Psychic ability -- Fiction; Science fiction; Telepathy -- Fiction; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation -- Fiction
_Now, that’s perfectly true, and it spells out the difference. Over
here, you’ve been confusing the jerks and the idiots, getting rid of
them so the system can work properly. Over in Russia, on the other
hand, you’ve left the jerks and the idiots all alone to do their dirty
work, and you’ve just added to the confusion where necessary, so that
the system will break down of its own weight._
“But, after all,” Lou said, “things look pretty bad over here, too.
Look at the papers.”
_Everybody_, Malone thought, _has been telling me to go and look at the
newspapers. And when I do look at them I find all sorts of evidence of
confusion. Teachers resigning, senators and representatives goofing up
bills on Congress, gang wars cluttering up the streets with cadavers
and making things tough for the Sanitation Department, factional fights
in various organizations. Now, all of that looks pretty horrible in the
papers, but do you know something? It isn’t horrible at all._
_It’s pretty damn good, as a matter of fact._
_The teachers who are resigning, for instance, are the nincompoops
who’ve got to be pruned out so that competent teachers can come in.
And, with the higher salaries, more and more competent men and women
are going to be attracted to the job. The universities are going to be
freer and better places to work in; they won’t be monopolies any
more._
“Monopolies?” Lou said.
_In restraint of knowledge_, Malone thought. _The old monopoly was in
restraint of trade, and legal action helped to kill that kind. The
monopoly in restraint of knowledge took a little more killing, but
you’re doing the job quite nicely. And not only in the schools._
_The factional fights are having the same result. Look at the AAAM,
for instance. That organization is a monopoly, pure and simple.
Simple, anyhow. And what the factional fights are doing to it is just
breaking up the monopoly and letting knowledge free again._
_And then we come to Congress. Senators and representatives are having
a terrible time, some of them. There’s a fight going on between
Furbisher and Deeks because Deeks has discovered some evidence against
Furbisher. Who’s having the terrible time?_
_All of them?_
_Nope. Furbisher is. Deeks isn’t._
_And that’s the way it’s going all over. The useful, necessary
legislation is going through Congress now without being cluttered up
by stupid dam bills and water bills and other idiocies that simply
clog the works._
_And then, of course, there are the gang wars. Now, I feel as sorry
for the Sanitation Department as anybody, but at least they’re
cleaning the streets for good now. The boys who are dying off and
getting sent to hospitals and jails are just the ones who should have
been sent away long ago. Everybody knows that, but nobody can prove
it._
_Except the PRS._
_And the PRS is busy doing just what it can about that proof._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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