by Won, Mark
That’s when I conceived the idea of a constitution. I knew I needed to give it some thought. It just wouldn’t do to have some screwed up failure, in need of immediate modification, full of emendation, with unclear intent. It took me two days of wracking my brains before I managed a solid first draft. After that I asked around to feel out the crowd’s opinion on various subjects.
Getting to know what the constituency thinks it wants is always a good idea before making a big move, politically speaking. Notice I used the phrase ‘thinks it wants’. Most people haven’t got a clew.
You see, the populous is a teeming mass of, among other things, ignorance, bigotry, self destructive folly, greed, arrogance, and fear. In my experience that last one, ‘fear’, is the main one to work with. Don’t get me wrong, they all have their day. But fear is the primary motivator. That’s why I put in a ration system in the constitution as the first article. Due to recent experience, fear of hunger was something everyone understood.
After that the militia needed a clear place, subservient to civilian authority (me), defining its role and place in protecting the society I was trying to build. Everyone knew that we needed some form of standing guard to defend us from the Changed, so that’s what I emphasized as the primary purpose of the military. A common threat is a great way to maintain order and loyalty.
Once I had the reader hooked on the basic concept, that I was addressing his fears, I moved on to government form. Americans loved democracy. Nothing else would do, and I knew it. Not that I’d ever seen anything great about the concept. One system of governance works about as well as another. It all depends on what kind of people are in charge. Idiots will screw up a perfect system and wise rulers can force an organic hodgepodge function efficiently.
For those who insist that democracy is the be all and end all of government I offer this case in point: Athens lost. A large number of fools leading cannot, and will not, overcome stupidity in leadership. Still, I knew I had no choice. It was democracy or bust.
But what kind of democracy? That was my question. Political parties were a proven failure. One party, two parties, a dozen parties, it’s all the same. Parties are made up of people and people are idiots. I couldn’t trust my brand new civilization to idiots. That just wouldn’t do. Most people couldn’t tell the difference between a republic and a democracy, or the difference between a parliamentary or presidential system, anyway.
I decided to organize political borders based on existing maps, because people don’t like change. I knew that if I used an old map I wouldn’t have to devise a new border. Each ‘state’ (actually a province) would elect a triumvirate (which I called a Representative Council) for day to day rule, making purely local laws, judicial appointments, etc. Each politician would be personally responsible for getting at least one thousand signatures. Also, their wages were set at a mean level with the populous. I hoped that would weed out some of the greedy.
A politician could not advertise his case, except through equatable government means and stump speeches. In the old U.S.A. political offices were basically purchased through advertising, the voters being so simple that they would generally believe the liar who spent the most money. Furthermore, most, if not all, politicians were required to take bribes in order to generate the vast sums of money necessary to pay for the advertising needed. The bribes were actually legal (if you can believe it) and called ‘campaign contributions’. Obviously, such a self destructive and immoral system couldn’t be allowed.
After the first election, each triumvir (which I called ‘representatives’) could defend his position as an incumbent. The three challengers who got the most popular votes would be chosen to contest those incumbents. Each would face off against a randomly chosen incumbent. That’s the key: randomly chosen.
That was my plan to undo the whole party concept. I’d planned to throw in enough random elements to keep things honest. I know it sounds obvious now, but back in the day folks thought that was just plain crazy. The funny thing is how often a random choice from among equal options is better than all the debate and controversy in the world.
For higher government I planned to have a randomly selected triumvir run against the Incumbent (me). I got the idea from watching presidential elections in the past. Those were more like sporting events with the fate of the populous at stake. The parties were like baseball teams. Instead of a ball the contestants would play around with the gullibility of the populous. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want the fate of the nation determined by team spirit over clear thinking (if there even can be clear thinking in a democratic political process).
There was a bunch of other stuff, of course. Specifics had to be addressed, penalties and exceptions made law, all that kind of thing. My final article emphasized the secondary nature of the constitution to the Constitution of the United States of America, if any functioning form of the old government could be found. I added a similar clause as regards Canada. It seemed a safe bet that both those nations were dead and gone, but the people still had fond memories. By selling my document as a secondary option I hoped to make it more palatable to the masses.
The people ate it up. Sure, there were a few cranky nuts that just enjoyed arguing, but my approval rating was over 99%. I think most folks could tell that my naysayers were the ones who thought they could do a better job than me. Just a bunch of would-be penny ante, tin horn dictators; the sort that might destabilize things or mess with the ration system. In short, opposition to the government of Haven was generally viewed as being senselessly contentious, and potentially self destructive.
And so the State of Haven was established.
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“We have completed the fence with four miles of wire left over.” Josef was speaking. He was a smart man, far better educated than I. Also, he used to be second in charge of a construction crew. That’s why I’d put him in charge of perimeter defense construction.
We were in my board room, in my house, on my island. I’d made sure that it was clear from the beginning that anyone could keep, for himself, what he took back from the world, by himself. I took the island alone, so it was, and would continue to be, mine, even after I was no longer in office.
