The Smiths and Joneses by Ira Tabankin Page B

share were those on the bottom rungs of the ladder who ate at the government cafeteria and didn’t pay a penny into refilling it.”
    Wolf continues, “Mr. President don’t you agree that people’s upbringing shapes their view of how they interact with the world, and different upbringings should have an impact in how laws are applied?”
    “Wolf, I don’t agree, I see that reasoning as society making excuses for bad behavior. I see that approach as reinforcing bad behavior and building a society of different classes, one where once in a class it will become impossible to climb out of the class like it is in India. If people come to expect they can get away with a certain type of behavior by claiming their mommy didn’t love them enough, they will push to see how much they can get away with. You will end up with a class of people who know the basic laws of society don’t apply to themselves. You are, in the long term, destroying your own society.”
    “Mr. President, this is one of the things this program hopes to explore. I think you’ll find some interesting differences.”
    “Wolf, thank you, I am very interested in learning how the LSA has changed over the past twelve years. I admit I’ve never visited the LSA.”
    “Mr. President, is there a reason you didn’t visit the LSA?”
    Laughing, “I wouldn’t be welcomed there.”
    Sean jumps in, “Sir, is there anything else that has caused major differences between the LSA and the USA?”
    “Sean, there is one other major issue, the LSA has no military. They know as long as the USA has the world’s strongest military no one is going to take the risk of attacking the LSA for fear their attack may strike the USA, which will cause us to respond massively. The LSA gets the benefit of our 250 billion dollar military budget.”
    “Mr. President, on the issue of defense, is it true that the entire US military is being refitted with, for the lack of a better term, with Sci-fi weapons?”
    “Sean, if you mean lasers, particle beams and rail guns, the answer is yes. We learned a very nasty surprise when we almost went to war against Russia. Their new rifle and personal armor came as a very nasty surprise. I ordered DARPA to jump quickly over the next generation of systems and move into totally new types of systems that were in the prototype or design stage. We now have the world’s strongest military. We have personal weapons that can cut through the armor on main battle tanks. We have rail guns that can reach beyond the horizon and knockout anything in the sky. We’ll soon have a rail gun that can target and hit objects in space.”
    Wolf wants to change the subject, “Mr. President, how has returning to the gold standard helped the US dollar?”
    “Wolf, when we returned to the gold standard, our currency became one of the few that was directly tied to precious metals. This gave our currency real value. The dollar was being dropped as the world’s currency for commerce. Shortly after we returned to the gold standard, the dollar quickly returned to its position as the world’s standard. The value of our dollar has increased. We saved our economy and the assets of millions of our people. Since our return to the gold standard, some countries have dropped their own currency and use ours.”
    Sean asks, “Mr. President, would you like to comment on the border situation?”
    “A country without borders isn’t a country. When I took office, the borders were more porous than Swiss cheese. We had hundreds of thousands of people swarm over the border every year. I agreed with Governor Lawson to build a wall along the Texan border with Mexico. The Russians blew a hole through the wall during their short-lived invasion. The Texans quickly repaired the damage to the wall; Arizona quickly picked up the ball, expanding the wall across their border with Mexico. Since Mexico allowed their country to be used as a staging area, I cutoff all commerce with Mexico; this broke