Operation Damocles (6 page)

“Not in the true meaning of the word, Beverly, no. These criminals think that the government is persecuting them. They are retaliating against mainstream society because they think that is the only way to change the government.”

“I want to change the government, too, Dr. Taylor. I want the public to take back control of it from the civil servants. For all I know, you may secretly feel the same way, and just be putting on a pro-government act in order to ease the government’s suspicions about you. Does that mean you could do something like that—kill a bunch of people? I mean, could you, Dr. Taylor, be a closet paranoid who is just putting on an act to appear as a normal, mainstream member of society?”

Taylor eyed her defensively, trying to recover himself, subdue his anger. “Of course not. Maladjusted people have typical behavior patterns that identify them to the trained professional.” He lost control momentarily, throwing up his hands. “Why are you attacking me? You sound as if you are defending these people.”

Watkins, coolly, “I’m certainly not defending the killing of innocent people, I’m simply trying to find out what the underlying causes are. Why do you feel that I’m attacking you? Do you feel that I’m out to get you in some way, Dr. Taylor?”

Taylor eyed her warily before responding. “I don’t know. Are you?”

“Are you paranoid, Dr. Taylor?”

“This is ridiculous.” Taylor was beginning to bluster, his face red.

Watkins, still calm and studious in her regard, “Are you becoming disgruntled with me, Dr. Taylor?”

“Look, I didn’t come on your program to be publicly humiliated.”

Said Watkins, straight-faced, “I know you didn’t, Dr. Taylor, you came on my show under false pretenses. You claimed to have some useful insight regarding an event of national concern, and what I’m hearing is dogmatic, biased drivel.

“I already have an opinion as to why this event has taken place. It is retaliation for the increasing unbridled attacks by police and federal agents on citizens who have committed no crimes against society. Citizens whose property has been confiscated and whose lives have been ruined without so much as a chance to be heard. It is because of policies that encumber and restrict and tax a population that has no other recourse. Freedom is under siege by our government. The rights of the individual are being stripped away in the name of ‘saving the children,’ ‘anti-terrorism’ and the ever-popular ‘war on drugs.’

“Though the official stance is that these are the acts of terrorist kooks, we all know why this is happening. I’m trying to ascertain why, at this specific time and place, someone feels that change is so urgently needed that they are willing to kill millions of people in order to bring it about overnight. The weapon is here, now, but even the government acknowledges that it could have been put up months, or even years ago. Aside from the technology of the weapon, there is a sense of timing—an underlying knowledge that the public is not privy to. The new federal administration seems to be in some kind of internal upheaval. Agency heads are dropping like flies, and whispers are everywhere, but no one seems to know what is going on. All these events evoke the suspicion that something critical is about to happen. What do you think it is?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Taylor expostulated in frustration, pounding his fist into his hand to the beat of his words. “It’s insanity! There are secret forces at work. They want to overthrow the government. They want to start a civil war. They want a revolution and a return to some mythical nirvana of the 1950s.”

“Why, Dr. Taylor, you sound like a conspiracy nut,” said Watkins, her chin resting in her hand, eyes wide in mock amazement.

Taylor fumed. “They don’t realize that you can’t force people to change their way of thinking at gunpoint. Americans like to gripe and complain, but when it comes down to it, they want someone in authority to tell them what to do. You cannot stir up patriotic ire by threatening to destroy part of the population. No one has ever tried that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Watkins responded disdainfully. “Hitler did it in Germany in the 1930s; the United States did it in Europe and Japan in the 1940s, Korea in the 1950s, Viet Nam in the 1970s and Iraq in the 1990s. Russia did it in Afghanistan in the 1960s through the 1980s, and in Chechnya in the 1990s. The Serbs and Croats did it in Bosnia in the 1990s. The Israelis, Egyptians and Jordanians have been doing it continually since before the dawn of history. Those are just a few of the thousands of examples. It would take more air time than we have just to name all the wars, great and small, of the past two centuries, let alone in the history of the world, that have started because a population became divided over issues just like those we face today. They all must have had some reasons other than just mass psychosis and mass paranoia, Dr. Taylor.”

