The Penal Preserve, Chapter 19
1376 sats \ 0 comments \ @cleophas 6 Aug BooksAndArticles
This is chapter 19 of The Penal Preserve, you may want to go back to Chapter 18 or start at the beginning.

19
It became clear that the Vacationers would not leave the island, nor willingly abandon their reliance on Alien products and come to live peaceably with the Penists without some sort of intervention. Even Franklin recognized that the situation was a mess.
With fresh resolve from his triumph over his own addiction, Rae proposed his own solution: that great event known as the Line, when the Penists attempted to thrust the whole of the Vacationers by a sweeping process into a neck of land, and so by one effort capture the whole of this turbulent tribe.1 Of course, the success of this plan could never have been considered very promising.2 The ill-advised operation that Franklin finally undertook against so clever and crafty a foe was too chimerical in its conception, too absurd in its progress, and too inconsiderable in its results, to deserve serious discussion,3 and I will here say as little as I can of this absurd passage in the history of the colony.4
Rae’s great plan was to have every Penist on the island gather in the extreme southwest of the island, and forming as close a cordon as possible, march across the whole island, from shore to shore, driving the Vacationers into a narrow peninsula on the northeast.
Franklin probably agreed to such an ill-advised stratagem out of a need to appear potent before the Penists. Rae was universally respected by the prisoners; even many of the guards were more loyal to Rae than to Franklin. The guards who still supported Franklin had long demanded that he adopt a more stern attitude toward the Vacationers. For Ross and Rae had thoroughly convinced the Penists that the fate of every Martian hung on the success of the colony—and that on the extirpation of the Vacationers. They said the Penists had been restrained, and that they had not used their real strength in combating the Vacationers.
‘We have no choice,’ said Rae. ‘They’re evil. Just evil! And they have to be eradicated, just off the face of this island.’5
Jane protested the plan, contending that such a warlike demonstration was uncalled for, and that the Vacationers ought not to be forced from the homes in which they had lived for years.6
Franklin said he didn’t see that there was any choice. ‘We’ve tried scaring them off and we’ve tried your school idea. But nothing has worked.’
‘You act like they aren’t even human!’ said Jane. ‘Sure, they use Alien things, but they are still mostly the same as us. Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness we show to each other. They have rights, too!’7
‘The whole reason President Welles had us come all this way out here was because she couldn’t deny everyone else’s rights—but look, these people were squatting out here. They certainly had no right to be here—’
‘No one wants to hurt these people,’ said Ross. ‘But a much greater harm will come to our entire race if we don’t get rid of them.’
‘I’m not sacrificing our civilization to save a few squatters with no self-control,’ said Rae.
‘It’s the only option we have left,’ said Franklin.
‘But this is worse,’ said Jane. ‘What we’re doing now is worse than whatever it is that the Alien’s are doing to us. We’ve taken their things; we’ve taken their freedom, we’ve taken their lives. How are we not worse?’8
‘Because there aren’t very many of them, goddammit!’ said Rae. ‘It’s simple math. A couple hundred of these people or the billions on Earth. Their lives are not more important than everyone else’s.’
Thus like warriors of the heroic age, they debated before they armed.9
Chapter 20 tomorrow, same time, same place.

Footnotes
  1. And of the great event, known as the Line, when the colonists attempted to thrust the whole of the Natives, by a sweeping process, into a neck of land on the east coast, and so by one effort capture the turbulent tribes. James Bonwick, The Last of the Tasmanians; or, the Black War of Van Diemen’s Land 1870 ↩
  2. The success of this plan could never have been considered very promising. John West, The History of Tasmania Volume 2, 1852 ↩
  3. The ill-advised operations that he then undertook against so clever and crafty a foe, that have received the designation of the “Black War,” (whereby he thought to enclose them within a moving line, advancing from north to south on a point of the coast, where two large peninsulae are united with the main by a narrow isthmus called East Bay Neck) was too chimerical in its conception, too absurd in its progress, and too inconsiderable in its results, to deserve serious notice. J E Calder, Some Account of the Wars, Extirpation, Habits, &c., of the Native Tribes of Tasmania 1875 ↩
  4. I have said nothing of Colonel Arthur’s project for capturing the aborigines—a scheme that was devised and attempted in 1830; and I shall here say as little as I can of this absurd passage in the history of the colony. *J E Calder, Some Account of the Wars, Extirpation, Habits, &c., of the Native Tribes of Tasmania 1875 ↩
  5. We have not used the real abilities we have. We have been restrained. WE have to get rid of ISIS. Have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice. Radical Islamic terrorism. And I said it yesterday—it has to be eradicated just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil. Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at CIA Headquarters,” 21 January 2017 ↩
  6. Mr Gregson, a barrister of no mean talent and oratorical power, had been opposed to their mode of procedure, contending that such a warlike demonstration was uncalled for, and that the Natives, as real masters of the soil, ought not to be forced from the territory bequeathed to them by their fathers, and now usurped by the British crown. He would not, therefore, go himself, nor would he permit one of his servants “to follow to the field some warlike Lord.” His opponents professed to be surprised that a gentleman owning such dignified, moral, and correct sentiments, should continue to hold a fine estate, as he did, upon a title granted by public robbers of a nation, and urged him to leave a land desecrated by such violation of the rights of man and honour of civilization. James Bonwick, The Last of the Tasmanians 1870 ↩
  7. In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes. Jane Goodall, “Chimpanzees—Bridging the Gap,” in Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity 1996 ↩
  8. But my friends, you that practise Tyranny and Oppression for Slave-keeping is such, he that assumes in arbitrary Manner, unjustly, Dominion over his Fellow-Creature’s Liberty and Property, contrary to Law, Reason or Equity, He is a wicked sinful Tyrant, guilty of Oppression and great Iniquity: But he that trades in Slaves and Souls of Men, does so; therefore----- Beside, Friends, the very Name of the Tyrant is odious, to God, to good men, yea to bad Men too: and the Nature and Practice is much worse. Benjamin Lay, All Slave-Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates 1737, printed by Benjamin Franklin ↩
  9. Thus, like the warriors of the heroic age, they debated before they armed. Henry West, The History of Tasmania Volume 2, 1852 ↩
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