Elsa Von Branefuq yawned and stretched. This session of the House of Representatives had been grinding along non-stop for hours, and they hadn’t even voted themselves another pay raise yet.

“In summary,” the Speaker of the House said, “in order to preempt the spread of a potential outbreak of the Zombie Plague, this bill will require the replacement of public drinking water with Compound X-13.”

Predictably, a renegade Congressman from one of the flyover states just had to raise an objection. “Ms. Speaker, it is puzzling why you have this urgency to address a problem which might not even exist by mandating that citizens drink something that contains a deadly poison.”

“With all due respect to the gentleman from flyover country,” Representative Vlad Impaler said, “there’s not one smidgeon of evidence that Strychnine is in the compound, or that it’s poisonous.”

“Every single time it’s been used in substantial doses, it’s been fatal,” insisted the fringe lunatic right-winger. “Why don’t we at least examine the compound before we vote, to settle for sure exactly what is in it?”

Speaker of the House Natasha Polecatsky vainly tried to reason with the radical right nutcase. “We have to pass it before we can find out what’s in it.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Hey, it’s not like we have to drink the same water our constituents do,” Representative Pamien Bendover reminded him.

The wacko began spewing some kind of egalitarian platitude before the learned, elder statesman Neville McRino stood and raised his hands to silence his radical colleague. He turned to address the Speaker. “We have to work together to overcome this gridlock. How about we make it a 50/50 mixture of drinking water and Compound X-13?”

“The learned gentleman from Tarnation insults this august body,” retorted Speaker Polecatsky. “And I’m sure July and September bodies don’t like it either.”

“Very well,” McRino said. “We’ll do 60/40.”

“You might as well sentence the people to the Zombie Plague,” Representative Putzenbum said.

McRino sighed. “Fine. 75/25.”

“When did you become such a hard-liner?” asked Representative Hannover Fiste.

“Obviously this is a very divisive topic,” McRino said. “In the interest of bipartisan cooperation, we should put this issue behind us. So 90 % poison, 10 percent drinking water. And that’s my final offer.”

“Make it 99 parts poison to one part water and you’ve got a deal,” Natasha Polecatsky said.

“Done,” McRino said, and sat heavily back down, fatigued from such a knock-down-drag-out struggle on behalf of his constituents.

“All in favor?” Speaker Polecatsky asked.

“Wait a minute!” Barked one of the religious right extremists. “We have absolutely no authority to tell the people what they must or must not drink!”

McRino shrugged apologetically to the Speaker of the House. “I’m afraid ‘compromise’ is a dirty word to some of these hard-liners I have to work with.”

“The ‘ayes’ have it,” Polecatsky said. “Now that it’s law, we should move onto the next item. We are graced today by the presence of our Education Czar, who has a presentation for us before we vote on the next bill.”

Elsa Von Branefuq approached the podium and addressed the House. “If you’ll direct your attention to the screen,” she said, “there’s a short video you need to see.”

She played the video on the big screen and Congressmen watched with interest. The interviews and polls they saw painted a grim picture.

America suffered an epidemic of reactionism. Narrow-minded bigots, so fanatic about defending their irrational prejudices, were hostile to any new idea or alternative insight which challenged the sacred cows of the traditional worldview.

But enough about academia. Elsa’s video was more concerned with the average Joe on the street.

“You all saw the results,” Elsa said after the first video clip. “There’s a significant percentage of the population that believe freedom of speech should apply to everyone—including those whose opinions are incorrect.”

Speechless with dismay, the intellectually superior members of the House shook their heads sadly at the state of national recklessness.

“Some people actually believe that random roadside searches, unwarranted wiretapping and remote monitoring of everyone’s cell phones and social networking violate their so-called Fourth Amendment rights.”

The rational congresspersons groaned at the radical extremism of some of the unwashed crackpots out there.

“And on it goes,” Elsa said. “Not long ago, we had a Hollywood actress, of all people, publicly state that she believed that there’s nothing wrong with a married woman staying home to raise children.”

