Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Restoration

But then most people thought about it and decided Seattle, rotting, dying, and gasping for life, could remain a part of the FUSA for as long as it wanted. Most people realized that with free and prosperous New Washington as a shining example, people in Seattle would start to voluntarily come to New Washington. That’s how New Washington would eventually regain Seattle: when everyone in Seattle wanted back into a functioning state like New Washington. The Patriots weren’t in a hurry. They had lots to fix in New Washington.

Religion was another topic that needed some reform, or, actually, just some freedom. There was a massive return to religion after the Collapse. So many people had experiences that led them to believe in a higher power. Most of the people from Pierce Point and the 17th fit into this category.

The New Washington Constitution created a very clear separation of church and state. Government was not to be in the religion business; that was a purely private affair, but the New Washington Constitution would not allow silly bans on religious life. No more suspending kindergartners for saying “Merry Christmas.” The New Washington Constitution would do what the federal Constitution was supposed to do before judges perverted it, which was to ban the government from “establishing” an official government-sanctioned religion, not to ban people from exercising their religions. Government allowing kids to say “Merry Christmas” was not “establishing” a religion; it was allowing people to exercise them. But requiring kids in public schools to pray was forcing religion on people, so that would not be tolerated.

Government exists to protect liberty, including everyone’s ability for free exercise of religion. This included non-Christian religions and atheism. Religion must be protected for two reasons, Grant had always thought. First, free exercise of religion is a fundamental liberty and government exists to protect liberty. Second, and a very practical reason, is that a healthy religious life means a healthy society. Charity flourishes and takes care of people the government can’t take care of, and private charity does a much better job. Religion often means people feel accountable to a higher power, not just to bureaucrats. There was no downside to a society when religion was healthy, provided that people could be truly free to worship, or not worship, as they pleased.

In addition to more religion, another social phenomenon after the Collapse was the reversal of the wussification of the American male. (New Washingtonians and others in the FUSA still called themselves “Americans.”) The government couldn’t do much to reverse wussification, except to get out of the way of society. By virtually eliminating taxes, now both parents in a family didn’t have to work. This was huge. Men and women could have their traditional roles without having to worry about a second wage earner to pay the taxes. If men and women didn’t want to have traditional roles, that was fine, too. It was just that the majority of Americans did want the traditional roles. Now, without crushing taxes, they could have them if they wanted them.

Men had been vilified by the old state. Grant thought of all the TV ads and sitcoms in which the man was the stupid idiot and the woman saved the day. Over and over again. All threats to decency were from men. They were all wife beaters and gun-toting nuts. Grant had always thought that the reason for this was that the old government didn’t want strong families to be a check on government power. Government wanted full control over people. And, to do that, government needed to eliminate the family. That was actually in the Communist Manifesto.

Gov. Trenton would use his bully pulpit to remind society that men actually have some worth. They need to be strong and work hard. Men have an obligation to provide for a family. Men cannot be lazy and expect the government to take care of their families. If a man were injured or disabled that was a different situation, of course, and a charity should help. And in some families it made more sense for the woman to work and the man to take care of the kids. That was all fine. It was just that the era of men getting to be overgrown boys, shirk their responsibilities, and have the government take care of their families was over. Over for good.

The war, in which many regular suburban men had picked up a gun for the first time and used it, had also taught both men and women that men have some worth as protectors of their families. There hadn’t been a need to do this for several generations. People were reminded of the unique role men have in a properly functioning society, in a free society.

Stopping the vilification of men didn’t mean that women had to stay at home and cater to men. Not at all. Just as the war meant many suburban men picked up a gun and used it for the first time, many women did the same. People realized just how incredibly important women are to a society and especially to families when times got bad, even more so when many men weren’t around because they were off fighting a war. Many families saw with their own eyes that women canning and growing gardens saved the family. And women are usually better at comforting and nurturing. There was plenty of that which needed to be done. Almost everyone suffered a tragedy of some kind; there was a lot of comforting necessary. Grant kept thinking about Anne Sherryton and how she had read the brewery orphans those stories after doing some very brutal and tough work that few men could. There was no denying how important women were.

Thinking about the vilification of men got Grant thinking about race. Just like the old government had divided up society along gender lines and pitted people against each other, with government riding in to save the day, the old government had done the same with race. It was so apparent, especially after the war. Before the war, the old government tried to scare minorities about all those evil white teabaggers who wanted to kill them and enslave them. Just like they’d told women that men were evil and needed to be controlled by… the government.

The government used race to get support from whites, too. While never saying it, the government was hinting pretty clearly to whites that all these new security measures were necessary to protect people from “crime,” which often meant ethnic gangs. The common denominator in all this was that government was the only fair and powerful thing that could protect one group from the evils of the other group.

It would be impossible to be a racist after going through the Collapse and war. People of every race did bad things and good things. Grant thought about his own experience. There were Mexican gangs in Frederickson. On the other hand, there was Gideon and all the Hispanic soldiers in the 17th. Race didn’t fit into any rigid “good” or “bad” category.

Almost all people in New Washington had similar experiences. They had seen minorities do bad things and good things. Minorities had seen whites do bad things and good things, too. It was not lost on most minorities that the politicians and bureaucrats who had destroyed everything were white. Well educated, upper income whites.

Grant thought about all that the Patriots had done. He was very proud. Not cocky proud, but deep-breath-and-smile proud for a job well done. Grant was just a small piece in this whole thing. He had always thought that the only way things would get fixed was for the old system to collapse. People, who could start over on a clean slate instead of being trapped in the old system, would do what made sense, and that was freedom.

His pants were falling down. Damn it. Stay up.

Grant Matson hated wearing a suit, and he hated a tuxedo even more. A tuxedo that was too big was even worse. His pants were several inches too big and his shirt was baggy and had about two inches too much collar. His bow tie looked silly cinched up in an attempt to hide the fact that the collar was too big. Oh well. Almost everyone else was in the same boat.