The Guardians of Freedom - Part 6 (standard:other, 10049 words) [6/7] show all parts
Author: Dan Tana	Added: Jan 14 2012	Views/Reads: 1977/1411	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Teddy visits the author of these stories and tries to cheer him up.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


After Clarence told me that story I scanned his mind for thoughts
involving this book, which led back to a collection of memories that 
began on a cool, bright gray day several weeks earlier.  In those 
memories he was flying, cheerfully, over a small forest on his 
Ho.R.S.E. when the chemical sensors of that mount detected faint traces 
of a decomposing body, leading him to the putrefying, mushroom covered 
corpse of an old woman, which was so badly mutilated that he could 
barely recognize it as the remains of a human being. 

That experience disturbed Clarence very much, and in its aftermath he
started to obsess over the cruelty, violence, and suffering of human 
life, which he felt essentially powerless to prevent despite the power 
of all his fancy technological gizmos.  He then began to feel acutely 
and chronically anxious, because he realized that he never knew when 
life would treat him nicely and when it would suddenly, unexpectedly 
harm him in some severe way. 

As his disturbed state of mind grew even more agitated and anxious he
had begun to hear whispering voices.  Then he fell asleep and had a 
dream in which those mushroom caps that had covered the rotting corpse 
told him about the Great Reginald, whose perfect justice and truth 
would someday save the world from such terrors.  He awoke from this 
dream feeling calm for the first time in weeks, believing that he had 
had a prophetic vision and discovered the key to bringing peace to his 
world.  Then he created the Tome of the Fungus. 

Buried deep in the subconscious portion of his mind I found the choice
that Clarence had made to make up the words of that book, but when I 
tried to show that recollection to him he refused to believe it.  
Instead he insisted that every word in the Tome had been given to him 
by Reginald, and surely reflected some profound, undeniable truth.  Of 
course I couldn't be absolutely certain that those were not the words 
of an omniscient aerial Fungus, though I find that idea to be highly 
implausible. 

So I asked Clarence how he could distinguish the voice of Reginald from
a schizophrenic hallucination, which for one brief moment he realized 
that he could not do.  That moment of doubt made him start to feel very 
guilty, and uneasy.  Then he pushed those unpleasant feelings away by 
ardently insisting that he did not have any doubt whatsoever about the 
reality of Reginald, and claimed that he could tell the difference 
between a psychological delusion and the voice of his Lord through the 
grace and blessings of his faith in that mushroom. 

That line of thought does not lead to anything but itself, and cannot
ever be refuted in the mind of anyone like Clarence, who is unwilling 
to recognize the fundamental flaw of its premise.  So I switched the 
track of our conversation and asked him to tell me about how his faith 
made him feel.  We talked about how upset he had been at the discovery 
of that mutilated body, and how scary it was for him to realize how 
powerless he is to prevent most of the horrific things that happen to 
people in this world. 

Eventually he came to understand that his belief in Reginald numbs a lot
of his psychological pain, kind of like a metaphysical drug.  Then I 
suggested that if such a being did not actually exist he would probably 
want to make one up to believe in anyway.  He laughed a little bit when 
I said that, some small part of him realizing the truth of that remark, 
but then he became very somber and stared at me, blankly, unwilling to 
acknowledge, even indirectly, the possibility that he might have done 
such a thing. 

So then I told him all about you, and projected images from your mind
into his consciousness in order to show him that I serve a similar 
psychological purpose for you as Reginald does for him.  I explained 
that in a world where I do not actually exist you chose to create me 
with your imagination in order to make your life in that frequently 
unpleasant world somewhat more bearable, hoping that that information 
would enable him to recognize that he had probably done something 
similar. 

There are also some very significant differences between Reginald and
me, despite that similarity in our origins, due to differences in what 
you and Clarence each wanted us to represent.  For one thing, he 
imagined that that deity has a jealous, vengeful, domineering 
personality, which demands to be worshipped, in order to validate and 
indulge the proud and malevolent parts of his own psyche.  Conversely, 
you resisted the impulse to imbue me with such attributes, creating me 
without the slightest desire for any kind of adulation and limiting my 
own negativity to the occasional expression of frustration, annoyance, 
and sadness over the willful criminality of human beings. 

And you do not imagine that I am omnipotent, so you do not have to
wonder why I allow you to suffer needlessly.  I do everything in my 
power to make you happy, and therefore you do not have any reason to 
doubt that I really do care about you.  Whereas Clarence is plagued by 
such doubts, and is angry at Reginald, in a rarely conscious corner of 
his mind, for creating a world which persistently torments him, making 
him feel unhappy, anxious and unsafe. 

Also, you are willing to believe in the real value of what I stand for
without needing to convince yourself that I actually exist, while 
Clarence desperately wants to believe that he has some kind of real 
reason to believe that that mushroom is a real person.  And so, unlike 
me, Reginald vilifies and condemns anyone who does not believe in It, 
alleging that that lack of faith is the most serious personal flaw, or 
sin, because when another mind refuses to agree with Clarence's conceit 
that there is an obvious, objective rationality in the choice to 
believe confidently in the truth of his unproven religious assertions 
it threatens the psychological foundation of that mindset, making him 
doubt what he really cannot bear to doubt. 

But at that time I did not mention any of these differences to Clarence,
speaking to him only of how Reginald and I are similar, to keep this 
matter as simple and uncomplicated as possible.  Unfortunately, simple 
as it was, he could not grasp the essence of what I was saying, and 
insisted that I was talking like a crazy person, because he and I are 
real people, obviously, who must be more than just figments of someone 
else's imagination. 

