Chapter 22

I wasn’t sure just when or how the news of the surrender would be leaked to the press, but it didn’t take very long at all for the members of the Fourth Estate to make their presence known. Damn, they acted fast, I thought, but that was also very useful. Soon, they would be under my control, and the sooner that the public got used to the idea that I was in command, the better. It was also important to get people accustomed to the new legislation that would now be worldwide. That was also true with the latest version of my plans regarding military, economic, police, judicial, etc. matters. As the Archon, with full responsibility for the world, I had to be somewhat flexible with some details. This included police organizations, for instance.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you have arrived just in time to witness this moment of great significance to all of humanity and posterity. As from this moment, with all nations, governments, armies, and treasuries surrendered to my custody, as the Archon, I am now lord of this world. I claim dominion over it and everything in it. Of course, the legal mechanism for this is the Sophia Symposium and its conservatorship of all nations, but don’t doubt for a second that this is simply the necessary instrument to ensure compliance within the rule of law.

“As stated before, I have some announcements. First, for those of you still a little behind the times, my name is Mark Smythe, and I am the Archon. I rule the world now, as every nation on Earth has, through its head of state, surrendered its sovereignty to my person and my Sophia Symposium. The Symposium now operates as the conservator of every country in the world. As its head and chief officer, this gives me full stewardship of every land, every culture, every community, every civilization worldwide.

“This is, as noted, the legal means to ensure the constitutionality of my New World Order. All existing national constitutions are now moot, null, and void, including the unwritten ones. I am the new supreme law of the land, my will, my every command. This is still the rule of law, but it will be My law that rules, that governs the Earth. To a certain extent, vestigial institutions may remain, so long as they serve the greater good. If they should fail to do so, they are very much disposable, as are even the national boundaries themselves.

“The fact that I was a legal minor under the old legal codes is immaterial, as there is no legal precedent or principle setting a minimum age to receive the surrender of every nation on Earth. Those laws are now retroactively repealed as well. The new age of consent and majority, in every nation of the world, is fourteen and shall remain so as long as I deem it necessary and wise. As I said, that is now retroactive as well, meaning that anyone prosecuted solely for statutory rape for engaging in sexual congress with a fourteen year old shall be granted immediate amnesty, exoneration, and release from state custody. Of course, this doesn’t apply if other, real crimes were committed and the person was duly convicted of them.

“Also, drivers’ licenses are now global, serving as the first worldwide form of ID. There will be no fee imposed by my administration or any nation under its rule on this initial grant of said licenses, but in the future, some fees may be required for the process, at my discretion. The driving age will be fourteen as well, along with the age for learners’ permits, marriage licenses, insurance, registration, etc. Mind you, there will be considerably less traffic over time, as I am hereby enacting a policy of greatly augmenting public and mass transit and transportation throughout the world. Between this and the new electric cars, along with many other initiatives, I expect that mankind’s carbon footprint will be drastically reduced, just in time to save us from environmental apocalypse.

“Speaking of which, yes, it is true that there was a ‘Rapture’ of sorts, wherein millions of people were taken up to Heaven by Jesus Christ. Let me assure you, however, that I have brokered a truce with the Son of God, wherein he took his folks and agreed not to rain plagues down on us. I have also eradicated Hell itself, freeing its inmates of their torment, so you need not fear death at all. Some will undoubtedly label me the ‘Antichrist’ or something, but honestly, I will persecute no one for their faith, including Christians. If they break my laws, they will be punished, of course, but they are free to worship the God that rejected them if they choose, for what little good it may do them.

“The absence of these ‘Raptured’ folks does create something of an emergency or crisis, worldwide no less, but it also gives us the opportunity to right many wrongs, to correct social injustices, to reform society in a dramatic fashion, and to improve the evolution of our race, the human race, the only race that truly exists in this world. Just think of the decreased levels of carbon dioxide from that fewer people being in this world, not to mention of the lack of the kind of vicious opposition and fantastic irresponsibility caused by them. Just think of the reduced religious tensions, especially in places where Christ was invoked to justify superstition, racism, sexism, homophobia, and worse.

