Darenet #10

 

The King of the Moon

By Michael Dare

 

The King of the Moon lost whatever little faith he may have once had in the entire concept of democracy, and not just the corruption of every existing political system, but the very concept of democracy itself. It seemed to him that majority rule sucked for everyone but the majority.

He decided that Democracy only worked with small numbers. The King of the Moon once put three people in a rowboat. Then he did it again. It wasn't till the third time he put three people in a rowboat that the King of the Moon came to a conclusion.

If two people in a rowboat want to go one way but the third wants to go another way, tough for him. There are only two oars. The two who agree, the majority, get the oars and get to decide which way the boat goes. It doesn't mean the two are right and the one is wrong, it just means it takes two to row and they are two while the other remains one. The two are in charge because they are the majority and for no other reason. The one who dissents, the minority, gets to fume or jump overboard.

But put three billion people in a boat, with two billion wanting to go one way and one billion wanting to go another way, and suddenly democracy no longer works. You can't tell one billion people to fume or jump overboard. The majority isn't RIGHT. The minority isn't WRONG. They just have different ideas on how to run their lives. It's absurd for the majority to rule over the minority just because there are more of them. In such a situation, with billions trapped in the same boat, or on the same planet, majority no longer rules. Once a population has grown beyond a certain size, it becomes totally immoral for one group to presume control over another simply because they outnumber them. That's why everybody fled to America in the first place. That's why people were flocking to the moon.

The moon started over with a whole new system, not Democracy, not Socialism, not anarchy, but something brand new. To try to push this new system through any existing system on earth would have been futile. It would have gotten watered down in subcommittee. That's why it had to be the moon, and the King of the Moon was glad.

As King of the Moon, he guaranteed that everyone got what they wanted. He allowed no majority to get the better of a minority. The King of the Moon hated the majority because they always tended to presume they were right about everything. How can they be wrong? They're the majority! Obviously the best burgers on earth must be McDonalds and the best coffee on earth must be Folgers. The King of the Moon took a giant leap of logic and decided that the majority was not just rarely right but ALWAYS WRONG. Majority rule sucked because the majority had lousy taste. Everyone ends up with burgers instead of prime rib, or French fries instead of steamed zucchini.

The King of the Moon had to escape from the tyranny of Democracy, the system that America was successfully foisting upon the rest of the world. . The earth was a planet full of frustrated people who would never get what they wanted because they would never outnumber the majority.

"Fuck democracy" said the King of the Moon. "On the moon, there's no Democracy." And it was true. On the moon, everyone got to go down whatever path they chose. It was a world where EVERYONE got their way.

On the moon there was no Magna Carta, no Constitution, no bible. It was the perfect place to learn from mistakes and start over with a whole new set of social guidelines. The King of the Moon took advantage of his position as King of the Moon. He ran things his way.

You don't get on the moon without signing a binding contract that you will abide by the rules of the King of the Moon. No one may be held on the moon. Anyone is free to leave the moon whenever they choose. The Moon is not a prison. There are no prisons on the moon, just a progressively smaller social circle that one is welcome in. Everyone agrees to give up power over others in exchange for the others relinquishing power over them. Here's how it works.

The King of the Moon decreed that in exchange for allowing others to do whatever they wanted to do, just not in front of you, all others would agree to allow you to do whatever you wanted to do, just not in front of them. It was a fair trade. People on the moon did not have a hard time accepting the fact that there was somewhere they were not welcome. Everyone knew that whoever you are, whatever you do, there's someone who doesn't want to see it. People on earth got up in arms the instant they saw a sign saying No Women or No Blacks or No Gays. Nincompoop women and blacks and gays thought there was something wrong with there being a place they were not welcome. Not on the moon. On the moon, there's always someplace you're not welcome. Who says everyone's got to be welcome everywhere? Not the King of the Moon.