Josef needed a compliment. “Ahead of schedule, too. That’s excellent work. What will you need to get the same job done on the south side?” Since the water probably wouldn’t freeze on the islands southern coast, thus creating a potential bridge for the enemy, a fence in that location wasn’t as important from a defensive perspective. The people liked to have a visible defensive barrier all the way around, though, so I wanted to get the job done anyway. Besides, better safe than sorry.
Josef said, “I figure we can get started day after tomorrow. After that we’ll need more cable or wire.” The fence was a simple saw horse design, nailed together and reinforced with wire. My plan was to ring each island we reclaimed with a triple fence, eventually.
Marty spoke up, “We have Spirit island almost ready for another group of movers. All that’s left is thirty-seven more houses. Those should be done by tomorrow. We already got the water towers built on the south quadrant.” Marty was the man in charge of getting things done on Spirit Island. Naturally, he’d also worked in construction. In his case as a head foreman for a national firm. He knew how to motivate, and more importantly, how to teach a labor crew.
I asked him, “How long before you can get our wind generators set up on the island?” All the other islands had electrical power by then and I didn’t want our last bunch of movers to feel slighted.
Marty told me that was up to the electricians. So I asked Moe, our chief electrician, what the bottleneck was.
Moe said, “I can’t get the parts transported fast enough. Every time a boat comes in we have a bunch of movers and no parts. I can’t assemble what I can’t get!” He seemed upset. Time to defuse.
“It’s a miracle what you’ve done so far. If the citizens are happy moving in without power then that will be their loss until we
can catch up. Say, Floyd, Maybe you could get someone to make sure we prioritize what Moe needs, over moving people into the island, for the next few trips.”
Floyd said, “The movers won’t like it. They’re pretty keen on getting some elbow room. Especially before winter.”
“The weather projections don’t look to favorable for a landing in Spirit, for the next couple of weeks,” I lied. I always made sure to keep Roy, our meteorologist, out of those meetings. In fact, I always made it a point to keep him out of sight when I had visitors.
He was the perfect scapegoat for anything I could conceivably blame on the weather. Everybody expected poor Roy to be wrong, and nobody could blame me for ‘trusting’ his warnings. I was pretty sure everyone at that table suspected that I was lying, by the way I brandished my weather forecaster anytime I wanted things to go my way. But what could they say? All sins forgiven as long as the work got done.
I moved on. “Tony, how’s medical production coming along?”
“We are maintaining reasonable levels of antibiotics. They keep going bad, of course, but we have enough to deal with an outbreak. The real problem is that we can’t move many supplies to the island until we have reliable refrigeration. Same with insulin. What I’d really like to do is move production out to all six islands.” He meant besides the peninsula, which was technically also an island, due to the short canal separating it from the rest of the county.
“And we will. First thing next year.” We’d been over that already.
Kane broke in, “Our explosives production is still crap. I can give you nitro, I just can’t make it safe. Put it in bullets and it’ll be sweating all over the place. Not safe. Not safe at all. And the black powder can’t happen for another year, at best. No matter how much pee we collect, it still takes as long as it takes for that stuff to turn into saltpeter. I’m still confused about where we’re going to get sulfur from, anyway?”
I already knew all that. One problem with our monthly discussions was that everybody seemed to think I was out to judge them. But if I’d left Kane out of the meeting I’d have hurt his feelings. Trust me, you don’t want your explosives expert, and only manufacturer, to have hurt feelings. That would be a terrible reservoir for bad morale, not to mention missing fingers waiting to happen.
“Don’t try to rush anything, Kane. Right now just keep your focus on not losing body parts. Safety first. In your case safety can come second, and third, too. Just see if you can stabilize a little dynamite and then we’ll go from there.”
That brought me around to Paul. “Any word from the scouts?” I asked him.
“It’s way too early yet.” I’d known the answer but the question had to be asked.
Paul was a former special forces soldier. Definitely the man I wanted in charge of rescue and scouting. He’d sailed up the Mississippi with his wife and kids, leading a few other boats. Originally, They’d come from Florida, so it had been quite a trip. Along the way they’d encountered a city at the mouth of the river, along the coast, that had been untouched by the Change. As Paul told it, they’d had to escape after failing to pay off a local gang leader turned warlord.
My thinking was that the land just west of that city was known for its sulfur deposits. We already had a nice deal with a small Tennessee community but it couldn’t hurt to expand operations. Hopefully, some sulfur would have found its way into New Orleans or its environs. Hence, the scouts. Well armed, experienced men who knew how to handle themselves. And, more importantly, how to get home safely with actionable information.
Just then my idiot boss spoke up, “What we need to do is send out Floyd to find out who’s in charge. Why do we keep wasting time with all this pretend nonsense? Who cares about log cabins? If you want electricity back what we need to do is find the government! They could send out real repair crews. Those poor ‘scouts’ are as good as dead, and that man’s experiments,” he motioned to Kane, “are dangerous and unsanitary!”
You might wonder who invited him. He did. The arrogant idiot always did have the annoying habit of hanging around and getting in the way.
At first, my idiot boss had been all in favor of the new housing project. It got people out of my home and into their own houses, thus freeing up space around the place and making more room for him. Once the population thinned out somewhat he’d started to regain his confidence and the overbearing sense of entitlement which came with it. I guess his grieving period was officially over.
I told him, “We’ve all suffered loss and I really don’t want to be rude. None of us mind you hanging about,” that was an obvious lie. Everyone loathed him, “but we really need to get these matters settled. So, please.”
That was more than he could take. “Who the hell do you think you are?!” He turned his attention to Floyd, “That employee is a nobody! You’re the one who’s in charge here. Get off your butt and get out there! We need you to find whoever is in charge so they can help us.”
At that outburst we had a bit of a kerfuffle. Everyone at the table started shouting at my idiot boss, trying to be the first to make him shut up. The whole thing put me in an awkward position.
Paul asked me, “Who is this guy, anyway? Why is he here?”
A pair of entirely valid questions. It actually took me a second to figure out the answers. I could have gotten rid of my idiot boss at any time. He could have been shipped out as soon as we reclaimed Lincoln Island and been made to live there. At first I thought I’d kept him around, in relative luxury, as an act on compassion, but that didn’t sound like me. Then I thought I’d kept him with me because he used to be my boss, but that couldn’t be right, either. I suddenly realized that I’d kept him close because he knew damn well that I’d never been a town council member of anywhere. Without realizing it I had wanted to ‘keep my friends close and my enemies closer’. I was afraid that he’d blab.
With that realization I had a new plan. I asked Floyd, “Could you please have someone escort this poor man to his room? As gently as possible, please.” Floyd called in a couple of soldiers and had my idiot boss dragged to his room and put under guard. Fortunately for me, he took that badly, throwing a fit the whole way. He howled out self important gibberish such as, “I’ll have you all sued!” and, “Do you know who I am!?”
Once he was out of the picture I addressed my various chiefs of progress. “That poor man has suffered as much as any of us. I found him stumbling about in a stupor and picked him up while I was on my way here. Ever since then he’s called me his ‘employee’. He thinks he owns a vast commercial empire and has obviously lost all touch with reality. I never had the heart to confront his madness. Until now he was harmless. If any of you have suggestions please don’t keep them to yourselves.”
I’ve always found it’s a good idea to ask people their opinions. That sort of thing helps everyone get along, and very often I’ve heard excellent ideas. Also, it might look bad if I used my political might to do something negative to my idiot boss. But if someone else suggested it, then it would be okay.
Everyone was sympathetic. Eventually it was agreed upon that we might need a safe place to keep anyone who couldn’t adjust to modern living. The kind of place with bars on the windows, walls which could be padded, and a lockable door. The jail on Lincoln Island was hit upon as an excellent choice for a temporary insane asylum. And that was that.
Chapter 4: Matters of State, Sunrise Service, and Wildly Conflicting Theories
“Of course, Pastor, barring an emergency, I can’t imagine anywhere that I’d rather be.” That’s how I answered Pastor Ert when he asked if I would make it to the Easter sunrise service.
During the last three years things has been moving along real smoothly. I’d had no personal adventures. In our first year we’d established contact with a small southern town with access to sulfur and they’d been happy to trade for bullets and medicine. During our second year Paul led an expedition to New Orleans. They were thrilled to trade potassium nitrate for, well, anything.
Very recently we’d managed to establish trade with a small community along the Gulf Coast, Morning Town by name. They had no shortage of salt, and we had no shortage of corn. We had to send our reworked riverboat, the Salacia, past New Orleans, to get there. It was a wood burner, now.
The Big Easy had really torn itself apart after the Change. Now they had a police state. Literally, it was run by the police. I’d made a major point of helping them as much as possible. With a population of over two hundred thousand people remaining, I did not want them getting too jealous. That’s why I’d sent a team of smart people down there with Paul to teach them how to convert their fishing boats over to bio-diesel. And why I’d sent them a bunch of planting seed. And why I’d made sure they were advised on proper farming principles. Relatively minor offerings to help insure friendly relations. They were more than happy to hand over the contents of a couple of small warehouses full of sulfur in return.
We had all seven islands reclaimed by then: Peninsula Isl, Flat Tail Isl, White Wood Isl, St. John Isl, Drummer Isl, Rooster Isl, and Spirit Isl. There were other, smaller islands, but those were the big seven. There were three ‘states’: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario. Each had its own Representative Council, and I had selected my own ‘Assistant Incumbent’ just in case I died. His name was Fred. He used to be a factory worker.
Our communications system was up and running. We still had trouble sending information between islands, especially in bad weather, but any internet/phone service is better than none. That also allowed me to ‘invent’ electronic money. We’d found a bunch of state aid cards which my tech crew had been able to repurpose. Obviously cash wouldn’t work. All some adventurer had to do was go knock over a bank to ruin the economy. Gold and silver actually had similar problems. I had no idea who was guarding Fort Knox these days, but there was plenty of gold just laying around for anyone with the gumption to go get it.