“Those were wars, Beverly. This is at most a handful of people.”

“How many does it take to make a war, Dr. Taylor?”

“Are you serious?”

“Never more so.”

“It takes more than a few psychotic whackos, I can tell you that, Ms. Watkins.”

“Since these ‘psychotic whackos’ aren’t just randomly killing people for the fun of it, and actually seem to be pleading with people to change the country in their own best interests, I can’t see them as disgruntled government employees that kill a bunch of innocent people just because they got fired, or because their wives left them. They appear to exhibit the same kind of nationalism and ideological purpose that all these other wars of mass destruction have been fought over. What if they’re just
madder than hell, and aren’t going to take it anymore,
to borrow a phrase?”

There was a pregnant pause, during which Watkins and Taylor simply eyed one another balefully.

“When people get mad, Dr. Taylor, occasionally it’s for a reason. Like the first American colonists, they revolt when they feel mistreated by an insensitive government that not only pays them no attention, but taxes them, dictates to them and harasses them at will. They rebel. They threaten and demand. They strike back at their tormentors, and the violence of their outcry is a measure of how strongly they feel and how frustrated they are in trying to do something about it.”

Taylor stood up, his face angry and flushed, and glared down on an unperturbed woman who appeared even at her lower angle, to be looking down her nose at him. “No sane person believes he can change the world by force, Mrs. Watkins. These people are psychotics who invent causes to kill and die for. They can hire people with brains to build a weapon, and to put it into orbit.”

“It’s certainly news to me, Dr. Taylor, that sane people don’t believe in the use of force. It happens every day and is advocated by parents, employers, the police, the courts and the government. Even lovers use some form of coercion on a regular basis. In fact, force—and the threat of force—is behind everything organized society does. Everybody seems intent on bending someone else to their will by threat of some penalty or punishment. Throughout history, a lot of people, mainly revolutionaries and established governments, have effectively changed the world for better or worse through use of force. Every turning point in history is marked by a war. In fact, force seems to be the most common instrument of social change.”

“That doesn’t mean that a few dissatisfied individuals have the right to take the law into their own hands,” stuttered Taylor. “That is anarchy, and in the end, it’s idiotic martyrdom. They cannot win.”

Watkins sighed and shook her head, unbelievingly. “Dr. Taylor, you’ve called these people stupid, vain-glorious martyrs, loners, antisocial misfits, and applied every other label you can think of, but the military and scientific communities believe that these are some very daring, intelligent, organized people, with a technology far superior to that of anyone else in the world. How can you of all people, a trained psychologist, make from that a portrait of twisted, withdrawn, obsessive zealots, hiding in dark corners, casting furtive glances at each other and jumping at every little noise? For a supposedly educated man, you don’t even seem to have a grasp of elementary history or basic human psychology. I think that if anyone is idiotic, it’s you. I bid you goodnight, Dr. Taylor.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,”—a spotlight isolated Watkins, and on her cue the camera zoomed in on her, excluding Professor Taylor who strode, red-faced and muttering, into the darkened background of the set—“we have just heard from another self-proclaimed expert on the motivations and psychotic characteristics of terrorists in general, and he lumps the current event in with terrorist bombings, post office shootings, street muggings and all the rest.

“Contrary to Dr. Taylor’s opinion, I find something uniquely different about this. First, the voice on the tape does not claim credit for any militant organization. Second, it does not ask for the release of political prisoners, espouse any radical political causes or demand any kind of ransom. Once again, the ten demands it makes are as follows:

“One: All tax-supported colleges and universities will immediately begin teaching evening classes for adults, at cost, in all disciplines, including the sciences and engineering, and these will be fully accredited, compressed schedule, degree-earning curriculums to provide the people of America with the opportunity to obtain a higher education even after they are married and hold full-time jobs. It is time that the people who pay the bills get some of the benefits.

