The Honor System
(Somewhere, anywhere, in America, early 22nd century)
(Lights up as YOUNG HARRY enters the den of his home, where his father, HARRISON VII, is reading the paper.)
YOUNG HARRY
Dad, what’s the honor system?
HARRISON VII
(looking up from his paper)
Why do you ask, my boy?
YOUNG HARRY
Our teacher mentioned it in class today.
HARRISON VII
Really? What class is that?
YOUNG HARRY
Personal Finance. You know, “Money for Nothing.”
HARRISON VII
Ah, yes, I remember it well. It had a different title back when I took it. They called it…now what the devil did they call it?...Right, they called it “Leveraging Your God-given Talents for Wealth Accumulation.” Awkward name. I think we called it “LevGod” for short. (pause) I hated that course.
YOUNG HARRY
Why was that, dad?
HARRISON VII
I had no God-given talents.
YOUNG HARRY
Ah, right. I forgot.
HARRISON VII
That’s why I married your mother. Lucky for you I’ve squandered it all. So at least you won’t have the burden of an inheritance.
YOUNG HARRY
Which is why I’m taking my Personal Finance course so seriously.
HARRISON VII
Of course. Very wise. (pause) School going well otherwise?
YOUNG HARRY
It’s a lot more fun now that we can carry weapons. Keeps the teachers on their toes.
HARRISON VII
Ha! I can think of a few back in the old days that I’d liked to have whacked! It always seemed so unfair that they could bear and we couldn’t.
YOUNG HARRY
I hear you. But back to the honor system.
HARRISON VII
Well, near as I can recall, it’s an outmoded concept from the 20th century. It means trusting someone to do the right thing without forcing them to. Like a teacher letting students take a test without supervision. Or lending money to someone without a written agreement.
YOUNG HARRY
Wow, that’s weird.
HARRISON VII
Sure was.
YOUNG HARRY
So "honor "means, like, people believed what you said?
HARRISON VII
Sort of. There used to be this notion called "respect." People of honor merited respect.
YOUNG HARRY
You mean people looked up to you?
HARRISON VII
Hard to believe, but yes. You had what was called a good reputation.
YOUNG HARRY
Reputation?
HARRISON VII
We don’t have time.
YOUNG HARRY
I'm so confused. This is all so crazy.
HARRISON VII
Sure is.
YOUNG HARRY
But what’s “trust”?
HARRISON VII
Another anachronism, son. Trust is a reliance someone has in the word of another. Like trusting them to tell the truth or to pay you for your work. Or take an exam without cheating.
YOUNG HARRY
They used to believe that? I’d be in deep shit if I couldn’t cheat on exams.
HARRISON VII
Yep. It actually had a pretty good run back in the last century. Went the way of land lines and retail stores.
YOUNG HARRY
That’s really weird.
HARRISON VII
Sure was.
YOUNG HARRY
(after a pause)
Where does this “truth” thing fit in? Not sure I know…oh, wait, I think I heard it in an old Jack Nicholson movie.
HARRISON VII
You don’t hear it much anymore. It went out when President Trump was elected in 2016. It means a statement based on fact or reality.
YOUNG HARRY
Then it’s the same as fake news?
HARRISON VII
Pretty close. Hard to believe it meant something else, isn’t it? No one much cares for facts…or reality…anymore. Not when you can get people to believe anything you say by saying it loud enough and long enough. (pausing) Of course, the left-wing media didn’t help things.
YOUNG HARRY
Left wing?
HARRISON VII
Radical left.
YOUNG HARRY
Left?
HARRISON VII
Socialism. You know, the state over the individual. Collective ownership of property. All goods shared by the people.
YOUNG HARRY
Everyone rich?
HARRISON VII
Everyone poor.
YOUNG HARRY
And the media spread this craziness?
HARRISON VII
They cloaked it in naïve idealism. Free this, free that. Open borders, free trade, no-cost college. Defund the police. Tax the rich, give to the poor.
YOUNG HARRY
Wow. Tax the rich.
HARRISON VII
Tax the rich.
YOUNG HARRY
But it’s the rich that create the jobs that keep people from being poor.
HARRISON VII
Exactly. That’s where socialism failed. It took away the incentive for people like me to make money.
YOUNG HARRY
You actually made money?
HARRISON VII
Well, no. But you get the idea. You can’t very well save the poor by robbing from the rich.
