I’ve mentioned elsewhere I’m a bit of a socialist. I don’t like the idea of fighting my way through the work day, not for promotions, riches and success, but merely to avoid living under a bridge.

A women on the other side of the fence from me (politically, not locationally) goes on and on about the “Nanny State”, and how government should not tell people what to do. Well, from my own life-perspective, I’d agree to junking the benefits of civics if only I didn’t see the following…

People who refuse to use turn signals or turn on their lights in the rain. Frankly, the casual way people tool around in their FUVs is appalling. And driving while texting should get you tossed into a camp near Lake Baykal.

And on the other side of this coin, why grant a person absolute liberty when he rides a bike at night, no lights, no safety gear, no hands on the handlebars, in black clothing? With earbuds in? These sorts of people need to be watched, preferably by armed and unsympathetic guards, not riding about where my insurance might collide with their silly selves.

Then there are people who take advantage of the airline carry-on rules. Saw a woman in San Diego joking (as she pulled TWO big suitcases through the security line) how she shouldn’t. No, you shouldn’t, you sleaze. Reeducation camp.

A close cousin to that running dog are the people who push 20+ items through the 10 items or less line. Had a couple of butterballs do this at the store today. Why should I let them consider their moral obligation to others when they have so readily failed? Let them drive 20 spikes or more through the frozen ties of the trans-Siberian railroad.

Car stereos (and home stereos, as well): blasting rap music as widely and nocturnally as possible simply demands finding yourself in a cattle car rolling east. You have no place in civilized society. You shall not be missed.

Fart cans put you one carriage back on that very same train (Fart cans are those little muffler boosters than make your driving such a whiny racket). If you fit your car out with the equivalent of baseball cards in bicycle spokes, you should be denied self-rule. You aren’t mature enough for it.

People who introduce guns, pitbulls or anything dangerous with casual indifference (or reckless provocation) in a dense urban setting. My life is not important to them. Likewise, their’s aren’t to me. Bullet in the head and a boot into a narrow trench.

Iphones, Ipads, and other personal mental masturbation toys are dryrot to culture, especially when used casually and constantly. Those guilty of Crimes of Matrix should have their rechargers taken away and left to live their lives on whatever charge they have remaining in their batteries. I’d bet their calls would be brief and to-the-point then.

I could go on; Men who wear flip flops in restaurants. Pedestrophiles who saunter across the street without looking, just to hold up traffic. People who hold Harry Potter as literature. Back-in parkers. HO modelers. Mean people. Slow people. Stupid people.

Like my father-in-law used to say: People are no damn good. You can see what people are like, every day. The people who tell you that government is bad and that we should lift regulations are the people who don’t want squad cars showing up when they set fire to your roof and carry off your teenage daughter. They don’t like government because it gets in the way of screwing you, robbing you, polluting you, enslaving you and killing you. It’s… inconvenient.

On the other hand, apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?