The King of the Moon has no problem at all with the fact that there are people who don't like him because of the color of his skin or the contour of his nose or the shape of his opinions. The King of the Moon knew it was inevitable, so he let there be a place where people who looked and thought like the King of the Moon were not welcome. The King of the Moon didn't mind because there were plenty of other great places where he WAS welcome. It was a serious social contract signed by everybody. Everyone gets space in exchange for giving it to others. On the moon, if you wanna live, you gotta let live.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say the King of the Moon was a heterosexual. As a heterosexual, it didn't bother him in the slightest that there were homosexual establishments where he was not welcome, and anyone who wanted to fight for the right of the King of the Moon to enter homosexual establishments where he was not welcome could go fuck themselves. It was not a right he needed as long as there were other straighter establishments where he COULD go. The King of the Moon went to a country western bar where gays were not allowed, but this was not considered prejudicial or discriminatory on the moon. Why on earth does everybody have to have the right to get in everywhere? Not on the moon.

On the moon, a sign saying NO JEWS ALLOWED is a sign of rationality, not prejudice. People who don't want to hang out with Jews or homosexuals or meat eaters or blacks or midgets or lawyers have the same rights as all to live the life they choose, as long as they bestow upon Jews and homosexuals and meat eaters and blacks and midgets and lawyers the right to gather elsewhere while banning THEM. There are no anti-discrimination laws on the moon, just pro-discrimination laws. People on the moon are allowed to discriminate if that's what makes them happy.

The goal of the King of the Moon was for everyone to be happy. Want to live in a world without blacks? Come to the Moon. The King of the Moon is a little bit black himself and he thinks you're a jerk, but otherwise fine with him. There's a place on the moon where no blacks are allowed, which made a lot of blacks very happy because they didn't want to hang out with people who hated them because of the color of their skin anyway. They actually found it preferable that those assholes hung out in a place far from them.

On the Moon, everybody got a place that made them happy. Want to live somewhere drug free? Fine. Most of the Moon is drug free. But in exchange, drug-o-phobics allow others to live somewhere where drugs ARE allowed. If someone is caught doing drugs in a drug free zone, they are not put in jail, but simply banished from the drug free zone to live in the drug zone where such behavior is tolerated. This zone is called New California.

Whoever you are, whatever you are, whatever you want to do, there is a place on the Moon where you are not only tolerated but accepted and potentially celebrated, a place full of those like you.

This system alleviates the need for prisons. There are no prisons on the moon. On the moon, morality is not legislated. Everything, no matter how seemingly heinous, is allowed SOMEWHERE, so anybody found doing something that’s not allowed locally is simply banned from wherever they are and shipped to the place where that behavior is allowed. Get caught with a gun in a weapons free zone, get shipped to the weapon zone. Get caught stealing, get sent to The Land of Thieves, where everyone is welcome to rip off anyone else without any legal consequences whatsoever. The King of the Moon thought that people who didn't respect other people's property DESERVED to spend some time in The Land of Thieves.

On the Moon, society was still afforded the same protection from dangerous people that they got from prisons on earth. Undesirables were still kept elsewhere. It was just the whole concept of punishment that was out the window. Kill someone on earth and society will kill or incarcerate you. Kill someone on the moon and society will protect itself from you by making you live where killing is allowed. Want to get back at a criminal who killed someone you know, or just feel like killing someone for no reason at all? Go ahead, as long as you do it in the right place. There's still capital punishment. It just works a little differently. Murderers are sent to the Killing Zone. Those outside the zone are welcome to take their lives into their own hands, or hire someone to enter the killing zone, where they are free to kill the assailant, or anyone else they choose. The total punishment for ANY transgression against local laws is to be sent to the place where people do whatever it is that you did.

The one flaw in this plan of the King of the Moon was that it made everybody happy except for those who couldn't stand to see other people happy, which was the majority of people on Earth. His idea only worked in a science fiction world where people actually had no desire to interfere in the lives of others, people who were content to simply get on with their own lives whether they were the majority or not. The King of the Moon wished he were more than science fiction but he wasn't. He was just a product of a deranged imagination. Such is life on Earth.

 

http://I.am/MichaelDare