So then I admitted to him that you might not actually be real.  I
confessed that I might just be deluding myself with the idea that I was 
created by an author like you, so that no matter how bleak and hopeless 
things may seem I can always feel confident that the story of my life 
will have a happy ending. 

Clarence readily agreed with the sensibility of that admission, but then
stubbornly insisted that his belief in Reginald could not possibly be 
the product of the same kind of wishful delusion.  So I changed track 
again and tried to engage the rational bit of his mind which understood 
the logical inconsistency of his belief that a being with limitless 
power would need someone like him to fight the nonbelievers on Its 
behalf, even though It could do so for Itself as effortlessly as It 
wishes. 

He first tried to suppress that rational doubt by arguing that Reginald
needs people like him to destroy the infidels because It respects the 
freewill of human beings.  But as we analyzed this concept he realized 
that commanding others to harass and destroy someone for acting in a 
certain way is no less meddlesome and disrespectful of that person's 
freewill than doing so oneself. 

Then we explored his memories of the times that he spent glorifying and
praising Reginald.  As we reviewed these experiences I asked him if 
getting all worked up and excited and carrying on about the supreme, 
transcendent, perfect awesomeness and glory of that Fungus would really 
add anything to Its infinite grandeur, or if not doing so could in any 
way diminish that glory. 

"Of course not," he immediately answered.  And then he began to
comprehend that his choice to exuberantly and repeatedly proclaim the 
greatness of his Lord Reginald is really all about exciting and 
stimulating his own mind, and indirectly gratifying his ego, as is his 
choice to try to make everyone else abide by the dictates of his 
religion. 

Once I helped Clarence to admit that his religious beliefs and actions
actually serve him, whether or not Reginald really does exist, and 
convinced him to give up the vain pretense that he is somehow helping 
that omnipotent, divine entity he could not longer delude himself with 
the idea that hurting people in the name of his religion is something 
more than a selfish, thinly veiled act of villainy.  He then agreed to 
let everyone else live their own lives in peace, whether or not they 
choose to abide by the rules of any particular religion.  And he also 
agreed to talk to his doctor about his recent experiences, though he 
was not ready to give up his comforting belief in the existence of that 
potentially fictitious God. 

That resolved this matter to our mutual satisfaction, so we said goodbye
and amicably parted company.  Then Thumper took me to talk with William 
Jovial, or Void, as he likes to be called, who had also been acting in 
ways that we found rather disturbing. 

When I greeted William he immediately began to use the power of his
null-energy to suppress the existence of the signal that I use to scan 
the minds of those around me, making it difficult for me to get a clear 
picture of what was going on in his head.  This strange and 
unprecedented behavior surprised and concerned me, but I did not ask 
him about it because I suspected that he was trying to hide something 
from me, and would therefore not want to admit what he was doing. 

Instead I asked him what was new in his life, and then he told me about
how he had met and fallen in love with a charming, playful, very kind, 
much older woman, who reminded him a lot of that man who died in the 
explosion that gave him his unusual power.  As he told me about her I 
caught a brief, vague image of how her cheerful affection had drawn him 
out of the depression that had plagued him since the loss of that other 
playmate, and saw that for the first time in a very long time he had 
felt truly happy. 

But then that new friend slipped on a patch of ice and hit her head and
died, which broke his newly mended, fragile heart all over again. 

And then, just a few hours after that, his puppy had been run over and
killed by an ice-cream truck driven by a man who disliked all flavors 
but vanilla, and who liked to think that nobody else should be allowed 
to eat any flavor of ice cream except for the one that he enjoyed.  To 
satisfy that pathological attitude - he later told William - he had 
tried to run over some children who he had spotted by the side of the 
road eating cones full of chocolate ice cream, which is when he 
squashed that puppy. 

William told me about these tragic events with an affectation of emotion
and grief which he did not really feel, because he knew intellectually 
that I would expect him to display such feelings. 

During this conversation I caught a few brief glimpses of the bitterness
and resentment that had filled up the hole that had been left in his 
life by the random, senseless, unforeseeable and unpreventable loss of 
that friend and dog.  Overflowing with those psychic toxins, his heart 
had become very sick, and in that wretched state William decided to end 
his misery by using null-energy to obliterate the part of his psyche 
that felt such horrific pain, which was the same part of him that had 
once felt such immense pleasure and happiness in the affectionate 
embrace of his dear friend. 

Having destroyed the part of himself that could love and care about
other people he was left feeling nothing for anyone else but an angry, 
brutal, malicious impulse to hurt and destroy.  And then he used his 
power to eradicate all traces of his conscience, so that he could 
indulge that impulse without the slightest bit of hesitation or 
remorse. 

After completing that sinister transformation he tracked down the man
who had killed his puppy, tied him up, and murdered him over the course 
of a dozen hours by using his power to destroy that killer one little 
bit at a time.  Void enjoyed that murder very much, and subsequently 
embarked on a new career as a serial killer.  Over the following months 
he killed many other people, including that woman whose mutilated 
corpse had so severely upset Clarence. 

When I finally managed to piece together a fairly complete picture of
what was going on I said goodbye to William and left with Thumper.  
Then I told my floppy-eared companion what I had learned, and he 
immediately began to keep watch over Void using his clairvoyant 
perception, to make sure that he was not killing anyone else. 

