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How Government Was Invented by A. Sherman
HOW GOVERNMENT WAS INVENTED
Homo Sapiens, or Sap for short, was awakened one night by Flagg:
SAP: What's going on? It's the middle of the night.
FLAGG: We're starting a government. Hurry! Sign here!
SAP: Go away. I'm sleepy.
FLAGG: But this is an emergency! We need a government to
defend us against the dirty foreign enemy.
SAP: Who?
FLAGG: The people on the other side of the Zucchini Patch.
SAP: Some of my best friends live over there.
FLAGG: Don't talk treason. Those people are trying to plunge
us into the world's first war.
SAP: What's a war?
FLAGG: Their government makes them march over here and shoot
arrows at us and gouge our eyes out and kick us in the
balls.
SAP: That's awful. Is our government going to be like that?
FLAGG: Completely different. We believe in peace -- the
opposite of war. Our government will prevent wars from
starting.
SAP: How?
FLAGG: Before they can start a war, we march over there and
throw spears at them, gouge their eyes out, kick them
in the balls.
SAP: That ought to make them think twice.
FLAGG: Of course, wars will start in lots of different ways.
For example, the king of Babylon might send a note to
the king of Mesopotamia saying, "Let's have lunch."
SAP: How could that start a war?
FLAGG: Unfortunately the Babylonian word for "let's have
lunch" is the same as the Mesopotamian word for "go
fuck yourself." But most of the wars will be fought
over territory.
SAP: You mean like the Zucchini Patch?
FLAGG: Right. Someday YOU may have the honour of dying to
save that hallowed Zucchini Patch.
SAP: But I don't even like zucchini. It gives me hives.
FLAGG: Why worry about hives? You'll be dead.
SAP: I'd rather have hives.
FLAGG: Imagine. We'll build a big statue of you, with an
inscription: "In memory of Sap, who gave his life's
blood to bring us everlasting peace for a few months."
SAP: No, thanks, I don't think I'll join.
FLAGG: Don't you believe in our glorious way of life?
SAP: Look, I'll tell you what -- you go home and work some
more on this government idea. When you get some of the
killing out of it, come back and talk to me.
FLAGG: But our government will be AGAINST killing. We'll have
police and detectives and judges to protect you.
SAP: You'll stop a criminal before he kills me?
FLAGG: Not exactly. We step in just AFTER someone kills you.
SAP: Well, better late than never.
FLAGG: When we find the killer, we kill him. Killers must be
paid in their own coin.
SAP: What do you do to a rapist, fuck him?
FLAGG: For other crimes we have correctional institutions.
SAP: What happens there?
FLAGG: We rebuild criminals so they can live in Society with
human dignity.
SAP: How do you teach them hunam dignity?
FLAGG: Make them eat bread and water. Make them go to the
toilet in the same room where they eat -- with guards
watching. Take away their names and give them numbers.
Cut off their sex lives. Make them crush rocks or walk
around in circles. Cut off their communications with
people outside. Put them in a pitch-black dungeon all
alone for a few months.
SAP: Don't you build anything besides dungeons?
FLAGG: Oh, sure. We build insane asylums.
SAP: What's an insane asylum?
FLAGG: A big building where we keep crazy people.
SAP: How do you know they're crazy?
FLAGG: You'd HAVE to be crazy to stay in a place like that.
SAP: How do these crazy people get in?
FLAGG: If someone's wife or husband or uncle signs a paper
swearing he's crazy, we lock him up.
SAP: What if HE signs a paper swearing he's NOT crazy?
FLAGG: We tear it up and throw it away.
SAP: How come?
FLAGG: A crazy person will sign anything.
SAP: What else do you build?
FLAGG: Well -- schools.
SAP: What happens there?
FLAGG: We teach children the things they should know.
SAP: Like what?
FLAGG: Oh -- like what a wonderful government they have and
how to salute it every morning and how rotten the other
government is and what to do when you sing our national
anthem.
SAP: What do you do when you sing it?
FLAGG: You have to stand up and uncover your bellybutton and
put your right thumb into it.
SAP: How come?
FLAGG: To symbolize the cord that connects you with your
mother country. Just wait until you see one hundred
thousand bare bellybuttons, all doing that at once.
It's a stirring sight, believe you me. Well -- how
about joining?
SAP: How many portions of food will it cost me?
FLAGG: Oh, just give us all your food, and we'll give you some
official money.
SAP: Money?
FLAGG: Little flat stones.
SAP: Oh, good. I know where a lot of little flat stones
are. I'll go get some.