YOUNG HARRY
So Trump didn’t think much of socialism?
HARRISON VII
You could say that.
YOUNG HARRY
Is that how he came to power?
HARRISON VII
Yes, but that was only part of the story. He ridiculed things like health care for all and free higher education. But what he really ridiculed were the left’s beliefs in free speech and equal rights. Social issues like abortion and open immigration. He didn’t care much for those who believed in a woman’s right to control what happens to her body.
YOUNG HARRY
So he opposed individual rights?
HARRISON VII
If it was convenient, yes.
YOUNG HARRY
Convenient?
HARRISON VII
Yeah, well, take gun regulation. He very much supported an individual’s right to bear arms. The Second Amendment.
YOUNG HARRY
So he believed in the Second Amendment but not the First Amendment?
HARRISON VII
Pretty much. That’s where the media came in. He saw the media as the enemy of the people.
YOUNG HARRY
Because they believed in free speech?
HARRISON VII
And practiced free speech. They just wouldn’t shut up. Kept spreading fake news. Stuff that criticized the president. He hated left-wing newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post.
YOUNG HARRY
Newspapers?
HARRISON VII
Yeah, sources of news that you read in print form or online. They did something called investigative journalism—long articles on single topics of interest. Deep dive. Lots of crap. Totally discredited.
YOUNG HARRY
And people actually read these…newspapers?
HARRISON VII
Hard to believe, but yes. Some of these articles took hours to read.
YOUNG HARRY
Hours?
HARRISON VII
Hours.
YOUNG HARRY
Instead of Qubit?
HARRISON VII
Instead of Qubit. Back then it was something called Twitter.
YOUNG HARRY
Well, I can see why they went out of business. Who wants to spend that much time reading?
HARRISON VII
I sure didn’t, I’ll tell you that. Qubit saves me lots of time. Allows to me to focus on important things.
YOUNG HARRY
Like making money?
HARRISON VII
Stop with the sarcasm, boy.
YOUNG HARRY
But where did these silly ideas come from, dad?
HARRISON VII
Most of them were based on something called the Ten Commandments.
YOUNG HARRY
They sound scary.
HARRISON VII
Oh, they were…very. Fire and brimstone. Vengeful God. That sort of thing.
YOUNG HARRY
God?
HARRISON VII
Author of the Ten Commandments. Old man with a white beard. Cranky most of the time.
YOUNG HARRY
So trust was one of these Commandments?
HARRISON VII
Not specifically, no, though they were all based on trust. One of them was, “Thou shalt not steal.” Another was, “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Fancy way of saying,” Don’t lie.” Then there were things about not coveting property or wives. The only good one was, “Honor thy father and thy mother.”
YOUNG HARRY
Ouch. What kind of world is that?
HARRISON VII
Pretty grim, son. Trump put an end to that. With help from the Evangelicals.
YOUNG HARRY
The old rock group?
HARRISON VII
Ha! No, the so-called born-again Christians. The ones who believed in the Ten Commandments.
YOUNG HARRY
And the cranky old man?
HARRISON VII
Right.
YOUNG HARRY
That makes no sense. Why would they support Trump if they followed the Ten Commandments?
HARRISON VII
Well, I guess their commitment to making American white again, I mean great again, meant more than their religious beliefs. Turns out they were more racist than godly. And, as they said, “Trump tells it like it is.”
YOUNG HARRY
That would explain it. Like Mister Williams, our physics teacher. He’s full of BS – but you always know where you stand with him.
HARRISON VII
And it worked. Hard to believe but this country used to have brown people crashing our borders from Mexico.
YOUNG HARRY
Brown?
HARRISON VII
Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans. Shitholes countries. Most of them claimed to be fleeing gangsters and drug lords. What they really wanted was our jobs. Picking vegetables, plucking chickens, cleaning homes, those sorts of things. Almost destroyed the economy.
YOUNG HARRY
Wow. What happened?
HARRISON VII
That genius Trump in his second term put up a 1500-mile barrier that kept them all out. Twelve feet high, topped by razor wire, guarded by soldiers and a moat. A wonder of the world. Pretty much put an end to immigration.
YOUNG HARRY
So that’s why everyone in my class is white.