Then we decided that after William fell asleep that night I would
project an image of myself into his dream, so that I could confront him 
about what he was doing in an environment where he could not hurt 
anyone else. 

In that dream, before revealing what I knew, I told William about an
encounter that I had recently had with a very angry, resentful man 
named Devon Walker, who despised life for the way that it had treated 
him.  I told him about how that man had grown up as a very handsome, 
talented, well-liked child, in affluent surroundings, who believed that 
the future held nothing for him but good fortune. 

Then Devon awoke, on the day that he had planned to go off to college,
to find that he had inexplicably mutated into a massive, monstrous, 
hump-backed behemoth covered in a lumpy, rock-like carapace.  His 
admission to that college was rescinded when the administrators learned 
what had happened to him, under the pretense that his mere presence 
would pose some kind of danger to the other students.  And then his 
parents disowned him, and all of his supposed friends ran from him in 
revulsion. 

The dreadful, horrifying feeling of knowing that he did not have any
idea how to alleviate this mysterious, disturbing, potentially 
perpetual condition quickly drove him to madness.  To distract himself 
from the misery and terror of his plight he focused on his feelings of 
anger, inflaming his sense of resentment with thoughts about how 
harshly and unfairly life had treated him.  And when he found that 
these thoughts alone were not enough to numb his pain he turned to acts 
of violence, beginning a rampage of destruction that nearly leveled an 
entire town. 

When I learned what he was doing I went to help Devon, who at that time
was calling himself Monstrosity.  In the company of my friends Neon and 
Bertron I approached him cautiously and asked what we could do to make 
things better for him.  In response to that offer of assistance he 
roared menacingly, and then charged at us with the intent to kill. 

In that moment Bertron blasted him with her lasers, which left some
scorch marks on his shell but did not stop his charge.  Then he kicked 
me, which sent me flying but caused no damage to my soft, pliable form. 
 An instant before that happened Neon leapt up into the air, perfectly 
timing her jump so that she could catch me and bring me back to the 
ground. 

That self-described Monstrosity then began to create a bunch of
crab-like things, and snakes, and giant spiders, and many other types 
of unusual-looking creatures from the amorphous mass of tissue that 
formed the hump of his back, which crawled out from between the plates 
of his segmented covering.  These creatures shared his phenomenal 
strength and physical sturdiness, and each possessed a minimal level of 
intelligence, which had been patterned after the impulses of his own 
mind. 

Through the use of various scent chemicals and sequences of movement
Devon communicated with his creations, commanding them to kill us. 

As that small swarm of combative creatures advanced toward Bertron she
began blasting them with a bunch of tiny missiles, killing a few before 
their creator interrupted that barrage by slamming her with his massive 
fist, denting the right side of her torso and destroying the device 
that launched those missiles. 

Then our assailant released his own barrage of fast-flying needle-thin
creatures, each of which had been mentally imprinted before launch with 
the single-minded determination to stab me.  When I dodged out of the 
way of their initial trajectory they used their little wings to alter 
course and steer themselves toward me, sticking me a moment later, like 
a giant pincushion, which didn't bother me at all. 

While his attention was focused on me Neon pounced on Devon's back and
began to grapple with him, knowing that her much stronger opponent 
would easily gain the upper hand and casually toss her away in a matter 
of seconds.  After hitting the ground, deliberately failing to land on 
her feet, Neon looked up at Devon with an expression of admiration on 
her face and said, "I sure wish that I were as strong as you."  Then 
she stood up, rubbed her backside a bit, as if it had been bruised by 
that fall, and said, "And I certainly wouldn't mind having that 
armor-plated posterior right about now." 

The implied compliments of those statements surprised Devon, and pleased
him, as I had expected that they would.  Beneath his anger at what had 
happened to him and the resentment that he felt toward those people who 
had scorned him I had seen in his mind an immensely powerful desire to 
be liked, and admired, and accepted.  And based upon that observation I 
had concocted a plan to pacify our adversary and stop his rampage by 
reminding him that he still had reasons to feel good about himself, and 
by letting him know that there are some people like us who will not 
reject him for his unusual condition. 

"We would really like to have someone like you as a member of the
Guardians of Freedom," I told him, and then asked him to aid our cause 
with those unique abilities of his that the rest of us are not 
fortunate enough to possess.  Then we waited as he considered the 
possibility of putting his uncomfortable circumstances to a more 
productive and benevolent use. 

Devon decided that he would not longer fight us, and called his
creations back to him.  They crawled up between the plates of his shell 
and dissolved into the mass of tissue on his back.  Then he agreed to 
join our band of heroes, and left that town, with us, in peace. 

After I finished telling that story I went on to explain how much less
miserable Devon is now that he has learned to make peace with the 
tragedies of his life - which does not mean that he condones or 
consents to the torments that human life inflicts upon him, or that he 
never gets mad about them, but only means that he has chosen to not use 
anger and malice to mask the pain, fear and sadness of that suffering, 
so he no longer increases his own torment by holding on to his feelings 
of rage and resentment, and no longer allows those negative feelings to 
drive him to acts of villainy. 

Then William's dream-self scrutinized the projected image of me for
several seconds with a suspicious, pondering expression on his 
imaginary face.  He quickly reached the conclusion that I probably knew 
his murderous secret, and subsequently tried to use his power to 
destroy me. 

I saw then that I had not gotten through to him, and did not feel
confident that I ever would, because I could not find anything left in 
Void that would respond to kindness and empathy, or to any kind of 
intellectual reason.  So before he awoke I administered to him an 
anesthetic that would keep this broken, miserable mind asleep 
indefinitely. 

