Stand Up to Your Rights/production script

Location Descriptions

• Voiceover: iso-booth sound, dead, good quality, heavy on bass. Maybe face inside pillows of couch? Very "aren't we great" announcerish-sounding.
• Main Studio: a little room reverb ok, light emphasis on mid-tones. Living room possibly ok. Delivered standing.
• Household: more reverb, somewhat lower quality; breakfast nook should work, or kitchen
• Outdoors: try recording through office window
• Restaurant: use any indoor location (breakfast nook? kitchen?) with a little room reverb, and mix in recorded restaurant background
• Office: indoors, maybe try living room but a little closer to the couch, sitting down.

Text for Locations

Voiceover

The following is a FLOX News special report.

The preceding has been a FLOX News special report. FLOX News -- fair and equitable -- all the news that fits our agenda.

We've set up a hidden camera so you can watch what happens when we secretly replace the democratic government normally served at this establishment with Patriots Crystal Dictatorship.

Patriots Crystal Dictatorship. Tastes Great, Less Thinking.

Outdoors

Person 1: I've had it up to here with civil rights and democracy and having to go vote all the time. It's just stupid.

Protester: The government has been trying to pawn off this "democracy" thing on us for way too long, you know? So, okay, I went and did a little research at the library, and you know what? This whole thing was started by some rebel-without-a-cause, this Thomas Jefferson guy, just because he didn't want to do what England said! Well, if the King of England -- who was at that time anointed by God, let me remind you! -- if the freakin' King, fer cryin' out loud, says to do something, that's good enough for me and it should be good enough for anybody! If he says "raise the taxes", our only question should be "how high"! We had a perfectly good government back then, with the approval of God, fer goshsake, and along comes this Jefferson guy and his so-called Constitutional Convention telling everyone what to do, and -- whoops! Bye bye God, we've got separation of church and state now! Nice knowing you! I mean, just look at the word "democracy" -- looks an awful lot like the word "democrat", doesn't it. Enough said!

Restaurant

Person 2: I mean, "civil rights"? What's that? I didn't ask for it, and I don't want it.

Guy in bar: Look, this Constitution thing, it's just this guy Jefferson talkin' up his a[bleep]... he probably made this stuff up at a bar one night and got a bunch of his drunk buddies to sign it. I mean, heh, that John Hancock guy -- you can't look at that scrawl and tell me he was sober! But, like, this is the crap that they're teaching our kids in school! Instead of the real facts, like in, you know, in the Bible.

Mic guy: So how do you like it?

Customer: I like it!

Mic guy: What would you say it we told you that you've been living in a theocratic fascist dictatorship, and not America at all?

Customer: No way! Really?

Mic guy: Is it as good as the government you're used to?

Customer: It tastes just the same, but less filling! I hardly have to think at all!

Household

Person 3: We pay these guys for a reason! I don't get paid to think about this stuff; why should I have to waste my time on it?

Mom: So the other day my son Jimmy -- he's 12 -- comes in the house with this textbook that goes on and on about this Constitution thing -- and I'm, like, who let that in the house?? Does the Bible say anything about people "voting" for their leaders, and trying to tell the government what to do? No! It's just ridiculous.

Hatchens: Yes, I would... and by the way, I'm not a spokesman for any sort of "anti-decency" movement... [gets talked over starting at "and by the way"; maybe we hear someone saying "be quiet!"]

Office

Scruggs: Look, the function of government is to govern -- to make the decisions and take care of stuff. They're the deciders. Our job as citizens is to do what the government says. They have our best interests at heart, so we need to listen to them and not be, you know, counterproductive.

Scruggs: Among the rules of conduct this document tries to get people to accept are, one, this idea that people should be allowed to say -- or even print! -- pretty much anything they want, no matter how hurtful, or offensive, or even dangerous it might be -- that's this so-called "freedom of speech and the press" thing you might hear about -- and two, this related idea that mobs of people should be allowed to get together whenever they want, without any good reason! This is the kind of insanity that these people want to resurrect -- from the middle ages, practically! -- and saddle our modern, God-fearing society with these primitive, outdated ideas of government. I mean, look at it -- people getting together in, essentially, gangs, saying whatever they want, and these are supposed to be the same people who are "voting", so called, and telling us what to do. It's mob rule! No decent government would allow such a thing. As decent citizens, we owe it to ourselves to prevent it.

