The Voting Species Read Online Free

At the top of which they disappeared into the white straight
lines of the building to reappear on the balcony, then to shake
hands with the Admiral and several Senators. After a few minutes of
polite waving, the balcony emptied to leave the crowd with the
usual mix of emotions from concern to awe to hope, sprinkled with
the anticlimax of such a short speech.
    Senator
Cantrell sidled up to the Admiral. ‘The Senate ’s not happy Admiral, we never had a single debate on this
momentous event.’
    ‘ I regret
that myself Senator, but the aliens were half way along the Orion
Arm before they were intercepted. It appears they’d had their
debate! They made it quite clear that their journey to Earth was as
much for our benefit as theirs.’
    ‘What benefit?’
    ‘They have mine loads of uranium they want us
to enrich, and more to our point, mine loads of platinum with which
to pay.’
    The Senator looked over his shoulder, then
drew closer to the Admiral. ‘Why can’t they enrich it
themselves?’
    ‘They can, but not quickly enough for the
economic growth they want. They are very business orientated
Senator.’
    ‘How can the Senate check all this?’
    ‘ You now have
the chance to question them, rather you then me, even if they do
have far more patience than Senators! Remember, they know they have
rights, they won’t be asking you for them!’

 
    EVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION
     
    The
genetics and epigenetics laws were
strictly enforced because of the disasters as well as the blessings
that both offered. Keeping every human’s genotype and epigenotype
on record at birth had been the law for hundreds of years, this was
not only as an aid to keeping them on the straight and narrow, but
as basic medical records. The law allowed health remedies only,
strictly forbidding the use of genetics for cosmetic and
psychological modifications, especially intelligence. The often
cited case was the potential disaster of tempting people to treat
their children as fashion accessories; the planet Frontier, half
way round the Sagittarius arm let parents modify their offspring,
only to find that too many of the next generation would have been
blue eyed blonde males. Controlling gene expression through
epigenetics was permitted but monitored. This moderated the effects
of adverse environmental factors that caused many of society’s
usual problems. People discovered that even in the twenty fifth
century it was better to leave an appropriate share of genetic
expression to evolution. Adding to these challenges was another
never ending argument regarding choice. Were people completely at
the mercy of their genes? How much were they affected by their
environment? Could they escape from nature’s programming into the
wondrous world of choice? Here again it took even greater research
budgets as well as argument to decide that is wasn’t one or the
other but both. Such was the background against which society’s
arguments had raged for hundreds of years, and of course, casted
their votes.
     
    P ressure had now persuaded the
Senate to debate the proposition of setting up a tribunal that
could order an alien classification law change. Laws were presented
by the politicians, then tested by the courts, but this never
stopped the Senate trying to twist the wording of laws to their
advantage. The voters were asking and the media was screaming for
clarification of what some saw as the most perverse law ever
enacted. Inevitably there were those that were on the side of the
oppressed aliens, and many who were close to panic at the thought
of losing large chunks of their planets. Senate debates were always
amongst the elected fifteen Senators who could summon witnesses to
the proceedings. Therefore they always tried to out witness as well
as out argue each other. The Leader of the Senate would ask for a
vote once enough wind had been expelled; decided by a simple
majority, the Leader of the Senate casting the deciding vote if
required. There had been the