The following day I returned to my Earth, where I testified at the trial
of someone who had tried to murder me because he hates everyone who is 
not human.  He had done so within the territory that is claimed and 
controlled by one of that world's few remaining national governments, 
the laws of which call such an act a 'hate crime'.  And those laws also 
call for the perpetrator of that act to be punished especially and 
specifically for the hateful motivation behind his behavior. 

So I went to court and testified on behalf of that defendant, asking the
jury to acquit him of breaking such an absurd and unjust law.  I 
encouraged them to convict him of trying to kill me - to lock up this 
violent and dangerous criminal because it is necessary to do so in 
order to protect people like me - but not to try to hurt him in some 
extra, unnecessary way just because of the way that he feels. 

I scanned the minds of the jurors and located the hateful, disgusted
attitude that they feel for people like the defendant.  It was hiding, 
as usual, behind an assortment of obfuscating ideologies and 
justifications and denials, which disguised this feeling so well that 
some of them could not even recognize it within themselves.  But I, 
Superteddy, have the power to see through the walls that people build 
in their minds to hide uncomfortable knowledge from their own 
consciousness, so I could see how they really felt.  And I projected 
these thoughts back into their heads on an unambiguously conscious 
level. 

After that I addressed and debunked the idea that a crime motivated by
some kind of prejudicial hatred is fundamentally more criminal than the 
same act perpetrated for any other reason because it terrorizes a 
larger group of people.  I dispelled that falsehood by turning its 
faulty logic upon itself, pointing out that a crime committed against a 
victim chosen at random - without any kind of discriminatory motivation 
whatsoever - terrorizes everyone, because it makes all people potential 
targets, and so would actually be the worse crime, if that argument 
were valid. 

Deprived of that rationalization, those jurors could no longer excuse
their desire to punish this man for his prejudice.  Many of them still 
disliked him very much, partly because some small part of each of them 
felt jealous and resentful of the fact that he allowed himself to 
satisfy his malevolent impulses while they usually denied and repressed 
that part of themselves.  And so, spitefully, they wanted to believe 
that they were somehow entitled to indulge their own malevolence at his 
expense.  But once they realized why they wanted to convict him of that 
extraneous, utterly unnecessary, purely vengeful charge they decided 
not to do so, and convicted him only for the actual crime of trying to 
murder me. 

After that I left the courtroom and encountered a professional therapist
who had come to witness the trial of someone who had recently beaten 
another person to death. 

Several months earlier, during a therapy session, a client had given
that woman reason to believe that a 70-year-old human being was being 
abused.  So she alerted the police about that suspected abuse, as she 
was required to do by law.  According to the proponents of that law it 
serves to protect the most vulnerable members of their society, but in 
that particular case it failed to do so, because that senior citizen 
was not one of those people.  That person, in fact, possessed the 
physical and mental capacity to stand up for himself, and had already 
resolved that situation without any assistance. 

Then the therapist saw another client who mentioned something to her
that gave her reason to believe that a 10-year-old human being was 
being abused.  So she called the police, again, to report that 
suspicion of abuse.  But it turned out, as before, that that person was 
able to take care of himself, and was not in need of protection at that 
time. 

And after that she saw another client who gave her reason to believe
that a 40-year-old human being was being abused.  But this time she did 
not alert the police about that suspected abuse, because of the age of 
the victim.  Some agents of the local government did eventually 
discover what was going on, but they refused to offer this man the same 
assistance that they provide to older and younger people who find 
themselves in the same situation, even though he really was one of the 
most vulnerable members of their society, and lacked the wherewithal to 
protect himself.  For no reason but the date of his birth those public 
servants refused to do all that they could to save that man from the 
tormentor who eventually killed him. 

At the sight of these events, in the mind of that therapist, I shook my
head, slowly, as an expression of great sorrow.  If my eyes had tear 
ducts I would probably have wept at this pitiful example of the utterly 
unnecessary and inexcusable tragedies that occur when you humans make 
your governments discriminate against people based upon ultimately 
irrelevant characteristics like age, which has no real correlation to a 
person's capacities or need for protection. 

But I was not built that way, so I did not cry for that defenseless,
middle-aged victim of a very widespread, institutionalized prejudice.  
What I did, instead, is to redouble my resolve to somehow find a way to 
teach all of the uncomprehending among you that it is quite irrational 
and foolish - to use the kindest words possible - to act like a 
specific person possesses a certain trait, capacity, or vulnerability 
that it clearly does not possess just because that person is a member 
of some category of humanity in which the majority of people do possess 
that trait. 

Then, a dozen hours later, I took a trip to the other side of the world,
where I was scheduled to testify at the trial of a man accused of 
committing acts that some people call 'war crimes' or 'crimes against 
humanity'.  These charges arose from a conflict that I had witnessed 
shortly after I arrived on that planet, when the soldiers of a 
neighboring country invaded this man's homeland. 

As those soldiers marched into his village he had first tried to
dissuade them from their militant course by explaining to them that 
waging war is nothing more than an act of organized crime, which is 
often motivated by the same kind of greed, jealousy, frustration, 
belligerence, lust for power, thirst for blood, self-aggrandizing 
egotism, and covert fear that motivates most other crimes. 

