Cascadia National University Lecture Hall, February 2518

Good morning. Please use the handrails installed on the side of the stairs, use every step on your way to your seats and ensure that you do not encroach on the space of your neighbor. I want to warn you that this lecture may contain information you are not comfortable hearing, and therefore if you have any special concerns please address them now.

And No, I'm not going to actually do that, relax folks. The statement I just made was complete gibberish, and assumes that you are a complete moron who is incapable of hearing a speech that you disagree with without breaking down into tears and being permanently scarred for life. But, such was not the case in America, because the more sensitive and touchy you were, the more that people were expected to kowtow to your demands. Failure to do so was considered a major crime and a sin against the nature of goodness.

The cults loved this of course, because it meant more people to tax for sins. Anybody you could accuse of sinning would of course be guilty, provided the accuser was of a viable status, and the denials were taken as proof of sins in the heart. That of course could NOT be satisfied by mere apologies or contrition, but rather only sacrifices of treasure, toil and blood would be proper atonement.

It went even further, until people who created things were expected to think of all possible repercussions that could be dreamt up. Even deliberate misuse of a creation was to be expected and planned for. Imagine if you were to knit a scarf. If somebody wrapped that scarf tightly around an infants neck, you would be liable for the murder, or at least the blame for it, had you not put a large warning label on the scarf stating that Murder was not one of the approved uses of this product.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but it came to the point where warning labels were present on toothpicks and cotton swabs. Failure to do so would of course cause the wrath of the Lawyers, a particularly nasty cult which infiltrated all layers of American society. At the height of their power, Lawyers were involved in every business, every creation, and every political decision. If a lawyer had not blessed the item with the requisite holy inscriptions in exactly the right manner, it was considered unworthy. Often those who made requests without the aid of a lawyer would be turned away. Even those with lawyers would be stymied as the cult's laws were labyrinthine and contradictory.

Corporate beings of course, had armies of lawyers whose entire purpose was to twist the law to the corporate citizen's benefit. A single lawyer, which was all the average citizen could afford, had no chance against such an army, and yet that was the exact situation in which the average person found themselves if they were to fight against a corporations. The power mismatch was incredible, and yet the Corporations would often claim that they were the victims, subjected to the horrid tyranny of the common man who wanted to silence them.

So, what do you get when you get a group that cannot be challenged? Yep, you get a corrupt, incestuous, and downright stupid group of people who think they're better than everybody else. Because nobody challenged them, gradually the stupidity rose to levels that frankly seem parody, but I assure you, were deadly serious.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFq-lPwmlc]