“It’s like a madhouse, designed by a succession of madmen, each with a deep hatred of their predecessors brand of madness. And it’s on fire.”
[AN: Never in my life have I been prompted to reply with a screenshot of Google asking “Did you mean ‘the Australian Government’?” But no. I am a writer. I make stories.]
Tradition is a very peculiar thing. Things begin with reason and rationality and end in farcical imitation, hundreds or thousands of years later. The story is told of a housewife who cuts her roasts a certain way, because that’s the way her mother did it. Research is undergone and traced back to the grandmother, who could not afford a larger roasting pan, like her more affluent daughters and granddaughters.
Traditions don’t always have to make sense…
Relwer had had enough of the carryings-on of her local politicians. She also had a kickstarter that explained her lofty goals.
Many of them, she was certain, backed her because she promised to get rid of annoying advertising.The rest of it, citizens’ rights, proper drug registration and rehabilitation, the elimination of the glass ceiling… everything that should have been unpopular opinions, basically… all that was overwhelmed by the possibility of reduced blood pressure by way of clever management of really annoying advertising.
She won by a landslide. Filled the houses with people who agreed with her.
It was the first time in history that the political houses were filled with the poor and disenfranchised. Alas, it was also the first time in history that the empowered staged a rebellion. Which was, for the first time in history, the only time that the empowered were successfully overwhelmed by the disempowered, simply because the disempowered actually had a taste of economic freedom under the new regime.
Of course, there were other rebellions, much later. Once an actual even playing field was established. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lovers all teamed up to preserve the way of life they were used to. The people who loved two out of those three teamed up with the religious extremists to try and reassert a rule established by the parts they liked out of a religious book that was written more than a thousand years ago.
Which was quickly squashed by the invention of a community based solely and exclusively on all of the rules in that ancient book. Nobody liked living there. The freedoms they thought they had didn’t exist under Holy Writ.
But… also because of Relwer and her Sensible Revolution… The houses of government now all wear silly hats. Because she had a campaign to display how many politicians were overpaid. She relied on all she needed and nothing more, and wore a silly hat to display her open frugality. She declared to the public that politics was a circus anyway, and she was making all the other clowns stand out. And, to prevent falsification, the silly hat also came with a transparent personal budget.
To this day, the politicians of East Lesser Deregulation are the most humble, and the most ridiculous.
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