The following bulletin was posted on the board in Town Square on Sunday evening. Copies of it were seen being circulated amongst the townfolk, causing quite a stir.
There has been much hoopla surrounding the advent of a new proposition being considered by the people of Rhy'Din, concerning the regulation of magic and magical persons and/or creatures. Amid this controversy, riots have broken out and mobs have formed consisting of masses of ill-informed, mindless, angry peons who scour the streets looking to vent their indignant, and oft-times manufactured rage on any mage or magical being they can find.
I will get to them later. For the moment, we will focus on the Proposition itself.
On the face of it, Proposition 37 seems like a genuine effort at enforcing the public good. Indeed, the people behind this proposition have stated publicly in interviews with the local media that public safety is the primary motivating factor behind all their efforts. And why not? Magic is a potentially deadly weapon, possessing the capacity to inflict mass harm over a wide area of effect. It seems reasonable on the outset that such power should be closely monitored and regulated so as to minimize the damage it can do. I say "on the face of it," because once one starts to look deeper at the motivations of the main characters that form the driving force behind this odious legislation, the entire facade begins to fall apart.
Let us assume that public safety is indeed the main reason for proposing this bill for approval by the plebiscite. Why, then, start with magic? What of weapons - blades, firearms, projectile weapons like arrows and spears? Wielded in the wrong hands, weapons kill or injure eight people before even one person is harmed because of a magical spell. If public safety were really your goal, why would you not start there? Why not require that all people with training in the use of deadly weapons register with the Town Guard for the sake of public safety? The people trying to push this bill onto us do not want you to ask these questions, because questions are deadlier to their ideas than any blade.
We are now left to ask ourselves, if not for the public welfare, why, then propose such a bill at all? What do these people gain from regulating the use of magic, and amassing a register of magical users, and magic beings? Is it a matter of control, the main motivator of the fascist? Or is it something far more sinister? I do not know the answer to these questions, but the people behind this proposition certainly do. And it is far past time for the more level-headed among us to start asking them exactly that!
As for the agitators who form mobs that are guilty of the most cowardly, dishonorable assaults on those they perceive to be threats merely because of their magical natures, let me tell you that your crimes will one day extract a cost that will permeate down through the generations. Your children and your grandchildren will look back at this period of time and judge that their forebearers behaved in the most ignorant of ways, and that given the choice, they gleefully endorsed the tactics of fear and loathing that pits one class of citizen against another - a course of action that inevitably leads down the road to disenfranchisement, detention camps, and mass exterminations that forever stain the soul of an otherwise civilized society. And unlike the Germans of my world, you will not claim to have not known about it... it will happen right in front of your eyes.
And so the real question remains: What will you do with the present? Will you succumb to the politics of fears and divisiveness? Or will you rise up in defense of freedom for all, and unity in the face of dark intent?
There has been much hoopla surrounding the advent of a new proposition being considered by the people of Rhy'Din, concerning the regulation of magic and magical persons and/or creatures. Amid this controversy, riots have broken out and mobs have formed consisting of masses of ill-informed, mindless, angry peons who scour the streets looking to vent their indignant, and oft-times manufactured rage on any mage or magical being they can find.
I will get to them later. For the moment, we will focus on the Proposition itself.
On the face of it, Proposition 37 seems like a genuine effort at enforcing the public good. Indeed, the people behind this proposition have stated publicly in interviews with the local media that public safety is the primary motivating factor behind all their efforts. And why not? Magic is a potentially deadly weapon, possessing the capacity to inflict mass harm over a wide area of effect. It seems reasonable on the outset that such power should be closely monitored and regulated so as to minimize the damage it can do. I say "on the face of it," because once one starts to look deeper at the motivations of the main characters that form the driving force behind this odious legislation, the entire facade begins to fall apart.
Let us assume that public safety is indeed the main reason for proposing this bill for approval by the plebiscite. Why, then, start with magic? What of weapons - blades, firearms, projectile weapons like arrows and spears? Wielded in the wrong hands, weapons kill or injure eight people before even one person is harmed because of a magical spell. If public safety were really your goal, why would you not start there? Why not require that all people with training in the use of deadly weapons register with the Town Guard for the sake of public safety? The people trying to push this bill onto us do not want you to ask these questions, because questions are deadlier to their ideas than any blade.
We are now left to ask ourselves, if not for the public welfare, why, then propose such a bill at all? What do these people gain from regulating the use of magic, and amassing a register of magical users, and magic beings? Is it a matter of control, the main motivator of the fascist? Or is it something far more sinister? I do not know the answer to these questions, but the people behind this proposition certainly do. And it is far past time for the more level-headed among us to start asking them exactly that!
As for the agitators who form mobs that are guilty of the most cowardly, dishonorable assaults on those they perceive to be threats merely because of their magical natures, let me tell you that your crimes will one day extract a cost that will permeate down through the generations. Your children and your grandchildren will look back at this period of time and judge that their forebearers behaved in the most ignorant of ways, and that given the choice, they gleefully endorsed the tactics of fear and loathing that pits one class of citizen against another - a course of action that inevitably leads down the road to disenfranchisement, detention camps, and mass exterminations that forever stain the soul of an otherwise civilized society. And unlike the Germans of my world, you will not claim to have not known about it... it will happen right in front of your eyes.
And so the real question remains: What will you do with the present? Will you succumb to the politics of fears and divisiveness? Or will you rise up in defense of freedom for all, and unity in the face of dark intent?