And then - knowing that some soldiers like to pretend that following
orders somehow absolves them of responsibility for the things that they 
do - he reminded them that even when a person just goes along with the 
other members of some gang, army or mob, or follows the orders of 
another person, that individual must personally make a choice to do so, 
and so remains personally responsible for all of those actions.  But 
very few of them had the courage to see how they are criminally 
culpable for choosing to follow the orders that instructed them to 
perpetrate acts that would terrorize and harm many innocent people, and 
none were brave enough to refuse to do so. 

Deaf to his pleas for peace, they attacked him and his neighbors with
advanced military hardware and technologies against which those human 
targets could mount no conventional defense.  So that defendant fought 
back in the best way that he could, unleashing a chemical weapon that 
melted the tanks, guns, killer robots, and soldiers of the invading 
army, which is the illegal act for which he was being tried. 

At his trial I first mentioned my belief that the very idea that there
are certain improper and unacceptable ways in which to fight a war 
actually serves to mask the criminality of any act of war that is not 
honestly defensive in nature, confusing the consciences of those 
warmongers who harm the innocent without breaking those rules and 
distracting others from recognizing their guilt in doing so.  And the 
more energy that people put into loudly vilifying and denouncing the 
ones who refuse to abide by these arbitrary proscriptions the more 
psychic cover they create for those other criminals to hide behind. 

The chief prosecutor opened her mouth to object to that statement
because it did not pertain directly to the facts of the case, but found 
herself agreeing with my conclusion before she spoke.  She closed her 
mouth in silence, her mind spinning with the implications of that idea. 


Then I testified to the fact that I had witnessed the invaders killing
civilians, supposedly by accident, with bullets and bombs and all of 
the allegedly acceptable weapons of war.  And I testified to the fact 
that that chemical attack had killed only hostile soldiers.  Then I 
asked if anyone present would convict the victim of a mugging for 
defending itself with a chemical agent instead of a knife or a gun. 

After that the jury acquitted the defendant.  And as he was being set
free I saw his prosecutor decide that she would do everything in her 
power to bring charges against everyone who had harmed an innocent 
victim in the course of that conflict, even the ones who were just 
following orders, and saw that she also planned to prosecute everyone 
who had given those orders, which pleased me very much. 

As I walked from that courthouse a brilliant light streaked across the
sky, which turned out to be the landing spacecraft of an alien named 
Morx, who is a member of an extremely long-lived and somber species.  
Before the birth of the human race this person had purchased the entire 
planet Earth from the government of the United Stars of Andromica, 
which is an interstellar civilization that discovered and clamed 
dominion over an uninhabited Earth a very long time ago. 

Although he already had thousands of other residences, some of which he
has never even seen, Morx recently decided that he would turn that 
entire planet into a new vacation home, since he had nothing better to 
do with his very long life.  But when he came to survey his property in 
preparation for that construction he discovered billions of human 
beings living there illegally.  So he called the police and arranged to 
have those squatters thrown off of his planet. 

That ship landed right in front of me.  A few minutes later Morx emerged
in the company of two policemen from the USA.  As they exited that 
vessel I scanned their minds, learned their language, and discovered 
everything that I have just told you.  Then they found the nearest door 
and nailed to it an official notice of evacuation, which stated that 
all people illegally residing on that planet would be removed from the 
premises at the end of one standard galactic gleeb.  As soon as they 
had done that they returned to the ship and flew away. 

During that gleeb - which is sort of like your week, but lasts for only
52 hours - there was much panic and hysteria on that Earth, leading to 
massive, pointless riots and many other forms of criminal behavior, 
which kept us Guardians very busy.  And among the calmer, more rational 
segments of the population there was much discussion and contemplation 
of this extreme example of what happens when a society allows people to 
claim or purchase the right to hoard and monopolize the world's 
resources before someone else who needs a share of those resources is 
even born. 

When faced with this scenario most of the people of Earth realized the
basic iniquity of an economic system that would allow such a thing to 
happen.  But, sadly, as I had expected, some of those who recognized 
the unjust nature of what was being done to them still refused to admit 
to themselves that this same kind of injustice occurs under the 
essentially identical economic systems that they support. 

And, predictably, and unhelpfully, the people who advocate the
collective, societal ownership of property took this opportunity to 
promote that system as the proper alternative and solution to this 
terrifying situation, conveniently forgetting about what happened not 
even one month before, when representatives from the People's Republic 
of Space-China came to Earth and declared the entire planet to be the 
property of their society.  What happened is that they tried to take 
all of that world's resources and distribute them among the people of 
other planets, as certain leaders saw fit, for what they called the 
'common good', which, of course, would not have been very good at all 
for the people who wished to continue living on Earth. 

But I averted that catastrophe by explaining to the citizens of that
Maoist society that the best thing for the great majority of individual 
people - for all people except those few who profited unjustly from 
their existing social arrangement - or the closest possible thing to an 
actual common good, to put it another way, would be for all of them to 
join the Sovocratic Alliance, which most of them then did. 

The people of my Earth were still talking about such matters, and
rioting, and arguing with each other without having reached any 
productive conclusion when Morx returned to that world.  This time he 
arrived in the company of ten billion armed police officers who were 
prepared to forcibly remove every single person living on the planet, 
tossing us all into the vacuum of outer space, callously and without 
the tiniest bit of remorse. 

And I was waiting for them, standing beside the other Guardians, ready
to fight to the death in order to protect those helpless people from 
being cast into that inhospitable environment where they would lack all 
that they need to live and thrive.  But before resorting to such 
violence I looked into the mind of Morx and tried to find some peaceful 
resolution to this entirely unacceptable situation. 