HARRISON VII
Well, not everyone, of course. You still have remnants from the old so-called slave culture. And light-skinned Latinos—that’s what they called them. From before the Great Wall of Trump.
YOUNG HARRY
I do see some people with very dark skins.
HARRISON VII
Former slaves. But they live mostly in ghettoes. We don’t see them much anymore. They just keep to themselves and kill one another.
YOUNG HARRY
We had slavery in this country?
HARRISON VII
An old conspiracy theory, son. Communists in the 20th century claimed that our forebears brought Africans over on ships to work the cotton plantations. We know better now, of course. The Africans came willingly because of better working conditions.
YOUNG HARRY
I can see that.
HARRISON VII
But once they left the plantations they got real pushy. Wanted the same rights as white people. Pretty sad, but they actually regarded themselves as equal.
YOUNG HARRY
They don’t cover that in my history class.
HARRISON VII
As well they shouldn’t. Of course, without the Africans we never would have had pro football or soul music or good ribs. And for some odd reason, once Trump cracked down on immigration, we stopped winning Olympic medals and Nobel Prizes.
YOUNG HARRY
I’ve wondered about that. (pause) Of course, we also lost a lot of brain power when they opened up the Gay and Jewish academies.
HARRISON VII
Small price to pay to keep those undesirables out of your school. Should have happened years ago.
YOUNG HARRY
Yeah. Though some of my best friends…
HARRISON VII
…are still your best friends, the ones at good old Whitebread High. The others weren’t your type, were they?
YOUNG HARRY
Well…
HARRISON VII
(sarcastically)
Well what?
YOUNG HARRY
My friends at Whitebread are a bit boring. And frankly, not the sharpest darts on the board. (sadly) I do miss my old chess partners.
HARRISON VII
Small price, believe me. It was touch and go there for a while. The Supreme Court before Trump was doing all they could to desegregate public schools and cram affirmative action down the throats of colleges. Imagine. Open doors for the so-called underprivileged. Blacks and whites in the same schools. We dodged a bullet here. And don’t get me going on gay rights.
YOUNG HARRY
Still…
HARRISON VII
Still what? Keeping out Hispanics and keeping blacks in ghettoes has other advantages, with land being so limited now.
YOUNG HARRY
I’ve wondered about that, too. Is it true that the coastline used to be miles away?
HARRISON VII
It is. Little did we know that our humble estate would one day be seaside property. Amazing how things work out. Of course, not so good for the people who used to live in places like San Francisco and Miami.
YOUNG HARRY
San Francisco?
HARRISON VII
An aquatic park. Like Miami.
YOUNG HARRY
Ah, that explains the Miami Dolphins.
HARRISON VII
Right. And the Bay Area Sea Otters.
(after a pause)
Goes to show you, son, how fear mongers can be both right and wrong. The climate fanatics in the last century predicted that seas would rise as ice caps melted. They were right. But they only saw the downside of global warming. They didn’t have the foresight to realize that for every San Francisco or Miami that sunk into the ocean there would be a Fresno or Orlando offering prime waterfront real estate.
YOUNG HARRY
We are so lucky.
HARRISON VII
Well, I am anyway. Not so sure about you. By the time you’re old enough to raise kids you might be living in Montana.
YOUNG HARRY
(sarcastically)
Thanks a lot, dad. (after a moment) What’s mom up to?
HARRISON VII
She had to take Gracie up to Canada for the day.
YOUNG HARRY
Not another abortion?
HARRISON VII
Afraid so.
YOUNG HARRY
That’s so inconvenient. Isn’t there some way she can just stop getting pregnant?
HARRISON VII
You mean birth control? Trump ended that. There used to be methods like condoms and IUDs that would keep a woman from getting pregnant. There was actually an organization called Planned Parenthood that counseled women on birth control.
YOUNG HARRY
No more?
HARRISON VII
Another gift from the Evangelicals.
YOUNG HARRY
How so?
HARRISON VII
Well, the cranky old man had this thing about abortion.
YOUNG HARRY
The Ten Commandments again?
HARRISON VII
Not specifically. It’s just that the righteous believed that “thou shall not kill” meant “thou shall kill ANYTHING,” including babies in the womb, or even eggs and sperm. Mothers don’t matter. So they got Trump and his brethren on the Supreme Court to ban abortion and curtail birth control.
YOUNG HARRY
Why’d the Supreme Court go along?
