Another Modest Proposal

Well friends, it’s been nearly three years since the inception of my original humble treatise on how to solve the world’s woes, and unfortunately, we still have war, genocide, murder, intolerance and fanaticism. I blame myself; if only I’d tried harder to spread the word, perhaps I might have done some more good.

But, we can’t rest pondering our failures. In the time since I first tried to help the world, I’ve come to the conclusion that it had one glaringly obvious problem that I should have seen: It’s far too ambitious! After all, you wouldn’t trust a stranger telling you to redecorate your living room, but you would listen to a trusted friend or an interior decorator. Same with me: I can’t convince you to kill every violent person in the world without first building up my credentials.

With this said, I have put much thought into an idea on a smaller scale, but no less important. You see, it seems to me that there are two issues that are tearing America apart at its seams. No, I’m not talking about gay marriage or the intelligence of our president. I mean abortion and the death penalty.

These issues may be a little sensitive for many of us, but I ask that you read my humble plan with maturity and understanding. My understanding of this is that there are some people who favor abortion but oppose the death penalty, and others who prefer the opposite. Of course there are always people who oppose each of them, but they’re indecisive and unintelligent, as we all know.

This problem first came to my attention when I happened upon a group of protesters outside of my institution of higher learning. I approached one of them and asked what they were demonstrating against. The man said to me that they were showing their disfavor with “the murder of millions of God’s helpless children” and “the morally-bankrupt nation that sponsors this appalling child genocide.”

With a firm grasp on the pro-life argument’s stance on abortion, I asked him what his position was on the death penalty. He proudly proclaimed that “those murderers deserve to fry for killing innocent people.” He also informed me that it goes along with the principle of “an eye for an eye,” which is in the Bible and therefore valid. I had some qualms about trusting this man’s position, and so I informed him of my personal hero Gandhi’s remark that “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This man informed me that Gandhi was a “pagan hippie dot-head faggot.”

With complete knowledge of the God-approved pro-life side, I ventured across the street to a group of protesters protesting the first group of protesters. I found one young man, dressed in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt and loose slacks, and though he had a sickeningly sweet scent about him, proceeded to ask him what his views were. He informed me that babies are simply “parasites living off their host-mother until they’re ready to function on their own,” that “the world is already overpopulated,” the death penalty is “a state-sponsored genocide of people awaiting rehabilitation”, and that God is really an “all-powerful cosmic force of love and understanding.”

I didn’t understand most of what else he said, but I was armed with a rundown of what each side believed. I headed off to my apartment and set to work on researching a plan to unite each side.

It took me only a few hours to reach a position of compromise that still allowed for the democratic voice to break through: We give the American people a choice: They can either have both abortion and the death penalty, or they can have neither.

Obviously, this first plan was far too unprepared and juvenile to be taken seriously, so I set to work refining it. My first question was, if the American people vote to legalize each option, how would we dispose of the bodies? Obviously, we’re killing in each case, so we shouldn’t employ any form of favoritism in our methods; we should have a uniform system of deaths. If we want to keep using vacuums to suck the mushy, bulbous brain tissue out of the soft, meaty, just-forming head of a fetus, we should also employ this method for prisoners on death row. If we wish to keep the electric chair, a tried and true method of execution, then we must also have an alternative for the unborn. I estimate that a potential mother would be able to survive a jolt of 50,000 volts of electricity which would fry her soon-to-be child.

Of course, no remedy would be needed for the ‘back-alley’ methods of abortion such as utilizing a coat hanger or douching with a substance such as Coca-Cola, as mankind has stabbed and poisoned itself for centuries already.

Another question would revolve around the ease at which each of these options would be attained. For a pregnant woman, all she needs to do is get herself to a clinic and have ‘Mommy’s little inconvenience’ taken care of in a jiffy. For criminals, however, there must be a lengthy trial, followed by appeals and a certain waiting period. This must all go. I propose a new national hotline be set up for people to call in at any time to report their suspicions about deaths in their community. They police would then apprehend those who receive such complaints made about them, and off to the chambers they go!

I can sense some of you tensing up right now. I must urge you to have more confidence in your fellow man, however! Please, we’re all human, and at least the best, smartest and most attractive of us are Americans; we would understand the gravity of such a feature and never abuse this privilege, except on April Fool’s Day, understandably.

A third problem that arises lies in the question of what warrants the death penalty. Obviously, most fetuses don’t commit crimes. There are those bad seeds which cause problems and possibly even death for the mother in childbirth, however, and these must understandably be punished for acting out. Other than those cases, however, when has an unborn child ever robbed a bank or sodomized an altar boy or crashed a plane into the World Trade Center? Obviously, the actions of real people are much more grave and deranged than these little balls of tissue and nerves, so we must take crimes against mother and man metaphorically. Everything that fetuses do before being born can be in some way connected with a real world crime. For example:

Conception: Trespassing
The nine-month gestation period: Abduction
Feeding: Armed robbery
"Kicking": Assault
Childbirth: Torture
Death in childbirth: First-degree murder

Therefore, to be fair to possible-mother and victim alike, each of these crimes should immediately warrant the death penalty.

Now, I understand that many of you may be squeamish about this. Let me assure you that it is a natural, healthy way for events to unfold! The opposite effect would be rampant overpopulation, overcrowded jails, broken homes, the complete degeneration of America’s values, the cause of World War III and the inevitable invasion and rape of American soil by any number of third-world, brutish countries populated by Godless darkies or slopes, and the end of liberty and freedom as we know it. Are you prepared to let this happen?

In researching possible support for this proposal, I went back to my previous source for how celebrities would endorse this: Marilyn Manson. It was only a few minutes into the first song of his that I played, “Irresponsible Hate Anthem”, that I heard the defining line “Let’s just kill everyone and let your God sort them out.” With this kind of Hollywood backing, I’m sure that we can mount an impressive PR campaign. Imagine the movies designed solely to subliminally subvert the youth of America, such as Terminator with unborn children causing the rise of the machines. Imagine the clothing lines; already can be seen infant shirts bearing the slogan “Now that I’m safe, I’m pro choice.” Imagine the music. Imagine the whole sweet surround–sound propaganda campaign designed to make this world a better place! It’s enough to make a grown man weep.

In conclusion, I would like to thank you for hearing me out. I hope that you will join me in this effort to make our world a more unified place. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join in, as the wife and I have one on the way, and with her being a Catholic and all, I can’t visibly show my support for this measure. But just think of it as one more future supporter to proudly march along with you in ten years.