From June 9, 2020
I’ve been told I shouldn’t write satire because there’s always going to be somebody out there who takes it seriously and acts on it.
J. Henry Fuzzybottom, an unofficial member of the Minneapolis City Council, has picked up on a wee satirical flourish that after the city abolishes its police force, it can rely on poets to pick up the slack.
“We should have thought of that!” he exclaimed. “People worry about what’ll happen to them if somebody robs or assault them and there’s no police force. Well! Who better than a poet to defuse a dangerous situation? How many crimes would never be committed if only the offender could hear some exfoliating lines of poetry? He’d stop right in the middle of a mugging! Imagine a couple of lovable youths robbing a liquor store and suddenly confronted by a poet. It’s simply impossible to engage in violently antisocial behavior while listening to poetry!”
But what if Minneapolis doesn’t have enough poets to keep the city safe from crime?
“First of all, there’s no such thing as crime!” Mr. Fuzzybottom said. “If you just stop calling certain actions ‘crime,’ your crime rate plummets toward zero.
“I think we probably have more poets than we realize. But if we do run short–well, we can back them up with folk singers! Would you commit fraud if someone was sweetly singing to you? Would you steal a car if someone was standing next to you playing bongo drums?”
Mr. Fuzzybottom said he has already sounded out most of the official council members “and they’re gonna go for it! Minneapolis will be the first crime-free city in the world!”
