PUBLIC OPINION ONE
Being an excerpt from a speech delivered by Grigor Pellasin (Citizen, white male, age forty-seven, two arrests for Disorderly Conduct, occupation variable, residence variable) in the district of Hyde Park, city of London, country of England, planet Earth of the Confederation, in the year of the Confederation two hundred and ten, on May fourteenth, from two-thirty-seven P. M. (Greenwich) until three-forty-six P. M. (Greenwich), no serious incidents reported.
They all talk about equality, friends, and you know what equality is? Equality is a license to rob you blind and steal you blind, to cut you up and leave the pieces for the garbage collector, to stuff what's left of you down an oubliette, friend, and forget about you. That's what equality is, friends, and don't you let them tell you any different.
Why, years ago there used to be servants, people who did what you told them. And the servants got liberated, friends, they all got freedom and equality so they were just like us. Maybe you can remember about those servants, because they're all in the history books, and the historical novels, and maybe you do a little light reading now and then, am I right about that?
Well, sir, those servants got themselves liberated, and do you think they liked it? Do you think they liked being free and equal?
Oh, don't ask the government, friends, because the government is going to tell you they liked it just fine, going to tell you they loved it being just like everybody else, free and equal and liberated at last.
The government's going to tell you a lot of things, and my advice is, friends, my advice is do some looking and listening for yourself and think it all out to the right conclusions. Otherwise you're just letting the government do all your thinking for you and that's something you don't want.
No, friends, you do your own thinking and you figure out whether they liked being free, these servants.
You know what being free meant for them?
It meant being out of work.