The Emerald Virus (37 page)

    
But then Noah added, “But since you’ve raised the issue maybe I should talk
now.” Noah again looked at the group while he gathered his thoughts and said,
“I think the most critical piece for me is that we don’t make distinctions or
acknowledge differences in our interim rules, or later in our permanent rules.

    
“I think the founders were confronted with vast differences, and they had to
deal with them. Slavery existed in this land long before it was a country. It
existed amongst the whites, amongst the Orientals, amongst the Indians and in
rarer cases amongst free blacks. To the founders that was a fact of life.

    
“The Indian tribes, both the peaceful eastern tribes and the more aggressive western
tribes were their own nations and had been governing themselves prior to
recorded history. The founders were confronted with this as a fact of life.

    
“But those differences don’t exist today. We are one people now, joined together
by need and willingness to jointly build a new society. I would like to ask
that we write our documents without making such distinctions, but referring to
all of us equally. As you said Sam, we’re all equally rich now, and we all have
different skills to add to the mix.”

    
Noah waited for someone else to say something but someone in the group starting
applauding. The rest of the group joined in. Noah thought that he could get
used to this applause stuff. 

    
He continued, “Thanks everyone. I do want to add one more thing though. Those
of us who have different colored skins sometimes forget that fact, but we are
sometimes acutely aware of it. All of us have lived knowing that anytime we’re
away from our homes a bigot can come out of nowhere and publicly embarrass us.”

    
Ben, who was seated in the middle of the group called out, “Noah, I can’t
picture you allowing that to happen.”

    
Some of the group laughed, as Ben had hoped they would, but some stayed
serious. Noah said, “Ben, I wish it was that easy. When you’re looking at a
half dozen drunken men who might be real mean, whether you have a family with
you or if you’re alone, it’s hard to respond. And as a person of color, you
never know how much if any help you’re going to get if things go bad.”

    
“I say this to let you know that some of us get defensive at times. I’m not
particularly prone to that myself, but…” this time Noah had to pause for the
laughter and then continued, “but you’ll see this I think, sometimes. I ask for
help from the entire group for any individual who finds themselves in that
position. You can help lessen a defensive posture just by showing support.
Sometimes a simple smile is all that’s needed.”

    
“If no one has any questions I’ll give the floor back to Sam.”

    
Lily raised her hand and Noah nodded to her. He didn’t know what Lily was going
to say, but he liked her a lot and he knew in just a short time she had earned
the respect of most of the group. Mostly because of her take charge, no
nonsense way of conducting herself.

    
Lily said, “Being one of about ten or so African Americans in the state of
Wyoming I know exactly what Noah is saying. I’ve talked with others about this
problem my entire life and there has never been an easy answer. As a black
person it seems each time you start to give the general public the benefit of
the doubt, and you let your guard down just a bit, that decision comes back to
haunt you.

    
“Noah had told me he isn’t a great talker, and in terms of quantity and volume
I agree with him. But I just heard him articulate this problem better than I
would have thought possible. If you will just work with those of us of color so
we all get in the habit of trusting everyone I think we can accomplish what
Noah talked about. We can create a society where these kinds of differences
really don’t matter. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

    
Following Lily a number of white people felt obligated to pledge their support
to this cause. The last one to speak asked Lily if she could let the group know
what her last name was.

    
Lily stood up and said, “Well, I want to assure you it’s not White. Having a
first name like Lily is bad enough for a black woman.”

    
The group laughed and one of the new men said, “Lily, don’t worry too much
about such a nice name. My last name is Davidson, and my folks named me Harley.
The last time I saw them they were still laughing about that.”

    
Sam had to wait for the laughter to stop. In the meantime she was pleased with
the tone and tenor of this conversation, mostly because this group didn’t
appear to have very many social liberals. But everyone seemed to know exactly
what Noah and Lily had asked for, and Sam thought they had a better than even
chance of getting it. Especially since Noah and Lily had asked for help in such
a straightforward and honest manner.

    
Sam looked around the room and for the first time realized that she was looking
to see who the minorities were. She had seen some Indians earlier, and she now
saw three blacks and two Orientals and a smattering of Hispanics. She thought
it was funny that she hadn’t noticed before, and that not a single person in
the group had raised the issue of race or color prior to tonight, at least not
with her.

    
Sam stepped back up to the podium and said, “I want to take a vote on Noah’s
proposition. I think it was eloquently stated and explained. This proposition
would mean no tracking of residents by color or race, regardless of good or bad
intentions. The only exception would be for medical reasons and I want to leave
that between our residents and our medical experts. They can decide
collectively what’s best for them. We’ll make no reference to race or color in
any of our documents.”

    
Christian called the vote and again received unanimous support.

    
A man at the back of the group spoke up and said, “My name is Chuck Emerson, I
got here late this afternoon. I’m glad to hear that you have a medical
community. I’m a medical doc and I’d like to join them. I’m pulling a second
trailer with a lot of medical equipment that I think might be useful.”

    
The group reacted so well to the news, and so many people started to introduce
themselves to the doctor that Sam realized this would be a great place to take
a break.

    
Sam called the group to order and said, “Before we take a break I’d like to ask
the doctor what his specialty is.

    
Chuck looked up and said, “I’m a proctologist.”

    
There was stunned silence in the group, with a couple of folks doing everything
they could not to break out laughing.