“Boo. Hiss,” said the enlightened representatives.

Elsa placed one hand over her heart. “I assure you that my professional educators are doing all they can to combat this mass hysteria, but some of our efforts are slipping through the cracks. There’s just not enough reinforcement outside the classroom. Our experts have pinpointed the breakdown in conditioning, and it amounts simply to this: people don’t watch enough TV!”

She pushed a button on the remote and the screen filled with the image of a slick, shiny, modern-looking wide screen television.

“Industry leaders who share our vision of progress have assessed our needs and cooperated with us to develop a new tool to combat this widespread problem. I present: the new Cerebrolave, by Phillips Pavlovox.”

The House gasped and stared at the striking image of technological innovation.

“Now observe the cognitive functions evident after only a few hours of immersion in the patented Cerebrolave technology,” Elsa said, and rolled the next video clip.

An interviewee wiped drool from her lips as she watched the gorgeous wide screen of her new television, then turned to face the camera. “Violent criminals, by nature, obey laws,” she said. “We need more gun control legislation.”

The video jump-cut to a basement, where a 26 year old Occupy protester salivated, eyes glued to his new Pavlovox. “All religions of the world should be respected and welcomed in our society,” he said. “Except Christianity, of course.”

Another jump-cut to a middle class living room. A couple sat watching TV while workmen paraded in and out the foreclosure notice-covered front door and waded through the drool-flooded house repossessing everything they found (except the new Phillips Pavlovox).

The husband said, “You know, the economy isn’t really that bad. And however bad it is, it’s the fault of the previous administration. Anyone who disagrees is a racist.”

His wife, sitting across the couch from him, nodded. “By doubling our national debt,” she said, “our president kept his promise to cut it in half within his first term. While colossal, unsustainable debt was flagrantly irresponsible during the previous administration, twice as much colossal, unsustainable debt under this administration is sound economic policy. The solution to impending bankruptcy is to borrow and spend even more than before.”

The reasonable representatives in the House applauded.

“Thank-you,” Elsa Von Branefuq said. “And I won’t go into all the features of these new televisions, but I’d like to point out that they have integrated cameras. Now the person watching TV can be observed, to determine their reaction to what they watch. This provides an early warning system. Since those with inappropriate responses to various stimuli suffer from some sort of mental disorder, they can now be identified. Once identified, corrective action can be taken, whether it be adjustment of their medication, or removal for private treatment…before they become a danger to themselves or others.”

The House gave her a standing ovation—all except for a few lunatic fringe right-wingers who always tried to throw a stumbling block in the way of progress.

“We need to make it mandatory,” Natasha Polecatsky said, “that every household in the country have one of these TVs in it! I’ll have my assistants begin drafting legislation immediately.”

“Pardon me, Ms. Speaker,” McRino said, “but what about people who can’t afford this TV?”

“We’ll have to penalize them with fines,” Polecatsky said.

“Makes perfect sense,” McRino said.

“Excuse me Ms. Speaker,” one of the fascist pigs said, “but what right do we have to force the taxpayers to buy a television? Or any product for that matter?”

Polecatsky winked at her supporters. “If you’re happy with your current TV set, you can keep it.”

Elsa’s cell phone rang. She recognized the number and turned to the Speaker. “I beg your pardon, Ms. Speaker, but there’s an emergency and I have to leave immediately.”

“Hmmph,” Polecatsky said. “Well, we’d like to ask you some specific questions. Let me earmark a few million taxpayer dollars for a return visit, with hotel accommodations, limousine service…”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted one of the hate-filled religious right monsters. “She lives right here in town!”

“Your personal attacks against the Education Czar prove you’re anti-education and pro-ignorance,” the Speaker of the House concluded. “Next thing you know you’ll be denying school lunches and starving children to death.”

The last thing Elsa heard on her way out the door was Neville McRino pontificating on how they should just get this devisive issue behind them by approving it.

This was Chapter 2 of The Greater Good.