A- Order, order. Gentlemen of fine standing and good moral character. I put it to you that the Constitution as written does not indeed protect the rights, nor does it protect the freedoms of those glorious citizens who gave of themselves and shed their blood to nourish this embryonic nation.
B- I say old chap, are you going to go on about letting the rabble club together and cause us a spot of bother, what?
A – Pipe down, Private. There’s nothing democratic about putting the fear of god, or of no-god into the riff raff, and forcing them to get together behind closed doors to talk about their grievances.
B- Calm down, calm down, I was just thinking that we shouldn’t give the hoi poloi too much credence.
A- You underestimate the power of the people my friend. A festering wound into the nation’s psyche can soon turn gangrenous and result in the death of us all.
B- True, we don’t want any rebels plotting to blow up Congress – we don’t even have a good building for it yet.
A- That’s right. Get the unruly usurpers out onto the streets. If they can rebel in public, we can hear their fears, and soothe their frayed nerves in times of deadly plight.
B- And if they can assemble in public, we can photograph them and then send the secret police round to their homes to murder them in their sleep.
A- Photographs?
B- Yes, my pal Tommy Wedgwood is working on a process to capture the likeness of a man on paper. He has a device called a mug-shooter which makes an accurate facsimile of a portrait in mere seconds. If we can get the insurgents to stand up and address a crowd, we can make a copy of their face and print it in the tabloids. We can use the tabloids to create advertising revenue, since we haven’t invented Federal Income Tax yet. And we can use it to fund the secret police.
A- er. If you say so old chap. I was merely thinking of freedom and rights. These ones spring to mind:
- Speech
- Religion
- Assembly
- Press
- Petition the government
B- So be it. Dellow felegates! In response to this direct threat to the Republic, mesa propose that the Senate give immediately emergency powers to t.he Supreme Chancellor