    
Chuck continued, “Only kidding folks, I’m a generalist. I’ve been working in a
small city in Minnesota.”

    
The group applauded again and Sam said, “Let’s take a 15 minute break. I’m
wearing out up here.”

    
The plumbers and electricians had gotten the water flowing and electricity
working in the Inn yesterday. They had told the group the water would stay on
all of the time but to save fuel the generators for electricity would only be
run in the morning from four o’clock to eight o’clock so the bakers had full
use of the kitchen appliances.

    
Everyone in the group knew enough to carry flashlights to the lodge so they
could use the bathrooms in each room.

   
 When everyone returned Sam said, “I’d like to continue just a little bit
longer tonight and then adjourn until tomorrow night. As a reminder to
everyone, since the bathrooms in the lodge are now working, try to use them
instead of the bathrooms in your RVs. We don’t want to empty the RV tanks any
more often than we need to. Men get the ground floor bathrooms and the women
get all the others. You can use any room you want, but if the bathroom door is
closed you must knock. She looked sternly at the group and said, “Ladies, that
means if you see a man going up the stairs you can shoot him.” This raised
laughter and shouts from the women and hoots from the men.

    
Sam smiled and continued, “And men, if you are anywhere around this camp or
lodge I expect you to use a bathroom somewhere. If you don’t, come springtime
this place will smell like a urinal.” Sam laughed as she was booed by the men.

    
“Okay everyone, we’re in the home stretch here so let’s finish for the evening.
Looking at section eight I don’t believe we’ll need paragraphs one through
eighteen, which by the way is all of them. Take a look at your copies and see
if you agree with me.

    
After a minute one of the men looked up and said, “I don’t believe we’ll need
an army or navy for some time to come, but having a trained militia isn’t a bad
idea in a land without laws.”

    
Three or four men spoke up in agreement.

    
Sam responded, “Okay, let’s talk about what we might need. If we have a militia
we’ll need to train them, and logically we would need someone to lead the
militia, someone with experience in military strategy and tactics. That’s an
area with which I’m not familiar. Does anyone in the group have such military
experience?

    
A number of men and two women raised their hands. Sam nodded at one of the men
who said, “I was a company commander in the first gulf war. I served almost ten
years in the Army and I could help if need be.”

    
The next man said, “I was a sergeant in the second gulf war, I spent two tours
in Iraq and I’d be willing to help also.”

    
One of the women said, “I’m a graduate of the Citadel and I served seven years
as a Marine Corps officer, I’ll help.”

    
Another man and woman also had military service, one in the Air Force and one
in the Navy.

    
The last man said, “I’m a retired Army Colonel with three wars behind me. I
might be able to help.”

    
Sam said, “Colonel, would you be willing to sit down with our other veterans
tomorrow and come up with a plan for the militia. If you decide we don’t yet
need one, we’ll put it to the group; if you decide we need a militia please
come back with a proposition for all of us to consider.”

    
The Colonel, who introduced himself as Ted Green, said he would do that and
asked all other veterans to join him in the lobby after the morning meeting.

    
Sam wanted the entire group of veterans to meet together. If anyone was trying
to snow the group the other vets would know it.

    
Sam said, “In looking at my notes there is another area I want to cover. Those
of you who were about to ask about it hold on for a section. I skipped
paragraphs three and four because they were directed towards the congress.
However, I think even a small group like ours needs this protection so I’d like
the group to consider agreeing that bills of attainder and ex post fact laws
won’t be passed, and that writs of Habeas Corpus are required.”

    
“If there are any lawyers in the group who want to explain these to the group
you are welcome to do so. Otherwise I’ll do it.”

    
Christian looked over at Sam and said, “I wasn’t planning on admitting this but
I practiced law when I was younger. I’ll tackle them if no one else wants to.”

    
Very sweetly Sam said, “Why Christian, what would make you want to keep that a
secret from us?”

    
Christians only response was “Harrumph” as the group laughed.

    
When no one else spoke up Christian said, “I’m not going to ask how many
lawyers there are in the room, but since none of you are speaking up I’ll take
the lead on this and the rest of you can help out as we go along.”

     
“I’ll start with the Writ of Habeas Corpus since it is so important. And it’s
easy to explain. It protects all citizens from being detained by authorities
without proper cause. Any person can ask for a writ, which requires the
detaining authority to acknowledge and identify a detainee. A government can’t
secretly arrest and hide a prisoner. And you must be able to show that the
detainee is in prison for cause. You don’t have to prove cause; that comes at the
trial, but you have to show why you are holding the person.

    
“Ex post facto laws are also simple. They prohibit rule making bodies from
changing the rules after the fact in order to make something a crime, make the
penalty harsher, or make the procedures more likely to produce a different
result. You can only be tried using the rules in effect at the time of the
crime.  

    
“Bills of Attainder are so closely related to Ex post facto laws that I
actually don’t think we need both. The British Parliament centuries ago would
pass legislation that would declare a person guilty and would sentence the
person. No trial was then allowed. I don’t think we need those today.”

    
“These are basic protections we all assume are available to us, but in the new
world we need to guarantee them since no other governing documents currently
exist.”

    
Christian stepped back and waited for comments, but none came.

    
Sam stepped up and said thank you Christian, please call the vote. Again
everyone agreed.

    
She thanked everyone in the group for attending, scheduled the next meeting for
tomorrow night, and told the group she had two more things before they adjourned.