“Now, regarding some basic changes, I am now implementing a global metric system to include all nations not previously under this standard. I am also abolishing Daylight Savings’ Time worldwide. Any supposed benefit from ‘saving’ daylight is hardly worth the sleep deprivation and disruption that it has been known to cause. I am also decreeing that all education be public henceforth, with all private schools and homeschooling completely abolished, whether religious or secular in nature. The good private schools will be nationalized and the bad ones will be closed entirely.

“This includes university level, in fact, with all private colleges hereby nationalized and all tuition requirements abolished as well. In short, education from preschool through graduate school shall henceforth be wholly funded through public subsidy and revenue. Money will no longer be an object in our pursuit of the most comprehensive and inclusive education possible for all of mankind. Teachers will be paid in a fashion commensurate with their own education, industry, sense, dedication, and service to their communities. Nor will they have to pay for school supplies out of pocket from meager salaries. Those days are finished.

“Also, school year be all-year round, with two weeks’ vacation or holiday at the end of each season, resulting in approximately two months’ R and R before returning to school. This will make memory retention easier and make remedial review of learning less necessary over time, as well as also allowing an earlier graduation at a younger age. One can attend university sooner rather than later, in fact.

“These schools, and their washrooms, locker rooms, dorms, etc. will all be co-ed. All gender segregation is to be eliminated, effective immediately. We will no longer have men’s rooms and ladies’ rooms, just unisex bathrooms, larger to accommodate the general population. Jails, prisons, hostels, including the new ones that I am instituting to help curb homelessness, all buildings and facilities open to the public must be unisex. The notion that the sexes must be segregated makes as little sense as Jim Crow and apartheid, when one approaches the issue logically rather than emotionally or culturally.

“Now, there is another policy that I am implementing posthaste: the Naked In School Program shall be global, for all secondary schools from the varsity level upward. Of course, it will only be implemented indoors in areas with extreme climates and other hazardous conditions. While better climate controls might be required to finish full execution, as a general rule it will be the law of the land that no student in secondary school shall be clothed inside the school facilities themselves.

“There is a wide variety of benefits to this policy, and no, I haven’t decided about introducing it in the university level yet. I won’t go into all of the social benefits now, but we all know just how badly the bullying goes about clothing and body image. Enforced nudity will reduce a lot of both issues, I would imagine, as well as encouraging us to think positively of the human figure and its innate beauty. Absurd notions of ‘modesty’ will be tossed onto history’s scrap heap where they belong, too.

“Many things will remain the purview of national and local governments, at least for now, such as some leeway about carrying out some centrally issued policies, but there are some other, definite changes coming. For instance, all munitions plants and firms are hereby placed under state ownership, with productivity and output goals set by the State. Expect a considerable reduction in overall armaments production, particularly in terms of major and strategic weaponry, as we gear down the military-industrial complex as part of our efforts at curbing climate change and preventing environmental catastrophe.

“Also expect all pay to be equal for the same work, regardless of sex, for old-age pensions to become more uniform and generous worldwide. This will include replacing our regressive Social Security system here in the United States, for instance, with a vastly improved plan for old-age, disability, accident, and unemployment insurance. Expect a living wage to become standard, globally, for universal basic income to be instituted in order to counteract the effects of automation, downsizing, and outsourcing, for job retraining and public works efforts to expand, for infrastructure plans to vastly benefit many unemployable folks, and for fully paid emergency and family leave to become a thing very soon.

“Again, there might well be considerable local autonomy and self-rule on many issues, such as national language, some curricular matters, the levels of standardized testing employed, and the process of replacing the national currency with the new global, standard monetary unit, to be known simply as ‘marks’ in my honor. Yes, yes, I can see the worry, that this will become the ‘mark of the beast,’ but I assure you that is not the case here. It won’t be a chip inside your hand or forehead at all, just a physical and digital currency that will be legal tender everywhere.

“For the present, such matters as which side of the road to use will continue to be a national matter, but I expect that gradually we will transition to having all drivers use the right-hand side. On the other hand, I’m strongly leaning toward the use of UK English in place of American English in public documents as the standard. It’s aesthetically just better, at least in my personal view. It’s more beautiful spelling, in my own, not-so-humble opinion. Each country can stick to its own style for now, again, and its official language, but I fully expect UK English to become the lingua franca within a generation.