While the others distracted and delayed him as best they could I focused
all of my attention on the memories of his long, joyless life.  I 
watched Morx trying, without success, to fill the seemingly 
interminable time of his existence with the acquisition of immense 
wealth, and then with the accumulation of all those things that that 
wealth could buy.  I scanned through these sad, monotonous memories, 
finding not even one single smile, or laugh, or moment of real 
merriment. 

Then I had a very silly idea of how I might stop him from acting so
miserably. 

I spoke to Morx and asked him if he would answer one question for me
before he kicked us all off the planet, which he agreed to do.  I then 
looked him right in the eyes and asked, in a very serious, earnestly 
inquisitive tone, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" 

At the same time I projected an image of a chicken into his mind, making
it look as comical as I could, along with some factual information 
about that species of bird, so that he would comprehend the question.  
Then he spent several moments in somber contemplation, considering the 
psychological motivations of such creatures and speculating about 
several likely reasons why one of them might decide to traverse a 
thoroughfare.  That approach led him to no conclusion, so he eventually 
gave up, shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, and said that he 
could not answer my question. 

So I gave him the answer, "To get to the other side!" 

Morx then looked at me for several seconds with an expression of utter
puzzlement on his face.  He gave his head a quick, jerky shake, as if 
to shake out the baffling nonsense that I had just put into his ears.  
And then he experienced a sudden flash of comprehension, in which he 
realized that there is a certain sense to my answer.  The ironic 
contradiction between how he had been thinking about that hypothetical 
situation and the simple, obvious yet unexpected truth of what I had 
said tickled some previously unutilized part of his brain, and produced 
in his mind a most enjoyable sensation. 

As I stared at Morx he made the sound of a single, soft chuckle.  And
then there was a moment of silence, after which he began to really 
laugh for the first time in his long, long life.  Minutes later his 
fits of laughter finally subsided and he regained his composure.  Then 
he asked me what had just happened to him. 

I explained the concept of humor, and laughter, and then he begged me,
quite literally begged, for more of this wonderful new experience.  So 
I told him that the people of Earth have many different, very diverse 
senses of humor, and suggested that they might show him many more 
examples of funniness if he doesn't kill them all first.  That made him 
call off his plan to rid the planet of all humanity, and he decided, 
instead, to spend the next million years or so traveling around the 
globe asking people to tell him their favorite jokes. 

The next morning I turned on the television and saw that Jack and Jill
Smith - the Guardian known as Aurora and her brother, who called 
himself the Right Hand of God - were trying to kill each other over 
their differing religious beliefs, and in doing so had killed a lot of 
innocent bystanders and destroyed the surrounding city. 

Hypergirl, Host, Avian and I rushed to the scene of this conflict,
arriving just as Jill wrapped her plasma tendrils around a large, 
broken piece of concrete, lifted it into the air, and hurled it at 
Jack.  That projectile stuck him in the head and in that instant was 
repulsed by a reactive force from his red aura with such power that 
when it struck the wall of a nearby schoolhouse it completely 
demolished the building. 

I scanned the rubble of that school for signs of life, finding only one
living mind out of the forty-two that had been there just moments 
before.  It was the mind of a trapped, terrified, dying little boy who 
had been pinned and crushed beneath a heavy steel bar when the 
schoolhouse came down on top of him, sending him into a state of 
cardiac arrest. 

Host rushed to the aid of that child, first using a blast of orange
energy bolts to disintegrate that bar and free him.  Then he placed his 
hand on the boy's chest and used a bolt of green lightning to heal the 
wounds that he had suffered, jumpstarting his heart and saving his 
life. 

As those events transpired Avian began to use her feathers to take
telekinetic control of the pieces of rubble around us, which she then 
flung at Jack to occupy his attention and exhaust the power of his 
aura.  As each piece struck the aura and was violently flung away she 
used her mental control to reduce its velocity and bring it to rest 
safely, without causing any more collateral damage. 

At the same time Hypergirl grew to a height of several hundred feet, and
then she began grasping at Jill with her enormous fingers.  The plasma 
strands connected to that relatively tiny, flying person pushed away 
those giant digits every time that they were about to close around her, 
making it impossible for them to get a solid grip.  But despite that 
frustrating difficulty my hyper-dimensional friend kept trying to catch 
our erstwhile associate, Aurora, so that she could not continue her 
fight or harm anyone else. 

While the combatants were distracted by those other Guardians I looked
through their memories and watched this fight begin when Jill overheard 
her brother telling her son that anyone who does not accept the right 
religious faith will be punished forever.  This reminded her of all the 
disturbing, hateful, traumatizing and disgusting ideologies that she 
had been fed as a child by her religion-obsessed parents, and made her 
very angry. 

She also felt very jealous of the psychological satisfaction and
comforting sense of certainty that people like Jack frequently find in 
their religious belief.  And when those people go around pestering 
nonbelievers like her with their religious assertions, badgering them 
with incessant claims that everyone else should believe too, which they 
usually do for their own pleasure, to make themselves feel good about 
their choice to accept such beliefs, it makes Jill feel very resentful, 
and even angrier. 

That anger clouded her mind, enabling her to conclude that the only way
to protect people from those poisonous religious ideologies would be to 
outlaw all religions, and to exterminate everyone who still insists on 
professing any religious belief.  Even the ones who do not preach the 
violent, hurtful creeds give credence and validation to the ones who do 
by endorsing the very concept of religious faith, and so, she told 
herself, they must all be destroyed to protect the innocent. 

