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MUSSOLINI, CARL SAGAN, AND WINE BOTTLES

By Don Heavrin

     Another book that is worth considering is; The Demon Haunted World by Dr. Carl Sagan, Random House, New York, 1995. As you may suspect, it is out of print. You have to order it by cranking up Amazon.com. In commenting on alien invaders, one of his readers wrote, “One purpose that the insidious satanic purpose (sic) is to make us worried about an alien invasion so that when Jesus and His angels appear over Jerusalem, we will be frightened rather than glad. I do hope you will not dismiss me as another religious crackpot. I am quite normal and well known in my own little community.”

     Usually I find Dr. Sagan’s writing inspirational, but this time he failed me. He should have told us where her little community is so that we would not accidentally stumble into her territory while vacationing.

     Benito Mussolini, in 1934, stated, ‘We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.’ This observation by Mussolini is subtle, important and generally overlooked. Notice that he doesn’t say a word about democracy, which is the ugliest form of government. Raw dictatorships are not as bad because everyone knows what they’re getting. In contrast, everyone from the top down thinks that democracy equals freedom, which is nonsense. Mussolini was so far ahead of the United States in his understanding of government, that we should follow his lead and never use ‘Liberty and ‘Democracy’ in the same paragraph. They are mutually exclusive concepts.

     On the local scene, the state legislature is considering a bill to allow a customer at a restaurant to take home an unfinished bottle of wine.

This is so practical that when I first read the proposal, I said out loud, ‘That makes sense.’ I just bought a $15 bottle of wine at a restaurant and paid $60 for it. I still have half of it in the bottle. Do I drink the rest of the bottle or throw it away? Obviously I would be tempted to drink the rest of the wine, which would be a very bad idea because I’m going to drive home. The reason that it takes a legislative act to implement this obvious benefit is we have an open-container law in Kentucky. I have no idea how that nonsense got on the books, but it’s there.

     The opponents of this bill argue that it would increase spouse abuse and encourage people to drink more! Have these crackpots considered the possibility of Captain Kirk beaming them up and forcing them to drink more alcohol?

     Eclipsing the stupidity of the opponents of the bill is the method by which the proponents want the bottle treated before it can be taken home.

First the customer has to have the bottle hermetically sealed, then the bottle has to be locked in the trunk of the car or the person’s glove compartment. Is there ever anything simple in government? Just pass a statute that says a person can stick the cork in the bottle and take it home, rather than create another 12 pages of regulations on how to seal the bottle.

     Our legislature is also considering a bill giving policemen the authority to stop a driver who is not wearing a seat belt. This is just another opportunity for police harassment. If a citizen wants to run the risk of dying without a seat belt, that’s his right.

Your Servant of Truth in

The Garden of Life

  Donald M. Heavrin

Please check out the Libertarian Radio Network at www.lrni.us.

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