Implied Consent: Act IV, Scene V

(This scene takes place a month after the trial at the reception following MARK's and VICTORIA's wedding. MARK and VICTORIA are accompanied by QUINTUS GRUMMOND, NEVILLE, and WALTONFORD.)

GRUMMOND: Well, congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Mark. Now, I shall announce the present that I had in mind to celebrate the occasion. I have decided to give away a third of my money-- to you.

(MARK and VICTORIA display amazement.)

VICTORIA (whispers to MARK): You were right. You were entirely right. This is far more than I could have ever expected to win by testifying for the prosecution.

MARK: We are most pleasantly surprised, Mr. Grummond, and we shall certainly put the funds to good use. Victoria, that should be more than enough money to establish your Academy of High Art.

VICTORIA: Indeed. We should never again be lacking in the means to accomplish our objectives. My sincerest thanks to you, Uncle.

GRUMMOND: You see, ladies and gentlemen, we wealthy magnates are not stingy when we see good reason to behave otherwise. We reward achievement, and reward it more amply than anybody else can, since we know that it is by human achievement, our own and that of the associates we had wisely and selectively chosen, that we rise to our colossal prosperity. And we see nothing more deserving of our investment than the integrity of an individual's mind and its devotion to rational principles. This is why I have chosen to so endow the young couple here. As for the remainder of my funds, they shall never partake in any inheritance. Rather, my design is to perpetuate the Estate of Grummond indefinitely, and define its operations for all time, allowing, of course, for flexibility in management due to the development of future technologies or more efficient means of production and distribution. A man's life, as I had found out all too personally, remains distressingly vulnerable to the elements, even at our unprecedented level of technological advancement. The products of a man's mind, his ideas and his purpose, however, may be far less vulnerable so long as they are implemented in practice. The techniques developed by Dr. Waltonford have been able to extend my biological life considerably, and it may even be that they shall indefinitely preserve me from peril. However, I would like to ensure that, whatever happens to my body, the designs of my mind shall ever play an active role in the world and build upon themselves in ever increasing complexity and splendor. This manner of immortality is second only to immortality in the flesh. How can you respect this arrangement, ladies and gentlemen?

The answer is quite simple. (He extracts his will from his pocket.) You must hold this piece of paper as sacrosanct, above your wishes, whims, and spurs of the moment, above your desires for instantaneous wealth that has not been given to you of a man's free will. Respect this paper, be it a will, a contract, or a pledge, and you will thereby respect property. Respect property, and you will thereby respect life. If you fail to do either one, you will fail to do the other, and your existence shall become as wasteful and meaningless as that of the hooligan I had once called "son."

WALTONFORD: Words of wisdom from a wise man. Now, Miss Grummond, I have a most interesting proposition for you. How would you like to establish your
academy-- on the Moon?

VICTORIA: The Moon?

WALTONFORD: With the sort of funds available to you, it could be done several times over. Think about this: a massive residential complex, with all the conveniences afforded by modern technology: its own self-sustaining farms and ranches, its own industry, and its own government, that is, you and your husband, all working to sustain a community of individualist creators, not mired in tomes of unwieldy regulations and tangles of red tape, not bombarded with the decadent habits of pop-culture, free from any oversight but that of your own rational minds. I have already sketched out several immensely cost-efficient methods by which this could be done, and it would be quite an interesting endeavor for me to undertake. Now that I have probed into the deepest secrets of life, I would like to try my mind at conquering other worlds.

NEVILLE: And, Mr. Mark, that would also mean the end of your legal troubles. I have been holding back the IRS from infringing upon your accounts for quite some time, but that agency, we all know, will never of its own accord agree to back out of this uneasy stalemate. How would you like to show the IRS your gratitude for the immensely kind treatment it had given you by forever denying them the ability to tax you? It could be done, if you form your own independent political jurisdiction on the moon and do away with this legalized plunder known as the income tax.

MARK: This is most intriguing. I have been thinking on this subject myself and pondering about what defines a slave. If a slave is somebody whom another forces to give up one-hundred percent of the products of his labor, then who is a person whom somebody forces to give up thirty-nine percent of the products of his labor? Is he a partial slave? And who is the beneficiary? A slaveholder? Or the Federal Government? Is there really a difference between the two under such a system? No, if a man's property is his own, he must have full discretion over how to use it, giving it to the government only as he sees fit, for purposes in which he thinks the government will protect his inalienable rights.

VICTORIA: Just one question: When can we begin?

WALTONFORD: I can start work right away. Of course, after that debacle with Daniel Bailey, our security and concealment procedures have been so enhanced as to prevent such snooping. An invisibility shield spanning several square kilometers will do the trick.

MARK: Whatever happened to Daniel Bailey, anyway? I have not seen a single report of his after his testimony in court.

NEVILLE: It is said that Bailey was fired from Standard News for blatantly editorializing in his news report on the discovery of the revival project. It seems to be the policy of the station that society is best served when a reporter gives the facts impartially, or at least craftily hides his own bias.

MARK: And the general will got even with Mr. Bailey for crossing it.

(They laugh.)

VICTORIA: On the matter of the general will, what was the fate of Judge Benson, the man who rejected principles on principle, and sought for his judgments to reflect the ever-changing paradigms of society?

NEVILLE: Apparently somebody convinced him that it would be in the best interests of society for him to resign from his position and permanently abandon the search for another career. Having no philosophical convictions of his own, Benson had no means by which to counter this argument, and thus was internally moved to concede its validity and follow its recommendations.

GRUMMOND: A man who holds no philosophy of his own will inevitably succumb to the worst and most self-destructive attitudes that exist out there. That drunken lout Oswald was a good example of this.

WALTONFORD: Oswald, so I have heard, did not escape the burden of paying for the lawsuit he filed against us. Trent Roberts managed to fulfill his notorious promise of hunting Oswald wherever he went, and eventually forced him to assume tremendous debts to pay Roberts off. Now, no sane employer would ever hire Oswald, so he had no means of ever recovering the losses. Thus, he decided to die as he had lived. He entered even further debts to attend a demolition derby in which he threw himself at a flaming vehicle.

MARK: Thus did he burn away his life. Now, at the last, I am pleased to report that our old friend Trent Roberts did not get off the hook of poetic justice, either. It startled me to read in a recent Internet news magazine that Mr. Roberts had been surprised by an IRS audit, out of which he could not maneuver for all his slick sophistry, an audit sparked by Roberts' extortion of immense funds from Oswald to pay for his trial services. Now, Mr. Roberts dallied somewhat, it seems, in reporting his new income, and the IRS... I think we can guess by this time what the IRS does with people in those circumstances.

NEVILLE: And Harvard did nothing come to his defense? I am astonished!

WALTONFORD: It looks like Harvard has a new pet, in its science department, I fear. He is one of those theorists who believes that the universe is going to expand and contract and dance the polka before spiraling into a black hole and then diminishing into a single point of immaterial matter, unless, of course, we humans cut our industrial emissions immediately!

VICTORIA: I think if he cut his emissions of wasteful sophist doubletalk, man would be far better off.

MARK: But, thankfully, we do not have to deal with them. While senseless sophistries at home prevail, toward a new and better world we sail.

(Curtain.)

To read other parts of Implied Consent, go here.