson shook his head in the corner.  Wow, she really never read the minutes from those years before she took over.

"The terrorism and refugee problems are tied to climate change," the younger Samuelson continued.  "I've asked the Project Prometheus Committee chairman to report on their progress in preparing for the global security problems caused by climate change."

"Climate change isn't real!"

"Then why's the ice cream melting?"

"Shut up!"

Button Samuelson blew her rape whistle again and gestured to the Project Prometheus chairman, who cleared his throat and began to read from his repaired notes.  "It is very regrettable that Pope Francis has framed the problem in terms of attacking capitalism as the source of persistent poverty, environmental degradation, and global warming.  We have concluded that--"

"Concluded?" asked Samuelson.  "You just started talking, and you're telling us your conclusion?"

"Well, it's quite obvious, after you really analyse it.  There's only one acceptable path forward that does not involve an unacceptable change in our way of life:  we need to sterilize the world's poor."

"What?!" cried Button Samuelson.

"It's more humane than letting their children all turn into refugees, slaves, slavers, or cannibals.  Cut off the supply of young girls' being born, and ISIS won't have anything to bribe its warriors with.  Mass sterility will cause people to lose their religious fundamentalism altogether.  Greenhouse gas emissions will fall as populations decline to pre-Industrial Age levels.  The entire world will calm down, and we can remain living above ground."

"That's an interesting argument," crackled Rice over the speakerphone.  "What do you propose for the sterilization method?"

"Are you out of your minds?!" exclaimed Button Samuelson.

"Do you have a better solution?" retorted the chair of the Project Prometheus Committee.

"You call global eugenics a solution!?"

"Yes, I do!" he insisted.  "It's more humane than letting the world descend back into the Dark Ages."

"Well, I'm not signing off on that plan, and it's not open to debate!" declared Samuelson.  "You better have a Plan B!"

"Well," he sighed, "Plan B is to acknowledge that it's too late to stop climate change and the global security problems it is causing.  We need to build a Noah's Ark spaceship to take our families in search of a new planet.  Frankly, I feel this is a far more irresponsible plan."

A few miles away, the Congressional Holier Than Thou Caucus was having its own emergency/hysterical meeting in the leafy backyard of a South Carolina Representative, who was telling them that he had a prophetic dream that the mass murderer's wish would come true, and race war was about to start in his home state.  "He shot Christians in a church!" the Representative sobbed.  "He can only be the Antichrist!"

"I agree," exclaimed a representative from Texas.  "He's not even a Muslim!  He was surely the First Horseman of the Apocalypse!"

And then others joined in, crazed with excitement.

"The Obamacare ruling was the Second Horseman!  Now government officials will put their death panels in place in every state and start killing off people of faith!"

"Then the gay marriage ruling was the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse--with the White House beaming a gay rainbow of light from the roof--like a Satanic beam calling out to all the wicked of the world to gather there and fornicate and sodomize!"

"Wait, I think Bruce Jenner was the First Horseman of the Apocalypse, now that I think of it.  And how can a Supreme Court ruling be a Horseman?"

"It can be a sign of the Apocalypse."

"And the shooter was the Second Horseman?"

"The Pope was the Third Horseman!"

"Stop!" yelled Congressman Herrmark, who had only joined the Caucus in a desperate attempt to try to schmooze for votes against fracking.  "Do you realize how crazy you sound?  Obamacare is going to cost a lot of money, but it's not about death panels, for God's sake.  And gay people are going to sodomize whether they have a marriage certificate or not, so you can't say the Supreme Court is bringing on the Apocalypse!  That boy in Charleston is mentally deranged--it doesn't mean he's the Antichrist!"

"Your church doesn't do a good job of teaching the Apocalypse!" said a Pentecostal to Congressman Herrmark.

"Well, I know a zombie when I see one, and that's the most ungodly thing around!  You people need to get your priorities straight!"

The other members of the Holier Than Thou Caucus looked at Congressman Herrmark in perplexity--except for the few who were also members of Congressman Herrmark's Anti-Zombie Caucus.  He looked to them for support.

"I have seen some zombies, too," admitted a Congressman from Florida.  "What Herrmark is saying is true."  He sighed deeply  "Perhaps they were the first sign of the Apocalypse, and we should have warned you."

"Why, you're talking about the Occult!" exclaimed the Congressman from South Carolina.  "Not in my house!  Get behind me, Satan!"

"Now, John," protested the Congressman from Florida, "I'm not mixed up in the Occult!  Congress has a bunch of zombies, and we've been hunting them down, but they keep multiplying, and we don't even know how!  They have maggots for brains, and are causing a lot of crazy votes on the Hill!  You have to believe us!"

"Deliver us from Evil, he's gone over to the dark side!"

"I was always suspicious that he missed that vote on school prayer!"

Congressman Herrmark and his colleague from Florida looked to the other (still secret) members of the Anti-Zombie Caucus, but they were just looking down at the grass.  "Fine!" said Herrmark.  "I'm outta here!  You want to have hysterics about the Supreme Court, go at it."

"And that shooter isn't a sign of the Apocalypse!" exclaimed the Congressman from Florida.  "He's a sign that the NRA has too much damned power in this country!"  And he spit on the grass and walked out with Herrmark.

Behind the hydrangea bushes, the ghost of Condoleezza Rice's cat, Pippin, and the rest of the feline ghost gang, resumed killing sparrows.

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COMING UP:  Congressman John Boehner's quest for liberty!