“I thought you didn’t believe in violence?”
“You … you …” she sputtered.
“All right, all right. Mike was coming home from work one evening and a couple of New York City’s more baser types tried to mug him. He quite literally beat the shit out of both of them. Broke the neck of one. Almost tore the arm off the other. He did break it in about six places. Mike must have really been pissed off. The punks went to that … ah, particular organization of lawyers we were speaking of a few miles back-that one you no longer wish to discuss-and with their help, the bastards sued my buddy. The criminals sued the victim for damages. Did you hear me, Gale?”
“Yes, Raines!”
“I just wanted to be sure. Anyway, since mugging obviously isn’t, or wasn’t, a particularly odious offense in the Big Apple, and the punks knew their chances of going to prison for what they’d done was slim to none, they admitted what they’d done, sued my buddy-and won. Now, would you care to ask me why I don’t-or didn’t- particularly care for that organization? And for asshole judges with shit for brains; let us not forget those pricks.”
“Raines, I realize any further debate with you on this subject is pointless, since you have a head as hard as a billy goat, but have you ever even vaguely considered the thought about the punishment fitting the crime?”
“I believe that is the longest question I ever heard in my life. But in reply: no. Not since I grew up and realized it was a pile of garbage.”
Gale almost choked on the apple she was munching on. “A pile of garbage! Ben, that is the most insensitive thing I have ever heard you say.”
“Why?” Ben asked, a puzzled look on his tanned face. As usual, a liberal question or statement confused him, had all his life. “The one thing the government never did try in their so-called war on crime is to completely eradicate it. To me, it’s very simple: If a country has no criminals, that country will have no crime. I proved that in Tri-States. It isn’t a theory, Gale. It worked.”
She shook her head and stubbornly held on. “That philosophy would never work in a nation as large as the United States.”
“That’s what I advocated some years back. Now I’m not so certain. It’s a moot point, anyway.” He fell silent, lost in his thoughts.
Gale dropped the apple core into a paper bag and glared at Ben. “Oh, hell, Raines. Go on, get it said.”
“You sure?”
She laughed at the dubious expression on his face. “I’m sure, Bern. I told you I’d be the first to let you know if I ever got tired of you and your soapbox.”
“Very well. You’re too young to remember much before the bombings. You were just a kid, and since both your parents were liberal, it’s doubtful you got the entire picture, free of whitewash.”
“Oh, way to go, Raines.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “But you’re probably right. Just get on with it, huh?”
“It’ll take more than a few words, Gale.” He spun the steering wheel to avoid colliding with a downed tree that was blocking half the road. “Because it takes several things to make a crime-free environment. And not necessarily in this order. It takes full employment. Two or three or six percent unemployment
won’t do it. Full employment is the only way. Why do you want to hear this, Gale?” Ben looked exasperated. “What are you, a masochist?”
“Beats looking at the weather,” she replied. “Just get on with it.”
Her flip reply gave her inner feelings away, at least to Ben. Liberalism had failed miserably. If there was to be, ever again, a workable society built out of the ashes, it had to be something other than the unworkable flights of fancy the liberals had forced upon the taxpayers of America. She wanted to explore all avenues.
“We had full employment in Tri-States, Gale. We had it because healthy, able-bodied people were required to work.” He cut his eyes at her and smiled. “You may interrupt at any time, dear.”
“You forced people to work, Ben?”
“I certainly did, darling. But not at a job they were physically unable to handle. I wouldn’t put a person with a bad heart out digging ditches or a mental defective working at a computer.”
“Very commendable of you, I’m sure,” she said dryly. “Please, do continue. It’s fascinating.” She found another apple and chomped away.
“Back before the bombings, certain organized labor unions advocated a thirty-five hour work week, in order to put more people to work. Very nice of them. But they wanted no cut in pay; they wanted business to absorb the cost. And that leads me right into a restoration of the work ethic. A day’s work for a day’s pay. Pride in one’s work and a cessation of living solely for the weekend and never mind that the product the assembly-line workers were building was
shoddy. And many of them were just that.
“In Tri-States, we took a hard look at the way factories and businesses were run, and we changed the structure of it all. Employee ownership is one way we found that really works. And we did it without the threat of unions hanging over our heads.
“We completely reworked the income tax system. We found that a rigidly enforced graduated scale worked best for us. It was difficult for one to become a millionaire in Tri-States, but certainly not impossible. Everyone paid their share of income tax-everyone. There were no exceptions. We closed virtually all loopholes and made the filing form sol simple a sixth grader could fill it out. You see, Gale, we were able to do that because we did not allow lawyers to have a goddamn thing to do with it. There weren’t many lawyers in Tri-States. There were no fancy lunches or dinners to be written off the income tax as ‘business related.” We stopped virtually all that nonsense, because we all knew it had been so badly abused in the past.
“We started by attacking and challenging many of the so-called “little items.” Company cars, for example, incorporating for another. In Tri-States, one could incorporate all day if one wished. But it wouldn’t help a bit when it came to taxes. No tax breaks there. One could write off a company car, but only for the time one actually used that in the operation of the business. And God help the person who tried to cheat, for the system came down hard.”
“How in the world did you people make it work, Ben? … it boggles my mind. It just seems so … unworkable.”
“Because we did a one hundred and eighty degree turn, honey. We returned to the values this nation was supposedly built upon. Oh, we had people who cheated. Sure we did. But over the years we found them. The system was such that it was almost impossible to get away with crime. I guess it all came back to our type of government. It was a common sense type of government.”
She held up a slim hand. “Whoa, Ben. Kindly explain that, please. Every Rebel I talk with says the same thing. What in the hell is a common sense type of government?”
“Gale, before the bombings, the government of the United States was so top-heavy with bureaucrats it was sinking under its own weight. The government had laws on top of laws, not just the federal government, but local and county and state. The individual citizen had practically no control over his or her life. Day to day living had turned into a stroll through a minefield of legal entanglements. Criminals had more rights than victims. The average citizen really did not know if he could legally protect his life or property or family with deadly force or not. Much of government, while not corrupt-although a lot of that was going on-was confused. Much like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I became very apolitical. That’s not a strong enough word. I, along with millions of others, became discouraged with government. Depressed with the entire system. Our national debt was staggeringly high, with no end in sight. Something had to give. And it did. The whole damned world exploded in war.
Ben paused, looking around him through the gloom of the raging afternoon’s storm. Common sense form of government, he thought. God, how to tell this gentle lady who still could not hit the side of a barn at point-blank range with any type of weapon-how to tell her? How does one who wholeheartedly adopts the fact-and Ben knew it was fact, not theory-that society does not reject those who choose a life of crime, the criminal rejects society, how does one explain that to a person who throughout her formative years had been not-so-subtly brainwashed by a liberal doctrine? Ben had tried a few times before … failing each time.
He took a deep breath-sighed heavily. “Gale, if a person puts a No Trespassing sign up in the front yard, it does not mean the back yard can be explored at will by anyone who so desires. That sign means, quite literally:
