I, Robot, Do Solemnly Swear

I suppose it was inevitable.

Since the President's Supreme Court Czar did away with elections and began appointing czars of Congress, definitions have diminished. Sanity has become a reality show, and insanity a plea bargain. Human conception has become a calendar adjustment, and citizenship a card trick. "Capitalism" is an 8G iPhone game, and "personal responsibility" is a trivia question.

It began with the new "Living Constitution" and the death of private property rights. Once the criminal was deemed to have more rights than the victim, and the protector came to be considered the criminal, I suppose it was inevitable that both victim and protector would look for another way to defend themselves. It was just a matter of time. And ripe, rich technology was up to the task. Or so we thought.

As every School-Czar-monitored moppet knows, it's now been 10 years since police precincts, desperate to defend their few remaining officers not appointed by the World Court, began deploying robotic cops to handle high-risk situations. But today's 10th anniversary celebration of police robots was marred by an insalubrious spate of anti- and pro-robot protest rallies.

A decade ago, robot police were first conscripted for high-danger-potential public situations, like holiday sales at Wal-Mart, or the 10-items-or-less grocery aisle. Armed with infallible logic, inviolate algorithms, an uncanny ability to correctly count to ten, and death-ray popguns, the robots were ideally suited to settle disputes and enhance the collective shopping experience.

Robot: Valued Customer, you have 14 items in your cart.

Shopper: Bull biscuits. All them fruit count as one item. One bunch of fruit. See?

[whirring noise]

Robot: Valued Customer, you have 14 items in your cart.

Shopper: Yeah, whatever. Now, let's see. I got a bunch of coupons. And I gotta write a check. Bobby! You put that candy bar right back where you found it! Oh, and I gotta get some cash, girl. And I want 2 lottery tickets. No, 3. No, wait. BOBBY! Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about! Now where did I put that checkbook...

Robot: Valued Customer, please step away from the Express Lane.

Shopper: Sail off, Gear-neck.

[brief, loud humming noise]

Robot: Your life is now ended. And thank you for shopping at Food Czar Mart.

These first-generation droid units, flawlessly fitted for bomb disposal and crowd control, were originally known as Rudimentary Unprotected Mechs II. (R-U Me2) However, the Brotherhood of Illegal Aliens union, championed by the new Undocumented Workers Czar, mounted a legal challenge to the Ninth Circuit Court of California, an appointed hive of Empathy Czars who have been automated for decades. The plaintiffs argued that "Mechs" rhymed with a potentially derogatory anti-illegal-alien slur. (They didn't care much for "Techs Mechs," either.) The robot manufacturers, an atavistic profiteering throwback known as Ford Motors, challenged the case, calling the claim "niggardly," which didn't go over very well, either.

Then, in 2012, following a prank call by someone threatening to release another "Planet of the Apes" sequel, an off-duty cyber-cop named Robot D-Nero took down an alleged suspect, a newsboy droid. Suddenly, society had collapsed again. A droid had drilled a droid. Fortunately, D-Nero was duly deactivated following a tip called in by Rho-Z, the droid waitress at D-Nero's favorite diner, the Gritz-N-Grease. Sources say Rho-Z became suspicious after D-Nero turned down his usual second helping of Korean nuclear jelly.

At the time, several czars denounced D-Nero's impulsive action as a hate crime, since the newsboy droid was a different alloy and came from a non-union factory. The ACLU (Android Cyber-Liberties Union) weighed in, citing an obvious case of non-carbon bias. Al Sharpton materialized, whipped out his Instant Media Event Nano-Kit, and began to assemble an assembly, but stormed off in a huff when droids ordered him to remove his helmet. A spokes-droid later apologized for mistakenly confusing Sharpton with an intelligent entity.

In 2015, the first reports of droid depression were cited by the Health Care Czar in JAMA (Journal of Automaton Mechanical Ailments). It's postulated that some droids, after observing human fascination with stock car racing, got caught in an endless creation-versus-evolution conundrum and went, as they used to say, postal. No postal employees could be reached for comment, as they were all doubling as endometrial surgeons, or on their break.

And, ultimately, some underwhelmed, over-humanized robots simply went, as they used to say, rogue. Mankind's dream of a more perfect intelligence was snuffed when robot commuters started trying to outrun robot cops. Nearly every day, just like their human predecessors, some robot somewhere had a synapse lapse and thought to itself, "I am the one. I am the first sentient life form who will be able to get away in a police car chase."

I suppose it was inevitable.