“Two: The American Constitution and Bill of Rights shall be enforced to the letter, and enforcement of all victimless crimes shall cease. People shall not be treated like a common herd. They shall have the individual freedom to do as they please so long as they do not inflict their beliefs on others, harm others or destroy property. Law enforcement does not have the right to anticipate crime at the expense of liberty, and government does not have the right to dictate individual morals.

“No civil servant or group thereof may controvert the United States Constitution or Bill of Rights in any way, or make, or waive, the law of the land. Only the citizenry for which the civil servant works may introduce petition for change.

“No law may be passed without a majority vote by the affected population. Civil servants shall only enforce the laws, they shall not introduce them. No government employees, no matter what their agency or rank, shall use tax dollars to fund political propaganda or support special-interest groups, or cast any public opinions in such matters. That is a clear conflict of interest. This includes all civilian authorities and military forces.

“There shall be no impromptu use of martial law except in the case of civil emergency, and even then it shall be limited in scope to invasion by foreign nationals or armies, or to prevent looting in the wake of disaster.

“The justice system shall be streamlined to limit appeals to two, and to exact swift, just punishment of those who bring harm to others. Sentences shall be literal and shall be carried out exactly as handed down. All crimes against people or property shall carry standard, mandatory sentences without dispensation. No one shall have privilege in this respect.

“Three: The total parasitic load on society shall be reduced to no more than twenty percent of the gross domestic product. That includes all government—local, state and national. It includes the criminal justice industry, the largest industry in the nation. It includes the combined military forces. In short, the public burden for all expenses for services supported directly or indirectly by taxes shall be reduced to less than twenty percent of GDP.

“To prevent hidden taxes, there shall be no income tax, inheritance tax, property tax, capital gains tax or corporate tax. The Internal Revenue Service shall be dismantled. The only tax permitted shall be a uniform sales tax, levied on everything except food, clothing, shelter, fuel and medical care, evenly applied to every individual without deductibles. The tax shall be collected by each state, and twenty percent passed on to the federal government for the national defense, and for the national regulation of health standards, interstate highways, public safety, quality of food, pharmaceuticals, air and water. There shall be no federally supported endowments. Artistic expression and other such endeavors are not the purview of the government.

“Four: Parents shall have ultimate authority over their minor children unless it can be proved that they are unfit or cruel. They shall have the fundamental right to discipline and teach their offspring as they see fit, including the limited exercise of corporal punishment, so long as such discipline is not cruel or unjust beyond reason, and such teachings do not engender disrespect for the life, liberty and property of others.”

Watkins paused, “There are six more commandments or dictates, ten in all,” she said, “and the content is lengthy. Just to summarize the main points, number five does not permit foreign ownership of United States real property or natural resources, or the exercise of political influence in the United States by foreign business or foreign nationals; number six restricts the terms of senior federal executives and makes conduct not in keeping with the interests of the American people treasonous; number seven establishes a mandatory life sentence without parole for the act of treason by a public official; number eight addresses conflict of interest by government employees; number nine restricts government involvement in the affairs of foreign nations; and number ten limits government interference in private enterprise to consumer safety, and to public protections against monopolistic advantage and profligate behavior.”

Watkins continued, “The preamble of the taped message states: ‘If the government fails in any respect to enact and enforce these laws, factories and businesses, military installations, even major population centers shall be destroyed. Such destruction shall continue until the people rally together, take responsibility and force their governing officials to comply. These commandments are not negotiable.’

“I don’t know about you folks,” Watkins addressed her listeners, “but these demands do not seem insane to me, and are in fact the very things most of us claim to want. I don’t understand why, with so much at stake, these things can’t simply be done. If the people are willing to meet these demands, even desire the changes, then who are these civil servants to say no? For most of the demands, it would only take the stroke of a pen to change the law. Our elected officials are posturing and breast-beating and protecting their own perks, but there are millions of our lives at stake.