Citizen Welfare
Quibble has been doing handily since the mandate that every house must have one red door. He builds them directly in a frame, customises them so they can be installed free-standing on a porch or in a living room. When he paints the construction red, neighbours come by to watch. Others can build red doors, but everyone knows Council will approve Quibble’s doors unquestioned. Then Council emends its edict and allows that existing doors painted red will fill the red door requirement, a codicil not in the original rule. Quibble suffers financially, artistically, socially. Collateral damage is not Council’s concern.
Development Plan
The ordinance states that everyone must have a red door. Not that every door be red. Nor does it specify the shade of red. Will dark pink or rust orange do? The ordinance is so plastic, it might be that one’s red door could be on an outbuilding, even an interior room, or stretched idle in the attic between sawhorses. Only one side, or both, of the door red? Around the variables, trades develop: paint shops that deal in varieties of red, folding door departments in hardware stores. Business is good. Next year, amendments could crank the economic cycle again.
Effectiveness
Some hold the law has meaning; others hold it has none. Quibble suspects half the former do not know the meaning, and half the latter would not understand the meaning were it revealed. Debate is conducted in tiny gatherings, late breakfast or early lunch or at the celebration of a six-pack at last being cold enough. Issues like this collect many words and phrases, but are seldom resolved. It does not matter as fact or function; it simply keeps public focus from other calamities. Everyone on both sides harbours red doors, and those in no-man’s-land between them find compliance comfortable.
Establishment
The Commission on Red Doors originally merely inspected to see that every home and business held at least one red door. There are only so many homes and businesses in town, so we imagined the commission would quickly complete its work and be disbanded. However, Council has emended its charter, adding calling out red doors with blemishes. And they have introduced size limitations: suspect red doors may be too small. Some scions have questioned what red is red enough. Sample paint swatches are being pulled from Thole’s Hardware. Soon, red may be blue, and the commission have reason to persist.
Market Complications
It was judged that Thole’s stock of pre-painted red doors, offered at his hardware store, did not meet his requirement to have a red door. He needed to personally maintain a red door. In any case, a run on red doors might deplete Thole’s stock and he would fall out of compliance. So, the back door of Thole’s Hardware is now bug-eyes red. But there is still a question: does having a business with a red door cover, in law, his domicile as well? Secretly, Thole has a red shed door at home, but the faux controversy profitably engages waffling customers.
Value
Quibble is uncertain which of his doors to paint red. He could shine civic pride by slathering his front door in scalding red, or he could signal solidarity with the dissenters by washing his spare room door in a scolding pink. Where he alights on the placing quandary could win or lose him friends, push him to the centre or fringe of his fore-ordained social collective. He needs to consider, too, how his choice will colour his new red door rental business: whether it draws or deters customers, whether it requires he stock more colours than he has space for.
DoubleSpeak 