Friday writing Bits
Apr. 4th, 2014 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdFrom the rough draft of Anthony:
James’ face showed nothing. “So, Anthony, what is your suggestion for dealing with McClusky in such a way that he becomes a joke rather than a martyr?”
Anthony locked eyes with his Boss for a moment and took a deep breath. His thinking had come up with some interesting opportunities that involved chickens, some baling wire, and a few well-placed explosives, but the one he’d settled on was less than impressive by his standards. “When dealing with old fashioned folk, the best way to deal with them is with old fashioned tactics. The child preachers movement ended when it was revealed that their speeches were memorized. Televangelists became laughingstocks when they took it so far over the top that it was impossible to know they weren’t just lining their pockets with righteous dollar bills. Faith can’t be shaken, Sir. The only way to make him into a laughingstock is to lure him into going too far. Draw him out with promises of further benefits, give him enough rope...” He trailed off. While he’d been talking, he’d torn the edge of his paper and rolled it between his fingertips. He’d been twisting it through his fingers, and when he finished, he pulled the knot tight, garotting it around his thumb.
“It’s entirely possible there is no such thing as enough rope with some of these types,” David put in. “Ordinary people have an astonishing capacity to believe anything an authority tells them, especially when the authority appeals to a higher one. Milgram proved that more than a century ago.”
A smile played across Anthony’s lips. It was small, and almost imperceptible, and only James had seen it’s like so far. “But you’re forgetting the one thing their government, their authority, has been telling them. Beating into their heads for 50 years, and it’s the one point we’ve got to work with. That the Heartland is not the CS. That intelligent, good Christians live in the Heartlands, and that hate, discontent, and the ways of the devil belong to backwards, ignorant, inbred hicks like the poor bless-yer-hearts in the CS.”
James’ face showed nothing. “So, Anthony, what is your suggestion for dealing with McClusky in such a way that he becomes a joke rather than a martyr?”
Anthony locked eyes with his Boss for a moment and took a deep breath. His thinking had come up with some interesting opportunities that involved chickens, some baling wire, and a few well-placed explosives, but the one he’d settled on was less than impressive by his standards. “When dealing with old fashioned folk, the best way to deal with them is with old fashioned tactics. The child preachers movement ended when it was revealed that their speeches were memorized. Televangelists became laughingstocks when they took it so far over the top that it was impossible to know they weren’t just lining their pockets with righteous dollar bills. Faith can’t be shaken, Sir. The only way to make him into a laughingstock is to lure him into going too far. Draw him out with promises of further benefits, give him enough rope...” He trailed off. While he’d been talking, he’d torn the edge of his paper and rolled it between his fingertips. He’d been twisting it through his fingers, and when he finished, he pulled the knot tight, garotting it around his thumb.
“It’s entirely possible there is no such thing as enough rope with some of these types,” David put in. “Ordinary people have an astonishing capacity to believe anything an authority tells them, especially when the authority appeals to a higher one. Milgram proved that more than a century ago.”
A smile played across Anthony’s lips. It was small, and almost imperceptible, and only James had seen it’s like so far. “But you’re forgetting the one thing their government, their authority, has been telling them. Beating into their heads for 50 years, and it’s the one point we’ve got to work with. That the Heartland is not the CS. That intelligent, good Christians live in the Heartlands, and that hate, discontent, and the ways of the devil belong to backwards, ignorant, inbred hicks like the poor bless-yer-hearts in the CS.”
The D-Man Checks In
Date: 2014-04-05 07:40 am (UTC)Re: The D-Man Checks In
Date: 2014-04-05 10:16 am (UTC)