America recently arrested a man who was 100 kms offshore in a giant human-powered hamster wheel and headed for Europe, while a hurricane bore down upon him. The thing that still has me thinking about this incident is the bit where the headlines say “Arrested” rather than “Rescued”. By all accounts this man was harming no one as he ran his way into danger, and yet Coast Guard determined he was acting against the law and brought him in. So much for the land of the free.
While I am sure the law he was acting against was something like, “blocking up shipping lanes”, I can’t help but feel this is another example of American government overreach, impacting the needs and desires of its populace. Nevermind, all those millions of women who have lost their right to bodily self-determination, this hamster wheel thing has clearly shown us, that American laws reach into every aspect of their lives in a way we could never imagine – including their desire to end it by running into a hurricane on a hamster wheel. It never would have happened in South Africa.
No, in South Africa, you are free to do whatever you want to yourself. General incompetence, wasteful expenditure and downright theft of resources has meant that there are only enough coast guards to stop one ship of abalone smugglers each year, and they are definitely not going to bother with a simpleton in a hamster wheel. We don’t have the money to worry about people who actually want to live, never mind those who don’t. Go missing off the coast of SA, and you will simply become a half-completed docket on a dusty shelf at the wrong police station, while your family bribes officials to get you a death certificate. Now that’s real freedom.
With the announcement that tax collections are going to fall way short of what the country needs next year, we can expect even more government services to fall by the wayside, creating ever more freedom. Soon we will be free to do whatever we want here as the country slides into a blend of the Hunger Games and The Purge, two of the most fun movies that you can get!
In the Western Cape, there is a blue political party who says they want to take over and reinforce the law. Fortunately, they also seem to be largely made up of the same people who didn’t pay much attention to the laws and went surfing during lockdown, so it’s possible that they aren’t really all that serious about it and the rest of us can therefore breathe a sigh of relief.
At the end of the day, South Africa remains one of the last standouts of true, anything-goes, freedom, a place where those who want to wrestle sharks while smeared in bloody meat are free to do so, a place where people can drink and drive and not pay their TV licences to their heart’s content. Don’t like paying traffic tolls? Boy, do I have the country for you! So yes, while we have to contend with loadshedding all the time, let’s also be thankful for what we do have – the freedom to just do whatever we want.
