ORIGINAL diagnostic essay draft

“Honesty Wealth and a Better America: My Superpower”
Morgan Wood
English 111
Gasparo

“Honesty is the best policy” the old saying goes; for the most part I believe this to be true. I can remember from an early age my parents instilling in me the essentials of what was to be the basis of my moral code. They would remind me “Morgan if there is only one thing we can teach you remember this, regardless of who you are or what you do, do not lie cheat or steel! So long as you do not do these three things you will be a good man” it sounded all too simple to me then. I have found that this is certainly not the case. It was not for some time, long after I had internalized these moors and refined them for myself as simply “be truthful in all things”, that I realized by adopting this creed I had set myself at a perilous disadvantage to my peers (at least with those peers that hadn’t had as socially responsible parents as myself). A disadvantage that would not occur to me until I myself could distinguish a lie along with the liar. Fortunately enough for me, I have over the years with practice become more adapt at compensating for what I will call my own honest shortcomings. After realizing not everyone is perfectly honest with either themselves or the world around them I would consider it almost impossible to truly determine who if anyone is completely truthful. I would suppose then that the only person one could trust is themselves, even then the question of interpersonal integrity comes into question. All things considered when faced with such overwhelming uncertainty and a world of doubt the only feasible solution would be to grant myself a magnificent superpower. The only reasonable answer would involve leveling this dishonest playing field. I would have to have the ability to know whether or not someone was lying and then be able to share or bestow this as privileged information with someone else. I guess ultimately what I would be asking for is the ability to grant and withdraw the ability to read minds to myself and a few fortunate others.
With my new ability to grant psionic mind reading abilities I would of course have to grant myself the privilege of using this new power for my own personnel gain. Perhaps I would sell or lease the ability to the many institutions of government who could use it to civic purposes. Courts and lawyers would be charged for the use with witnesses and juries so that no innocent person may ever be proven otherwise. I would bestow the power to peacekeepers and diplomats though only after much mental and ideological scrutiny by myself and maybe a panel of trusty aides. I would replace the lie detector as the definitive measure of someone’s innocence altogether. Never again would the public be mislead by slippery tongued beaurocrats as I would sell my services for the use as a closed captioned aide to be made a mandatory accompaniment to political candidates adds and speeches. Consumers the world over may never again be deceived by a shifty salesperson or misleading commercial. Though primarily used for my personnel financial gain I would not be opposed to a little charity work here and there so long as I could use it as a tax credit. I would occasionally provide my unique ability a gratis to those less fortunate and down trodden few who could use it in some fashion to better their circumstance.
As is often the case, with great power comes great responsibility. Thankfully by the time I have to concern myself with this I will be wealthy enough to hire somebody else to do all the busy work. I can think no better way of fantasizing about acquiring super powers than imagining making the world a better if not more honest a place while single handedly securing the financial independence of myself and infinite amount of children and grand children. Not only would it change my life but also the lives of those who have ever received the short end of the stick because the world does not play with the same set of rules as they do. It is a sad truth but some do lie, some do cheat, and some do steal but if I had it my way I would pick a superpower that ensured I got stinking wealthy making sure everybody in all things were true .