Just a Hypothetical Question

Dear Folk,

What if you and I wanted to take over a country and make it our own playground? Say the country was ruled by a line of kings (but had very few poor serfs or slaves), had lots of money (most of it in the hands of businessmen and women), well-fed, religious, and by-in-large happy. How could we get rid of the nobility, church, and middle class? In the meantime, can we make ourselves rich and in the driver's seat? Let's pretend.

First thing is we need to find someone else to apparently lead this take over. Unsuccessful coups get conspirators whacked. It would also help if that person "leading" had some money. Causes cost gold. That done, we need some dire grievances, thing that the king and company have done to "wrong" the people. Keep it below 9 so folks can remember them. If we can artificially introduce some nice food shortages, that will surely hack off folks.

We might want to recruit some members who are not quite the upper-upper crust but would like to be. Tell them how we know they are the ones who should be running things: barons, marquis, knights. We will indoctrinate them through a secret club; tell them it is death to anyone who talks. Convince them that they shall be the new kings soon. We can tell them that religion is what has been holding them back. Substitute "reason" for religion. Make each feel like they are secret MENSA members. We are going to be doing some serious bloodletting so we had best preach that whatever we do is okay as long as it winds up doing it for the right cause. Teach extremism in pursuit of "liberty" (or libertinism) is no vice. Speaking of vice, teach that the only vice is not doing exactly what you want right then. Get more money from them. Remember, once we accomplish what we want, these dupes get whacked. On the top there is only room for thee and me. Oh and, Darling, you are looking a tad pale.

You know, once we convince folks that the king and church have been holding them back, we might teach that national borders are part of the same conspiracy to keep man in chains. We could get really lucky and franchise this out to other places. Alexander the Great was so crude in his strong arm tactics. Don't you think.? We can let others do all of this for us.

We need something symbolic, an action, to get the ball rolling. How about we "liberate" some political prisoners? It does not have to be more than say seven but we can make a media event of it. Fact is, we could just spring some counterfeiters and a couple demented dudes. No prob. We would need something easy to attack, nothing with real guards. Don't worry, we would not have our moneyed gentry doing that attacking. We could hire some thugs from out of town, maybe from other countries; get them from the rough trade in a sea port. If in the process we can get weapons from this prison, all the better. When we tell others of this, we can say it was "the people" who arose to throw off the chains of oppression. I like that a lot! What is really funny, after all this is over, they would probably make a national holiday out of this action.

Of course, the final step would be to bring in our crack troops to suppress those rioters. Some suspension of rights, temporary of course, would have to occur. Hmmm. Maybe we might need a stronger government. Everyone is probably sick of all that disorder. Oh, taxes might have to go up a smidge to pay for all that new security.

Well, that was a fun exercise. Nobody would be so immoral as to ever do such a thing. No one would be dumb enough to fall for that. And lest I forget: Happy Bastille Day!

Let us breath together (con-spire),
Ellsworth Weaver

SCA - Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS - Polyphemus Theognis
TRV - Sebastian Yeats