Another Modest Proposal
Page, Alex
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND what the fuss is about. These complaining editorials, these worried, pained people—when the solution stares us in the face. Yes, there is that huge stockpile of deadly nerve...
...Sixth, we have heard much of the notion of overkill...
...I am referring, naturally, to the human element...
...In short, I propose to kill two birds with one stone...
...a pain to the C.I.A...
...We will of course continue to take care of all the young in the usual, time-honored ways...
...Do we not assign them a twilight existence in ghettos...
...Do we older citizens not expect the young to go to wars and give their lives cheerfully...
...I say to them: look around you...
...Have I not followed widespread practice...
...I am thinking of our country's fiber, of the encroaching moral rot, of traditional home life...
...And if there are some who cry that my solution smacks of cruelty and inhumanity, why, I fail to understand them...
...Thanks to previous experiments of this nature, we would not come to the actual absorption process in entire ignorance...
...Once an individual has served as absorbent, he will not object to being so used to his maximum capacity...
...I answer that in a democracy we proceed with deliberate speed...
...Do we not find it en212 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS tirely proper, if now and then individually regrettable, that thousands die on highways...
...Unlike my great predecessor, whose proposal was also eventually put into effect, I do not disavow a personal interest in the matter...
...most arrogant...
...a threat to educational institutions...
...Try, and you'll have everyone dead...
...My children are but seven and three, and if my proposal will be put in effect over a ten-year period, which I calculate will suffice for the disposal of the gas, my older one will no longer be eligible under the Selective Service outlined above but can look forward like all of us to enjoy the fruits of democracy...
...I need not go on...
...From a practical point of view, science instructs that the young, those between 17 and 25, make far and away the best absorbents, that is to say, per capita more quantities of gas can be absorbed by them—being in their prime—than people younger or older...
...Yet there are other equally practical considerations...
...Tear gas and mace are used against the young as a matter of course, and spraying dissident students from the air has been tried and found entirely satisfactory...
...It's up to us, they tell us, to find a solution because that is what democracy is all about...
...the source of a bad press abroad...
...Eighth and finally, there is no doubt this will drastically lessen the ugly frictions prevailing between parents and children...
...Fifth, since the gas is so powerful, the absorptive process will be of short duration— an unexpected dividend for the selectees...
...Others may object that we shall be inundated with a youth all too patriotic, all too grateful...
...It can sustain heat, poverty, government, education, lies, taxes, religion, and more such tribulations—why, a good case has been made that they are what human beings are meant for...
...Now there are those who will raise their voices in consternation that I am not attending to the surplus problem quickly enough...
...I can foresee the day when it may be cruel and inhuman not to select someone for his or her Service...
...a thorn in the side of the law...
...Of course sober citizens are nervous to see it carted about the country...
...I see no reason why the process should not continue to be called Selective Service...
...I ask, which sector has been least productive...
...An industrial use will hardly make a dent in the mountains of barreled gas...
...Are we not reassured when they become cynical...
...an acute embarrassment to the government...
...They come first...
...Lest I be taken for an extremist, I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not advocate my scheme for all the young...
...Fourth, the poison would not have to be shipped about the country with danger to life and property...
...It will have become apparent that I could never make claim to originality...
...For improbable reasons...
...of concern to manufacturers...
...Seventh, in a modest though not insignificant way my proposal will contribute its mite to soften the population explosion...
...The answer is clear: the young...
...to logical thinking, yes...
...After that, only every seventh youth would serve, and by the fairest means devised by man• a lottery...
...The remainder will come to their senses very shortly and be models of gratitude...
...Both science and experience have proved that the human organism has unusually high absorbent qualities...
...Just consider the emotional manner in which the young, had they the power, would deal with the surplus of nerve gas...
...Of course you can't bury it, sink it in the ocean, blast it to outer space, or burn it...
...Yes, there is that huge stockpile of deadly nerve gas that nobody knows what to do with...
...There can of course be no argument about the leaders of the dissatisfied, the troublemakers, and their more active followers to serve as absorbents...
...Very well...
...The chosen youths would be transported instead to where the gas is stored...
...213...
...Do we not kill something in the young as we ready them for life...
...Second, my proposal will meet head-on the danger arising from lowering the voting age to 18, an ill-advised move now afoot...
...Now which human beings...
...That basic and convenient feature becomes the keystone to my proposal...
...Third, there are specific precedents...
...Since those selected will eventually be turned into useful, acquiescent citizens, I would make no protest to a grateful nation acknowledging that fact by a suitable plaque in some distant, pleasant, disinfected spot...
...As though there could ever be enough of those virtues...
...I merely wish to point out that no one has given another element a close, hard look...
...a comfort to the enemy...
...I remind them, moreover, that we have become sufficiently adept at redefining such antiquated abstractions...
...In the first place, am I putting forward anything very unusual...
...an ill-wind to the army...
...An unworthy quibble...
...THE ADVANTAGES of my proposal are evident...
...Besides, I daresay we are a flexible enough people to revise, if occasion demands, the proportion of those selected for their Service upward...
...That I am the first to do so does make me wonder about integrity in high places...
...The generals and arms-makers have shown themselves (not for the first time) muscle-bound in their follow-through...
...After all, I merely urge the fulfillment of the purposes for which the gas was created...
Vol. 17 • May 1970 • No. 3
