Moving to the small town of Westminster, I thought that I would escape the "Communist Utopia" of Clemson, South Carolina but I have found that I have landed straight in the middle of a 1930's Italy with laws being made to enforce a fundamentalist Christian notion of what society should be.
The moment which incited me to make the comparison of Westminster to Mussolini's Italy occurred tonight around 11:30pm. I was in the BP station in front of the Ingle's hoping to buy some beer and a broom handle was pushed through the door handles of the cooler case. This forced me to think, "Is it Sunday?" (another Fascist Law.) No, it wasn't Sunday, it was Friday night, surely a prime time for beer sales.
I walked over to the attendant and asked him why the cooler case was closed. He responded by saying it was city ordinance to close it at 11pm. every night. He further went on by explaining that before it was open until 12am but because of the rise of DUI's, the city council concluded that limiting alcohol sales to 11pm would help with that...........What?
Our City Council is more worried about making laws to limit the sale of beer to fix our morals than finding a way to lower the electricity cost which is ruining the economy of the town and dooming it to perpetual poverty. There are police in this town precisely to arrest people who break the laws. Does the town council really believe that limiting or restricting alcohol sales is going to diminish the instances of DUI's? Besides this they believe that they can circumvent the Constitution just so they can slip another idiotic law on the books.
The Constitution upholds the rights of the individual to make his or her own decisions regarding where and how they wish to do business and the B.P. was forced to take a loss in their business just so they could stay legal according to the town ordinances. Ordinances which betray the lack of Constitutional principles that this town is guilty of. This town is more interested in pandering to a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture and ramming down the rest of our throats than allowing the rest of us to live our lives according to our own vision.
Just for interest, the Bible does not condemn the consumption of alcohol and some of the most upstanding people (which includes Christians) that I have known consume alcohol in moderation just as I do.
If anyone desires to know where Fascism is entering our culture, it is through local ordinances like the aforementioned which often go unnoticed by the casual citizen in preference to what happens in Washington. It is people who think that everyone should live like them that is ruining the Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom means tolerating lifestyles that you may not agree with and allowing people of diverse opinions to live as they see fit. If this paradigm does not shift, goodbye freedoms and hello police-state.