HARRISON VII
Stacked with Catholics.
YOUNG HARRY
If that’s true, dad, that life is so precious, why do we execute criminals?
HARRISON VII
It’s a conundrum, son. I have no answer. Maybe it has to do with the color of their skin.
YOUNG HARRY
Hmm, so it’s possible to hold two opposite opinions at the same time and not have your head explode?
HARRISON VII
Sure, people had to. How else to justify believing in the bible—they called it “The Good Book”—and also believing in a morally corrupt president who groped women and swindled business partners.
YOUNG HARRY
Man, must have been a strange world back then.
HARRISON VII
Sure was, son. Things are so much easier now that you can pretty much get away with anything. No responsibility, no guilt, no accountability.
YOUNG HARRY
Awesome. We live in a great time.
HARRISON VII
Don’t we now? (after a moment) I do have a question, dad. We were studying geography the other day. Our teacher put up a map from 2000 that showed Alaska as part of the United States. Is that true?
HARRISON VII
Yep. Alaska was a drag on the economy—and way too far away for anyone to actually visit. So Trump ceded it to Russia in return for permission to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
YOUNG HARRY
He could do that? Congress actually went along with it?
HARRISON VII
Congress? You joke, my silly young spawn. After the Trump impeachment trial of 2020 it was pretty much understood that the president could do pretty much anything he wanted. There were no curbs on his executive powers. Bribe foreign powers for personal gain? Check. Bomb Iran. Check. Trade Alaska. Check. Congress had all the bite of a guppy.
YOUNG HARRY
Wow. I had no idea. (after a moment) Are we good people, dad?
(pause)
HARRISON VII
I’m not sure what “good” means, to be honest. I did when I was your age. Back then I had some vague recollection of life before Trump. My dad and mom—your grandparents—were raised the old-fashioned way. They had a clear notion of good and evil, right and wrong. Some of this percolated down to me and your aunt. But it seemed that every time we tried to act with honor and decency we got laughed at. Didn’t take long before we stopped trying, until we lost any knowledge of right and wrong. (pausing) So am I a good person? Are you a good person? Son, I don’t know. I’ve lost any moral compass. It’s all a puzzlement.
YOUNG HARRY
Maybe that’s why I have so much trouble understanding the old stuff we have to learn in school. Last week we watched a play called “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Used to be a book, I think. Anyway, it made no sense at all. A small-town lawyer sacrifices his practice to defend a black man accused of murder. Gave up a thriving practice. Sacrificed his reputation. Lost friends. All to defend a negro. Makes no sense.
HARRISON VII
Maybe that’s what “good” is. This idea that you might actually care more for others than you do for yourself. I remember something my mother used to preach when I was a boy: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She called it The Golden Rule.
YOUNG HARRY
And people believed that?
HARRISON VII
I believed that. Until I opened my eyes.
YOUNG HARRY
Or Trump opened them?
HARRISON VII
Right. I liked his motto better: “Do unto others as if they’re about to screw you.” He was a master of offense. If someone hit you, you hit back harder.
YOUNG HARRY
It worked, didn’t it?
HARRISON VII
Sure did.
YOUNG HARRY
Man, what a sad country this would be had it not been for Trump. Colored people. Jews and gays. Open borders. Abortions. Crappy real estate. Responsibility. Trust. Decency. The Honor System.
HARRISON VII
Trump was a friggin’ genius.
(pause)
YOUNG HARRY
What ever happened to him, dad?
HARRISON VII
The voters threw him out.
YOUNG HARRY
Wha’? I thought you said the people loved him.
HARRISON VII
Many of them did. But what they really liked was what he stood for, his policies—anti-elite, pro-life, anti-immigration, pro-religion, anti-tax, racist, homophobic, xenophobic. Once the voters got rid of Trump, they could focus on what they really wanted, his policies, and not a president who tweeted obsessively and grabbed women’s genitals—sorry, son—and “told it like it was,” they wanted someone who could turn America back to the way they imagined it in the 1950s. Then along came President DeSantis, Trump without the bad manners.
YOUNG HARRY
But, dad, I thought you said people wanted a liar and thief.
HARRISON VII
I lied.
YOUNG HARRY
That’s a good one, dad. You had me totally fooled.
HARRISON VII
You learn quickly, son. Now get back to your homework.
BLACKOUT
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