Until last night, I had overlooked one Cabinet Position that now seems like such a no-brainer--de rigeur, even, for an Enlightened, (mostly*) Benevolent Dictatorship: A Politeness Czar! Why didn't I think of it before? [insert obligatory auto-smacking of forehead] Give Judith Martin powers that barely fall short of my own [insert mental image of subpoenas engraved on vellum parchment], and public discourse would clear up immediately. Well, nearly immediately. After a few (ahem!) "examples" are made of the most egregious offenders.
For instance, Ms. Martin would have the power to schlep the Fred Phelps clan, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, et. al. off to the newly-established Witless Protection Program. Then, still on the government nickel, alter their appearances via cosmetic surgery. (In Ann's case, that might not require too much work: leave her there long enough for her roots to grow out and the years of bulb-tanning to run their course--it shouldn't take long, from the looks of it.) Nationalize their assets, and require them to spend the rest of their lives actually working for a living. Preferably in low-end retail.
See, I think that the essential problem with the way that Western-style executive "Cabinets" are arranged is that they address the symptoms and not the underlying disease. When I'm elected Autocrat of damp little planetary jewel that we like to call "Earth", the arrangement would be significantly different. The Cabinet positions on my informal laundry-list include:
- Ministry of Fair Play (the largest and most powerful office). The Ministry has the responsibility to ensure that your access to education, health care, clean air, safe food and water, housing, and other vital services( private or public) is not affected by the color, gender, ethnicity, or neural wiring you happened to be born with. The Ministry is charged with making second-class citizenship unequivically verboten. Lobbyists will be required to wear armbands onsite, and have all communications with public officals immediately made public. The office bears some of the burden, also, for stopping the rich and powerful from squishing the poor and the voiceless, although some duties are shared with the Ministry of "Stop Acting like You're the Only Person On this Planet, D---it!".
- Ministry of Personal Accountability (the second most powerful office). This office has the entire judiciary system under its purview. It is additionally charged with the mission of ensuring that professional athletes, actors, supermodels, quote-unquote celebrities, rock stars, and corporate malfeasants lose both their position and public recongnition, similar to the treatment prescribed above for hate-mongering "provocateurs". The educational system is also the baliwick of this Ministry. Literacy rates will soar after underachievers are sent for six-month stints in the industrial concentration camps otherwise known as sweatshops for a "lesson" in the workings of The Real World. Additionally, the public service currently being done more or less pro-bono by the folks at The Darwin Awards will be underwritten by public funds.
- Ministry of "Stop Acting Like You're the Only Person on this Planet, D---it!" Given how many wars are started by epidemic levels of ego-poisoning at the upper eschelons of government, the military, logically, answers to this office. In lieu of a large standing army/navy/air force/marine corps, the military will instead heavily emphasize Navy Seal-type teams whose mission is to kidnap the sabre-rattlers and demogogues of this world and bring them to top-secret "training" facilities. In lieu of more mundane forms of torture, detainees will instead be subjected to communication style self-assessments, anger-management group therapy, and nonsensical team-building exercises such as building hats with spaghetti and masking tape. Detainees who show progress will be spared the ultimate horror of the Office Christmas Party. The responsibility for enforcing environmental protection laws also falls under this Ministry. Greenpeace will be issued submarines and torpedoes. Lastly, conspicuous consumption will be permitted in the name of libertarian principles, albeit in a heavily taxed form. Additionally, purchasers of goods designated as conspicuous will have pigs Barq-tooed on their foreheads.
- Ministry of Politeness - This, in spirit, could well be described as the secular version of the Unitarian Jihad. As The Police so rightly observed in the early 80s, "Poets, priests and politicians/have words to thank for their positions." Poverty and hopelessness cause quite enough collateral damage, thank you very little, without REMFs upending their gasoline cans on already-flammable situations. In the same spirit, road rage will be punishable by the offending party being forced to bike or bus for six months. And, in the interest of checks and balances, El Supremo Presidente has very little sway over this office, and merely claims the humble title of her U.J. name, "Sister Molotov Cocktail of Fairmindedness".
But. (You knew that there had to be a "but," didn't you?)
As important as it is to minimize the (alas, inevitable) damage done by the morons and @$holes, it is drop-dead critical that no one is exempted from taking responsibility for their knowledge and beliefs, as well as their actions (and inactions). Simply put, there is no point in levelling the playing field for bench-warmers.
I suspect that the blowback from the "personal accountability" initiatives may actually be more severe than that from divesting the robber baron thugs of their ill-gotten gelt and influence. But once the bullhorns of demogoguery have been turned off, the warlords defanged, the monopolies disenfranchised, the oligarchies disbanded, the castes homogenized...who knows? People might actually get a little used to relative civility in addition to calling the shots in their own lives. And I even dare hope that a taste for real achievement (even failure at something that you put your heart and sweat into IS an achievement) will supplant the addiction to the soma that so many have a vested interest in spoon-feeding us. [insert wistful, misty-eyed sigh] An aspirant to World Dictatorship's gotta have her dreams, y'know...
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* Some restrictions on benevolence apply. El Supremo Presidente for Life reserves the right to muzzle loud drunks, cellphone-addicts, incessantly barking dogs and bratty children at will.