She chose not to think about how that would antagonize the religious
fanatics and reinforce their belief that they are justified in waging 
war against infidels like her, and overlooked the fact that the more 
conflict and violence that she brings into this world the more people 
will be driven to seek comfort in religious ideology. 

So I tried to explain to her that being so fanatical in her condemnation
and persecution of those who have chosen to accept a religious mindset 
will not stop people from embracing fanatical religious ideologies, to 
which she replied, angrily, "Well, then, what will stop them, since 
calm rationality doesn't seem to do the trick either?" 

Just then a crazy old lady was walking by, heard our conversation, and
told us that the only way to overcome such fanaticism is to drive it 
from the hearts that it infests by touching those hearts in a way that 
fills them with love, leaving no room, need, or desire to cling to that 
essentially unloving, extremist attitude. 

When she finished speaking I nodded my head in agreement with that
sentiment, even though I do not know if it really is a very practical 
solution because I do not know how to touch the heart of someone who 
will not allow me to do so.  And I have seen that the metaphoric hearts 
of many who accept those fanatical religious ideologies are so 
callused, fearful, angry, and painfully broken that they cannot bear to 
let anybody near them, which means that love and kindness will not 
reach them, or heal them, or stop them. 

Such is a condition that you understand all too well, since your own
heart is no less scarred.  Your heart is paralyzed by pain and feelings 
of futility, frequently filled with resentment and a nauseated, 
disgust-like sensation for which you have no name, and remains almost 
entirely unmoved - unable or unwilling to be touched - by anything else 
in your world. 

The agony of such a miserable existence is eased by my soft, soothing,
benevolent presence, which does not untickle you the way that it 
usually does to be in the presence of other people with whom you feel 
no real connection.  That is why you need me in your life, if only in 
your imagination, to amuse and delight you with my silly ways, and keep 
you company without disturbing your solitude, and save you from 
drowning in bitterness and despair. 

But I cannot fix your broken heart, and cannot convince any heart to
change its ways until it decides for itself that it really wants to. 

What I can do is find whatever kindness and decency already exists
within the psychological heart of a person, however hidden it may be, 
and then encourage that person to act according to that part of its 
self.  And what I found in the hearts of both Jack and Jill, buried 
beneath their warring fanaticisms, was genuine affection and concern 
for that child over whom they had first begun to battle.  So I went to 
him and asked if he would tell his mother and uncle how their actions 
made him feel. 

That boy first told Jack how much his theological horror stories upset
him, and said that he really did not appreciate having his mind filled 
with such vile, grotesque, malevolent fantasies.  As he said that I 
scanned the memories of how his uncle's teachings had traumatized him 
and projected these images into Jack's mind. 

When he experienced those memories and realized the real distress and
psychological harm that he had inflicted upon the boy it made him 
realize the hollow falseness of his claim to have been saying those 
things for the benefit of that child.  He finally admitted to himself 
that he did not really know whether or not the God whom he had taught 
that child to fear actually existed.  Then he could no longer deny the 
fact that all of his preaching and carrying on about the will of God 
and sin and damnation had been done to gratify his own ego, not to warn 
people about a certain truth. 

Then he thought about the unquestioning trust and faith that his nephew
had once had in the things that he said, and thought about how he had 
abused that trust and eventually broken it with his selfish dishonesty. 
 And in that moment he was stricken by a sense of genuine horror, and 
profound, gut-wrenching remorse for what he had done.  Falling to his 
knees, he begged that child for forgiveness, renounced his arrogant 
pseudonym, and ended his career as a preacher by humbly admitting to 
himself that he really knew nothing of God. 

A smug smile crept across Jill's face while her son addressed his uncle.
 It quickly vanished when he turned to her and said that if she had 
really wanted to protect him from the mind-warping dishonesties of 
religion she could have taught him to question the assertions that 
underlie any belief, and to understand the limits of his human mind's 
capacity to know, so that that mind would be shielded from the baseless 
falsehoods of most religious ideologies yet remain open and honestly 
inquisitive. 

Then I showed her how her own fanatical atheism had paradoxically lent
credence, in the mind of her son, to the religions that she opposed, by 
mirroring and implicitly validating the irrational, fanatical, 
emotional basis of such ideologies.  She then saw that she had 
succumbed to the same callous pride and egotistic anger that lurks 
behind much human religion, and realized that she had done so to suit 
herself, not really to protect her son and the rest of humanity. 

After promising herself that she would never act that way again she
apologized to that boy and took him home, stopping along the way to 
pick up his favorite flavor of ice cream. 

Later that night, as my friend Avian slept, professor Plot tinkered with
the metaphysical, literary device that you created from his design.  
That unpredictable, invisible, conceptual contraption suddenly 
activated and created a Plot hole that pulled that winged Guardian into 
a strange, fantastic realm of existence where large, intelligent, 
cartoon grasshoppers in top hats speak with British accents and eat 
nothing but ice cream. 

The dominant majority of grasshoppers in that place called themselves
Vanillists, and made up laws that allowed people to eat only vanilla 
ice cream - even when a person has a fatal allergy to that flavor, or 
finds it simply disgusting.  But there was also a significant minority 
who called themselves Chocolites, who wanted the government to make it 
illegal for anyone to eat anything but chocolate flavored ice cream. 