Scruggs: These ideas, this "Constitution" thing, already have such a deep grip on popular thinking -- and indeed are very much embedded in our legal system itself -- that it's impossible to get the schools to teach the real truth -- about what's real, from the Bible, and to warn kids against constitutionalist dogma. No. It's the truth, but you're not allowed to teach it.

So what we've come up with is this idea which we hope will get people to think -- especially kids -- and maybe start undoing some of the damage done by constitutional decisionist extremism. It's called delegated consent, and it's basically the idea that although the Constitution, so-called, gives you all these "rights" you have to deal with, you actually in fact don't have to put up with them -- because you can d e l e g a t e all those painful and time-consuming decisions back to the proper authorities. The constitution tries to force all this stuff on you, and we're saying "no, you don't have to go along with that, you can make the government take the reins for you, and do its job." But it doesn't go against constitutionist dogma, so it can be legally taught -- and we believe it should be.

Scruggs: Why? Because the ivory-tower elites don't want you to know the truth. Because they don't want you, the citizen, to have the power to make the government do the decisionmaking it's supposed to do. They want to force you -- us -- Joe and Jane Average American -- to do the work of deciding these important and complex issues that we really know nothing about. And that's just not right.

move to different place... maybe record in office, with computer noise and all?

Shepherd: Speaking quite frankly, this... "Constitution" stuff... I mean, I know many people seem to hold it in very high regard... they go on and on ritually about all the different parts, the "bill of rights", the "amendments"... and I respect that, really I do... but really, frankly, it's garbage.

Main Studio

MC: People all over America have had enough. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. The issue? Civil rights. People are fed up with them.

MC: Angry citizens, frustrated with endless election campaigns, bitter over the political mudslinging and rhetoric, are demanding that the government do it's job and make up its own mind, instead of foisting complex and arcane decisions onto ordinary citizens with better things to do.

MC: Dr. Ezekiel Scruggs, Professor of Ideological Correction Studies at Joe Smith University.

MC: Experts agree -- the government of the United States has been declining to do its job, and instead has been foisting the burden of crucial decisionmaking onto its citizens. The excuse? An obscure document, over 200 years old, known to its devotees as "The Constitution". Dr. Scruggs:

MC: Eunice Meriwether, mother of 8:

MC: Indeed, many angry parents have demanded that constitutionalist propaganda -- now being taught as fact in schools across America -- should at least be required to share equal time with basic Biblical moral truths about government and leadership.

MC: Dr. Ken Shepherd of the American Association for Speaking Quite Frankly:

MC: "It's garbage", say the experts. "Ridiculous", says a worried mother. All over America, people are deeply concerned about their civil rights, and what the cost may be if we don't do something to stop them. So what is being done to counter the spread of these destructive anti-governance, pro-anarchy ideas? Dr. Scruggs:

MC Delegated Consent -- a solution to a seemingly intractable problem. The idea of Delegated Consent has met with widespread passive acceptance -- and yet criticism from America's constitutionalist elite remains steadfast.

MC And what do these isolated, power-hungry elites, who want to take away all control from everyday Americans and force them into relentless decisionmaking servitude, have to say in their defense? We spoke with Richard Hatchens, a prominent pro-decisionist and spokesman for the anti-decency movement.

MC: And there you have it -- just one example of the sort of wild-eyed rhetoric and ranting espoused by the rabid defenders of decisionist doctrine. As a news organization, however, we would be remiss in our duty to you, our viewers, if we did not make a fair and equitable presentation of both sides of the issue... no matter how repugnant one of them may be.

A few concluding thoughts, after this message.

...

So where does this leave us? Are we a nation of anarchy, where every man must decide for himself? Or can we be united and strong, and stand behind our leaders? Write or call in to the show, and tell us what we should tell you to think.

I'm Brent Newsworthy, reporting for FLOX News.