There should be a minimum ten-year prison sentence for the hate crime of calling anyone a "poopy-head." Or a "water buffalo."

And no less than twenty years for the dextrist hate crimes of wearing clothes which are bilaterally asymmetric (e.g., a pocket on the left side without a matching pocket on the right side), providing right-handed scissors without also providing left-handed scissors, or publishing or selling any book or periodical in which English is printed exclusively left-to-right.

From now on, anything printed in English must be printed in boustrophedon, with lines running alternately left-to-right and right-to-left. Violators will be pushed severely for their hate crime. SMASH DEXTRISM NOW!!!

I do verbal (left-brained) things (write, type) with my left hand, but I do non-verbal (right-brained) things with my right hand. With both hands in different ways, therefore, I commit terrible thoughtcrimes against Big Brother. I am a MasterHater.

Also to be stamped out is the hate crime of alphabetism. Henceforth, all phone directories and other such listings shall be provided with names listed in a randomly selected order. No directory or listing shall come provided with a pre-generated alphabetical index, either: that is simply a more subtle form of "hidden alphabetism."

And our entire society is guilty of the undemocratic hate crime of not granting equal representation to all animals, vegetables, and minerals. From now on, all legislative assemblies must include proportional representation by court-appointed members (chosen from among the ranks of environmentalist, animal-rights, and vegetable-rights activists) who will represent the interests of animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, etc.

Since we are all obviously "haters" of one sort or another, there is only one solution:

We must ALL drink the Kool-Aid, and leave the Earth to the rest of living beings, who will then live in peace and harmony (until the monkeys evolve into the next wave of intelligent life).

Can I get an AMEN!! brothers and sisters!!

I am humbled by your advanced consciousness and for my arrogant and unthinking contributions to your oppression.

Of course being a dextrist and an alphabetist I am truly incapable of understanding what it's like to be you, but I can strive to be more sensitive, and shall do so.

And why should we be so hateful as to withhold full equal rights from those who, through no fault of their own, do not exist and never have existed? By what justification do we restrict rights to individuals and cultures which actually exist or at some time actually have existed??

This is rank discrimination, it is ontological chauvinism, and it must be ended, NOW!!!

Equal rights for the nonexistent! If I don't find myself in the United States Congress soon, as the senior Senator from Atlantis, I'm going to file a lawsuit.

All I have to do is to wait for my case to reach the 9th circuit court, and I'm in like Flynn.

Phil:

Actually, some years back Keith Mano wrote a novel based on precisely that premise. I believe it was entitled The Bridge.

Imagine being sentenced to two years' internment in a former baseball stadium, for the crime of raising your voice in anger when speaking to one of your Leftist superiors. (A plaque posted on the stadium read: "Here men once had the effrontery to engage in competitive sports.")

It was a crime to swat mosquitos, the best people could do was to wear mosquito netting. Eating animals or vegetables for food was also a crime, people were restricted to a diet of an artificial goop which barely sustained life and cause several gastrointestinal distress. When at last it sunk in that we kill millions of micro-organisms with every breath we take or every step we make, the "overlords" decreed a day on which everyone would simply lie down and die in a vast worldwide "Jonestown," in penance for the human race being such a horrible cancer on the face of the earth.

Part of the book was also set in a later age, when people engaged in ritual violence and followed a religion founded by one brave man, who had rebelled and cannibalistically eaten the arm of one of his Leftist overlords.

"Several"?! Eh, make that "severe gastrointestinal distress."

Paul:

Another sotry in the same vein is a Heinlein story called "Gulf" Not 100% sure of the title, but started out dealing with ESP/ levitation, etc, and ended with ......... (no spoilers from me!!)
Dean, can you check your Heinlein library to make sure I got the title right? Its a short story, but, as with most of RAH's works, packs a hell of a wallop into very few words.

Phil:

Ah, here we are: The Bridge, by D. Keith Mano.

"Gulf"? I believe I've read it, though my mind is blanking. I'll have to concede to Dean, who is the superior Heinlein geek and who has read absolutely everything by Heinlein.

As I recall it, "Gulf" was a story printed in "Assignment in Eternity" and involved a group of superintelligent people calling themselves "New men" (numen?) fighting against forces that wanted to force everybody to be equal. Sort of an allegory for communism. It seems to hit a lot of the same themes he hit in later books like Between Planets and Friday and even Number of the Beast.

It's not my favorite Heinlein story, though there are things about it I quite like. The little wedding scene near the end is a classic. (If I'm remembering the story right.)

After further investigation, the story is "Lost Legacy" and is part of the "Assignment in Eternity" collection.

Wedding scene in "Gulf": Dean, your memory seems to be working just fine.

"Lost Legacy" -- that was the trio of researchers who rediscovered how to do ESP, telapathy, etc. only to find out in the end that there were forces trying to keep humanity from re-learning these? I remember really liking that story but I don't recall what the force was that was keeping it from humanity, or why exactly.

Yes, I really have read every piece of Heinlein fiction. Not all the non-fiction though. Couldn't get through "Take Back Your Country," as simpatico as I might be with some of it, and I have yet to find a copy of the travelogue he wrote (was that "Tramp Royale?"). I also haven't picked up the new previously unpublished, or the one supposedly written "with" Spider Robinson. I guess I should though. Although I think a big chunk of Heinlein's catalogue is honestly not worth reading, especially a big chunk of his post-1970 work, at this point I feel like I really should read it all. Shoot, it'd be neat to get a Ph.D. by writing a thesis on the guy, and I could probably do it given how much of him I've read.

Have I ever mentioned that I used to loathe the guy? %-)