FLAGG: They'd better have my picture on them.
SAP: Oh. Well -- once I get my money stones, what do I do
with them?
FLAGG: Well, first you'll have to give a lot of them to the
ERS.
SAP: What's the ERS?
FLAGG: The Eternal Revenue Service.
SAP: What does the Eternal Revenue Service do for me?
FLAGG: It keeps you out of jail.
SAP: How?
FLAGG: By collecting your taxes.
SAP: What are taxes?
FLAGG: Money you pay to keep out of jail.
SAP: That sounds like bribery.
FLAGG: Certainly not. Any bribes you pay are over and above
your taxes.
SAP: What kinds of things do you tax?
FLAGG: Oh, little incidentals -- like the getting-born tax.
SAP: What's that?
FLAGG: It costs four stones for your birth certificate. It
proves you were born.
SAP: Everybody knows I was born.
FLAGG: You have to have an official birth certificate. For
example, to get into school.
SAP: Suppose I don't go to school?
FLAGG: All citizens must attend school. School is cumpulsory.
Besides why waste your school tax?
SAP: Is everything cumpulsory?
FLAGG: Oh, no. Take the library. You don't have to use it if
you don't want to.
SAP: That's nice.
FLAGG: But the library TAX is cumpulsory, whether you use it
or not. Of course, it's one of the smallest taxes we
have.
SAP: There are MORE taxes?
FLAGG: Oh, YES.
SAP: What kind?
FLAGG: Well, there's income tax.
SAP: What's that?
FLAGG: When you sell something, you give us money. And then
there's outgo tax.
SAP: What's that?
FLAGG: When you BUY something, you give us money. Do you
smoke?
SAP: A little.
FLAGG: Cigarette tax. Drink wine?
SAP: Now and then.
FLAGG: Alcohol tax. Enjoy music and dancing?
SAP: Oh, yeah. You betcha.
FLAGG: Entertainment tax. Is this your hut?
SAP: Yes.
FLAGG: Property tax. What about this ground under this hut?
SAP: It's mine, too.
FLAGG: Real-estate tax. That your eagle over the door?
SAP: That's right.
FLAGG: Property-improvement tax.
SAP: Wait a minute! Do I have to pay all those taxes?
FLAGG: Of course not. You can go to jail.
SAP: What if I just stay in my hut and do nothing?
FLAGG: Retirement tax. And, also, for how long?
SAP: I don't know. Two, three months.
FLAGG: Do you ever shit during a two-, three-month period?
SAP: Well -- yes. I mean, I'm normal.
FLAGG: Well then, sewer tax. And how will you earn a living?
SAP: What if I buy and sell things somewhere else?
FLAGG: Import and export tax.
SAP: What is I just give things away?
FLAGG: Gift tax. And if someone gives you something,
inheritance tax.
SAP: You know what I think I'll do? I think I'll just pack
up and go away.
FLAGG: Travel tax. How do you plan to go?
SAP: Oh, I'll just drive around in my oxcart.
FLAGG: Vehicle tax. By the way, would you let your ox starve?
SAP: Of course not.
FLAGG: Okay. Fuel tax. Where are you going to drive?
SAP: Maybe I'll go see the other country.
FLAGG: Passport tax. How will you eat?
SAP: Oh, I'll just hunt and fish.
FLAGG: Hunting-and-Fishing-License tax.
SAP: Dammit! I give up! The way you've got things worked
out, I might as well be dead.
FLAGG: A death certificate costs eight stones.
SAP: Why do I need a death certificate?
FLAGG: It gives you permission to be dead and it allows you to
stop using the public library.
SAP: Well, at least I'll finally be through paying taxes.
FLAGG: Except for estate tax and probate fees and court costs
and surtaxes.
SAP: What are surtaxes?
FLAGG: Surtaxes are taxes on taxes. Sign here.
SAP: If I sign, I must obey your laws whether I agree with
them or not?
FLAGG: Right.
SAP: And I must pay taxes to you for life?
FLAGG: Um-hmm.
SAP: And even if I pay, I might still be forced to go to war
and be killed?
FLAGG: That could happen. Yes.
SAP: And the money will be used to build dungeons, booby
hatches, war machines?
FLAGG: And statues of me.
SAP: And what if I refuse to sign?
FLAGG: Then you are an enemy of the State and we have to kill
you.
SAP: What are you going to call this new nation?
FLAGG: What do you think of "Freedomland"?
From THE RAPE OF THE A*P*E* by Allan Sherman
Typed by Johnny Nemo
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