Friday, July 23, 2004

Once upon a liberal

Once upon a time there was a kind and compassionate mad scientist by the name of Herr Doktor Liberius. Liberius was very unhappy with the way the world was. So he set about to turn the world into one big social experiment.

He began by inventing a better human being by the name of Androgyne. Now Androgyne had removable sex organs so that he/she could choose his/her own gender from one day to the next. Androgyne also had an African nose and mouth, Asian eyes, and reddish skin.

One day, in a terrible lab accident, Doktor Liberius inadvertently bred a set of blue eyes and shock of blond hair. But he quickly disposed of this color scheme— lest someone take offense.

Liberius next made a rotating set of parents for Androgyne. Monday-Thursday, Androgyne had two mommies, while Friday-Sunday, Androgyne had three daddies.

In order to defray the expenses of the lab, made Androgyne’s various parents pay a wide variety of taxes for its upkeep. There were many different duties for many different "services." There was a bedroom tax for sleeping on a king-sized mattress, a prorated potty tax for each use of the WC, an oxygen surtax for unauthorized intake of fresh air, a gustatory surtax for eating non-organic snacks, an ingressive tax for getting into the car, an egressive tax for getting out of the car, and so on.

(Originally, the potty tax was a flat tax until the Anti-Defecation League went to court to have this struck down as an unduly regressive form of taxation)

Because Androgyne’s two mommies and three daddies had to hold two or three different jobs apiece to pay all their taxes, they had no time to spend with poor little Androgyne. So Doktor Liberius, as a kind and compassionate mad scientist, opened a 24/7-daycare center, and charged the parents a daycare duty.

When the parents complained that they could not afford to pay the daycare duty, Doktor Liberius, as a kind and compassionate mad scientist, hired them to work at the daycare so that they could pay the daycare duty out of their daycare wages. This way they were now working at the daycare to pay the daycare because they were too busy working at the daycare, to pay the daycare, to take care of little Androgyne at home. What could be more convenient?

Doktor Liberius then opened a preschool in the daycare, and after that a K-12 in the daycare. Needless to say, he had to raise taxes to defray the cost of the new school.

The core curriculum was learning how to feel good about yourself feeling good about your neighbor feeling good about yourself.

After Androgyne graduated from the daycare school, he/she had trouble holding down a job because he/she had no marketable job skills. As a kind and compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius started a remedial job-training program, charging the parents a surtax. The core curriculum was learning how to feel good about yourself feeling good about your neighbor feeling good about yourself.

Androgyne complained that he/she had to walk a whole block from the daycare center to the adjacent training center. As a compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius hired a taxicab service to transport Androgyne from the daycare center to the training center, and charged the parents a taxi-tax.

After Androgyne graduated from the program, he/she still had trouble holding down a job. As a kind and compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius took immediate measures to solve the problem. He passed a law classifying Androgyne’s incompetence as a board certified medical disability. Any business that fired an employee who didn’t do his job was mandated by law to pay him a full pension.

As an early retiree, Androgyne had a lot of free time on his/her hands, and began to dabble in armed robbery as a way of passing the time. As a kind and compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius took swift action to break the cycle of violence. He passed a law disarming security guards, fining bank managers for badmouthing bank robbers ("hate speech"), and made the bank hire a psychologist to counsel Androgyne on his/her injured self-esteem.

But Androgyne sank into a deep funk. His/her condition was scientifically diagnosed as removable sex organ syndrome (RSOS). The prescribed course of therapy was removable-removable sex organ surgery (RRSOS). To cover the cost, his parents were assessed an RRSOS-tariff.

Although the operation was pronounced a complete success, it presented Androgyne with a new challenge. Back in preschool he had received a complete course how to practice safe sex with removable sex organs. But what was he supposed to do with a fully integrated set of sex organs?

The hospital sent him home with several extra packages of male contraceptives, after charging the parents a—you guessed it! —prophylactic-tax. Unfortunately, Androgyne was inexperienced in the use of condoms, and his experimental efforts resulted in an unwanted pregnancy.

This, in turn, triggered a good deal of litigation and legislation. The local grocery store was sued and assessed a fine for failing to supply organic cucumbers for sex ed. They carried non-organic cucumbers, but these were deeply offensive to vegan contraceptive consumers. As a consequence, a new law was passed mandating that all grocery stores either stock organic cucumbers—in various lengths and circumferences, specified in law.

For a time it looked like zucchinis mind win out over cucumbers when The Zucchini Action Defense Fund (ZADF) made a sizable contribution to the chairman's reelection campaign. However, this motion was tabled after The Committee for the Ethical Treatment of Zucchinis (CETZ) too strenuous exception, contending that this law would play into the racist stereotype of Latin Lovers, and incite possible violence against innocent, law-abiding zucchinis.


But the episode was so embarrassing that poor Androgyne became ever more depressed. At first he was prescribed anti-depressants, for which his parents were assessed an uppers-surtax. When he got hooked on uppers, he was prescribed downers, for which his parents were prescribed a downers-surtax. Then he was checked into drug rehab, for which his parents were charged a rehab-tax. After he became a hopeless junkie, he was given free needles, which came out of the I.V.-tariff. Then he was given free cocaine, which came out of the crack-tax lock-box.

Meanwhile, Androgyne’s parents began to complain about their workload. As a kind and compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius cut them back to a 4-day workweek, gave them an annual 3-month vacation, and raised their taxes to make up for lost revenue.

Due to chronic fatigue, Androgyne, along with his two mommies and three daddies, was committed to a state-run nursing home. However, the nursing home suffered from a staffing shortage.

You see, as a kind and compassionate mad scientist, opposed the death penalty for anyone above the age of 9 months outside the womb, but supported the death penalty for anyone below the age of 9 months inside the womb. This had the unforeseen consequence of seriously skewing the ratio between bedpan users and bedpan disposers.

As a result, Androgyne, along with his two mommies and three daddies, lived unhappily ever after. Well, not quite. As a kind and compassionate mad scientist, Doktor Liberius had them put out of their misery and ground into Magnon chow-mien to feed the lab rats, so that he could invent a better human being by the name of Androgyne 2. Now Androgyne 2 had removable sex organs so that...

The End

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Disclaimer: all the people in this story are real. But the names have been changed to protect the good name of innocent fairy tale characters from guilt-by-association.

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