The success of 2016: Obama‘s America shows there is
an audience for conservative movies. Many movie-goers missed the obvious
conservative message of a billionaire hero who saves Gotham City
from the Occupy Gotham mob in the mega-hit The
Dark Knight Rises. That Hollywood
could at long last make Parts 1 and 2 of Atlas
Shrugged for a niche-market represents an under-appreciated accomplishment.
If we look back, the books that have best put across a
conservative message (or an anti-statist) message in the most indelible fashion
have offered a vision of a future socialist or statist society. The classics,
of course, are Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Now we have Bob Zeidman’s Good Intentions, a satirical novel
about a future America
in which political correctness has run amuck. Zeidman pictures a society in
which everyone works for the state, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World “primitives” are the few remaining entrepreneurs.
Zeidman’s protagonist is Winston Jones (the counterpart of
Orwell’s Winston Smith of 1984). Winston Jones is chosen by the Fairness for EveryBody
Society to be the president because he has the required makeup—ethnic, racial,
religious, sexual orientation, etc.—to “fairly represent the diversity of America.”
In his attempt to escape his destiny as President, Jones goes about a voyage of
discovery of the true America
and comes to an understanding that it has veered radically off course.
The future America has
solved the diversity problem by pairing couples to produce a homogenous gene
pool, where everyone is alike. If we are all the same, there is equal
opportunity and the government assures equal outcomes.
Zeidman’s future Americans
work for the government, where they work for the good of all. To prevent
conflict in child rearing, one parent families are encouraged and the state
provides an “e-father” for young boys and girls. Property rights are not enforced because we
are obliged to share with the less fortunate. In one scene, Winston encounters
a frantic homeowner, in which illegal immigrants have decided to live. They
ignore the plea “but this is my house” with the admonition that she should take
care of the less fortunate. Perhaps they can perform some odd jobs to pay their
way.
Zeidman’s future America
has evolved into the ultimate nanny state. The state places patches of rubber
matting around fences on which children might play along with warning signs
(which make illegal the removal of the warning sign). The state protects us from
ingesting things that might harm our health. In theGovMintBucks coffee
shop, a “caffeinator” must be bribed to give customers sugared caffeine. After
all, sugar causes obesity and hyperactivity in children and caffeine requires a
prescription. Police are posted in the coffee shop to enforce these rules.
In his reluctant adventure of
discovery, Winston encounters “The Documented,” a group of legal aliens that
refuse to break the law and turn down government entitlements along with the
mysterious Freedman Group— “subversives” who believe in free market capitalism and
secretly run businesses without government interference. At the other end of the spectrum, he comes in contact
with Radical Femlamism, a bizarre blending of Radical Feminism and Radical
Islam.
I’ll not divulge further secrets. Just read Good Intentions and pass it on, and read
it before the election.
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