These grasshoppers spent much of their time arguing about the relative
virtues and flaws of the Chocolite and Vanillist ideologies, angrily 
debating the issue and constantly vilifying those who endorse the 
contrary flavor.  Each side blamed the other for all of the ills of 
their society, and habitually claimed that the proponents of that 
opposing philosophy were bringing about the ultimate ruin of their 
entire civilization. 

When she saw what was going on in that place my friend encouraged the
grasshoppers to stop creating trouble for themselves and end their 
conflicts by all acting in a fair and evenhanded manner, which all of 
them immediately agreed was the best thing for people to do.  Then they 
went right back to fighting over their conflicting ideologies. 

As she watched this scene unfold she was struck by the realization that
underlying most political disagreements is a difference in how each 
person chooses to define words like 'fair'.  And then she understood 
that this matter must be addressed before such disputes can ever be 
resolved.  So she engaged the grasshoppers in a discussion about their 
various definitions of what is fair. 

In the course of that discussion it became apparent to her that those
who have a personal preference for one flavor over the other - those 
who believe that they would be best served by a society where everyone 
eats only that flavor - almost always find some way to convince 
themselves that the philosophy that mandates the consumption of that 
flavor is somehow more fair and just than the other.  And even if they 
do not really believe that to be true they still try to convince others 
that it is so. 

And each time that she asked one of them why it chose to accept a
particular concept of fairness the explanation that she received 
invariably broke down to nothing more than the simple assertion that 
that concept is correct.  None of them were based upon any substantial, 
objectively provable truths. 

She explained that fact to the grasshoppers, hoping that when they
realized that none of their political philosophies are objectively more 
fair than any other they would be able to comprehend the sense in which 
it requires an act of basic unfairness for the government to give 
precedence to the arbitrary, self-serving political assertions of one 
person over the no-less-fair assertions of someone else.  Then they 
would put aside their conflicting contentions and all agree that the 
very best form of government is the one that eliminates such unfairness 
by giving each person the equal and maximum possible freedom to live 
its own life in whatever way makes it most happy. 

But those grasshoppers did not like her message, and wanted to continue
to believe in their autocratic ideologies, and since they could not 
logically refute her arguments they simply ignored what she had to say, 
obstinately refusing to allow these ideas into their minds.  So Avian 
decided to tell them a fictional story about me, in which I come to 
their world and face some supervillains and scenarios which illustrate 
the thoughts and ideas that lead people to act in destructive, criminal 
ways, teaching those people how to overcome them. 

A few of those grasshoppers found this story amusing, and therefore
palatable, and by the time that she had finished telling it they had 
opened their minds to its meaning. 

But even though they liked the story very much most of them
pessimistically concluded that it is nothing more than a delightful 
fantasy, thinking that nothing could ever save them from the Chocolites 
and Vanillists because a hero like me does not really exist.  But then 
my friend explained to them that it does not really matter whether or 
not I exist, because my greatest power is the ability to help people 
understand the root psychological causes of what I refer to as criminal 
behavior, and to understand the concepts that excuse it, disguise it, 
and enable it to continue largely unopposed, which even just a story 
about me can do. 

That understanding is the most essential and effective tool with which
people can fight crime.  And anyone who chooses to use that tool to 
neutralize and vanquish the villainous impulse within itself and others 
becomes an incarnation of my superhero persona, in a purely figurative, 
metaphoric sense, transforming it into an avatar of Superteddy whose 
deeds help to make the universe a freer and somewhat happier place. 

At first just a few of the grasshoppers made the choice to embody me in
that way.  But then each of those heroes helped a few others to 
comprehend the value of what it had learned, and each of them brought 
that awareness to a few more, exponentially increasing my metaphysical 
presence in their reality. 

Eventually a great many came to understand the nefarious nature of any
government that arbitrarily limits the freedom of people - making those 
victims feel psychologically suffocated and miserable - just because 
that stifling restriction will somehow satisfy the greed, ego, or 
philosophical tastes of someone else.  And then they stopped wasting 
their time and energy fighting over conflicting assertions about the 
specific details of how a government should do that to people.  Instead 
they used that time and energy to organize a coordinated campaign to 
free themselves from the grasp of those villains who molest and harm 
other people with their callous, controlling, moralistic laws about 
what is proper and permissible. 

And eventually they succeeded in doing so, creating a government that
helps each individual to obtain whatever flavor of ice cream it 
personally finds most delicious and enjoyable, even if that happens to 
be strawberry. 

Then my friend fell through another Plot hole and returned to our
dimension, arriving this morning, on the day that I tell this story.  
She told me all about that fantastic trip and then you brought me to 
this place so that I could tell my tale to you. 

I am looking into your mind now and see that you are wondering if this
story will carry enough of my heroic essence into your world to save 
its residents from criminal oppression, as that story within the story 
helped those grasshopper people to save themselves. 

You think that it would be pretty cool if these words could help to make
that happen, but you have no idea if they ever will.  You do not know 
if there is anyone else who actually cares about the stories or mission 
of Superteddy, or if anything that I have said will make any real 
difference to the world in which you live.  But this story has at least 
helped to fill the tedious, hollow, unhappy days of your life, and made 
you feel a bit less depressed, so even if it serves no other purpose I 
think that it has been worth telling. 

And now that I have done what I can to make things better for you the
time has come for me to go, just for a little while, to have some new 
adventures, so that there will be more of my story to tell and hear and 
enjoy.  So give my large and comically proportioned, cute, fluffy head 
one more tight squeeze, please, and then, when you let me go, I will 
depart. 

Thanks, that cranial hug felt really good. 


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