Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

“You do? I thought I was supposed to be offered bribes, not have to pay

them.”

“I’m eccentric. I take bribes only from pretty little girls I’ve known a

long time.”

“You’re eccentric, all right. What is that thing you wear on your head? A

cow pat?”

“My dear, you’re colorblind. Madam President, I have a proposed amendment to

the Constitution I want you to sponsor. . . and by great good luck I just happen to

have a copy of it on me.”

“I’ll bet you sleep with a copy of it on you. No, just put it on the desk.

Now tell me what it is supposed to accomplish.”

“It permits a citizen to challenge the Constitutionality of any law or

regulation, Federal or any lesser authority, on the grounds that it is ambivalent,

equivocal, or cannot be understood by a person of average intelligence. Paragraph

two defines ‘average intelligence.’ Paragraph three defines and limits the tests

that may be used to test the challenged law. The fourth paragraph excludes law

students, law school graduates, lawyers, judges, and uncertified j .p.’s from being

test subjects. I call it ‘the Semantic Amendment.’

“No, you don’t; you call it ‘the Plain English Amendment.’ Show biz, Uncle

Sam. Senator, under this amendment could a person challenge the income tax law on

the grounds that he has to hire an expert to make out his form 1040?”

“He certainly could. And he would win, too, as no three I.R.S men can get

the same answers out of identical data if the picture is at all complex.”

“Hmm- What if he’s bright enough but can’t read?”

“Paragraph three.”

“How about the Federal Budget? It isn’t law in the usual meaning but

Congress votes on it and it has the force of law, where it applies.”

“First paragraph. It quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck-it’s a duck.”

“I’ll try to study this before I fall asleep tonight. Senator, this one

we’re going to put over!”

“Don’t be too certain, Madam President. Lawyers are going to hate this . . .

and the Congress and all the state legislatures have a majority of lawyers.”

“And every one of them not anxious to lose his job. That’s their weakness .

. . because it’s awfully easy to work up hate against lawyers. Senator, this bill

will be introduced by lawyers. Both Houses. Both parties. Not by you, you’re not a

lawyer. Uncle Sam, I’m an amateur president but I’m a pro in show biz. It’ll play in

Paducah.”

The two Presidents were seated alone at the front of the crowded grandstand.

Two kilometers in front of them a spaceship, small compared with the Shuttle

assemblage, but close to the size of the Shuttle alone, stood upright in the bright

Mexican mountain sunshine. A voice from everywhere was counting:

“-sixty-one seconds one minute.. . . fifty-nine fifty-eight-”

She said, “How are you coming with Spanglish, Señor el Presidente?”

He shrugged and smiled, “As before, Doña la Presidenta. I know it is simple;

I hear your people and ours talking in it – . . and I understand them. But I don’t

have time to study. When I leave office-” He spread his hands.

“I know. Perhaps two years from now-I can’t believe I’ve been in office only

six years. It feels like sixty.”

“You’ve accomplished sixty years of statecraft; the whole world is

awestruck.”

“-forty-one . . . forty. . . thirty-nine-”

Page 238

“There never was anything really seriously wrong with my country, Mr.

President. We made some silly mistakes, then compounded them by being stubborn. The

Fence, for example. What’s the point in a Fence that doesn’t work? So I had it torn

down.”

“Madam, your most creative act of statesmanship! Without that act of faith,

you and I could never have put over our Treaty of Mutual Assistance. And the dozen

major advances we have started under it. This. You and I would not be sitting here.”

“Yes. No more wetbacks and this. Mr. President, I still don’t understand how

a beam of light can put a spaceship into orbit.”

“Neither do I, Madam President, neither do I. But I believe your engineers.