You are using an outdated browser.
Please upgrade your browser
and improve your visit to our site.
Skip Navigation

A Modest Proposal (To Mandate That All Politician Be Eunuchs)

A satire for the ages

HBO

It is a melancholly Object to those, who walk through this great Town, when they see the Men who have been brought forward to be Secretaries, abase themselves in Publick, to take the Pledge, and forswear Fornication, and Fondling, when it is in their Lives that they should have set Examples of Godliness to us, as we know our Senators to do. For these have become Nunns, as they give us Witness in the Inquisitions of their Committees, by a Conversion so general, that I can think of no Parallel, since a Chinese General baptized his Army with a Hose.

I think it is agreed by all Parties, that our Children should be able to watch the Network News, which is our Vespers, and see one upright publick Official, who is not a Leaning Tower of Tipple, or a Fondler. It has not escaped my Observation, while I have been in this Town, that the Transgressions of Nominees, while they ewer Senators, were not exposed by their Colleagues. They were held up for our Esteem, to give Commencement Addresses to our Children, so that they will not fall into the Habits of Fondling, and Intemperance. But our Senators, taking the Veil on C-Span, discover the Sins of their former Colleagues to be no longer Motes, and moral to their Nominations.

I have already computed, that as the Appetite for these Inquisitions grows, the charge on the Publick Treasury, in this Year, will exceed the budget for our Defense, and so defeat the Object of the Senate. In this deplorable State of our Politicks, I do therefore humbly offer a Cure, for publick Consideration, which I have weight maturely against the Schemes of other Projectors. I propose that we select our Publick Servants in the Manner found useful by the Universal Empires of the Past, which can be shown by Researchers, to have been certain in its results, and less costly than our Inquisitions.

Since the Object of the Nunns, is to select Secretaries, and Heads of other Agencies, with no Inclination to Fondle, we should adopt a System of Eunuch Rule. This Proposal, which I foresee will be lyable to no Objection, can be introduced without Amendment to the Constitution. The President by simple Announcement, would nominate Secretaries only from a Federal Reserve, or Pool, or Farm, of Eunuchs. The Investigations of the Senate, as to the Qualifications of the Candidate, would be limited to a Single Inquiry, in which the Evidence would not be in Dispute. It would be supplied by the Surgeon-General, who is trusted in all Matters pertaining to Cleanliness and Godliness, being above Suspicion of Intemperance, or Fondling, and is used to Labeling, at no additional charge on the Treasury.

The Senate would annually appropriate the Funds, needed for the Mutilation of the Young Men, who are selected to be Recruits to the Federal Pool of Eunuchs. These would be chosen, according to the Practice, which was universal in the Empires, from the Poor, so that they would have no title to their Positions but in the Favor of the Senate. It would therefore be beneficial in reducing the Pool of Unemployed Young Males, and the Mutilation, which would commend itself to the Nunns, leads to a Kinder, Gentler Nation.

The advantage of this System, as my Researchers have confirmed, is that it would eliminate Fondling, which as the Intention of the Rulers of the Empires. Though they may not have touched most of the Inhabitants of their Harems, even the most delectable, which a Secretary might desire, these were still to be kept as their Monopolies, and not distracted by other Males. It was for this Purpose, as the Nunns also wish, and so I call it to their Attention, that Young Men were tamed by Emasculation, as we do with Domestic Animals, which are sprayed every day in America, with no Burnings of the Clinics by the Advocates of Animal Rights.

When the Eunuchs were admitted to the centre of the Royal Household, as they would today be nominated, to care for the Harem, and even rise to be powerful Secretaries in the Administration of the Empire, they were not tempted to Fondle, even when they traveled abroad on an Embassy to Geneva, and found themselves among the Harems of other Emperors, who might be Spies. My Proposal will remove the temptation to Fondle, without incurring the Costs and Recriminations of the Inquisitions by the Hill, or Antheap, of Nunns, into which our Senate has been marvelously transformed, to the greater Glory of God, and the Security of the Realm.

My Researchers have found no Evidence that the Eunuchs were tempted to Intemperance, Intemperance, by their lack of desire to Fondle, whether in the Courts of the Pharaohs, the Assyrian Kings, or later the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the noble Xerxes, with his powerful Chamberlain, who was a Eunuch, or Rome from the days of Claudius and Nero, or the Eastern Empire of Byzantium, where Eunuchs were even leading Generals and Admirals, or the Ottoman Empire, and Suleiman the Magnificent; or the Mogul Emperors, or even China from the eighth Century, B.C. But Intemperance has become a Cause of Concern to our Senate, and since it may be found even in the Federal Reserve (of Eunuchs), my Proposal addresses this Matter, with the same Modestie.

It is fortunate for our Realm, that when our Senate might feel isolated, in their new Avocation as Nunns, they can rely on the Support of the Media, who have become an Organized Hypocrisy, led in this Town by the Post, the Pillar of the Community, and the Realm Within the Beltway. They will even send, in the Publick Interest, a Reporter to dine at the Jefferson Hotel, which is the Home of the Nominee, so that unashamed to Eavesdrop, they can put into Print, that the Nominee told his Friend that he would like to Fondle her, which may have been intended only for the Wet Ears of the Reporter, who for this Employment, will be known as Investigative. Such are the Men of Sobriety, on whom we may rely, to be our Security against Intemperance, as they are against a cheating Hart, when they find him Fondling. By their Reading of the First Amendment, no Power in the Realm can eavesdrop on them, so their License to be Scurrilous will be our Protection.

So our State shall be saved from Intemperance, and Fondling; and Competence and Experience, and Men trained to Politicks, shall be set Aside, and the Rest of the World shall look Elsewhere for Gusto, and by our Manifest Destiny, we shall all be Nunns.