Gandalf

Gandalf:

Continuing the meditation on independence, I saw several fireworks displays this weekend, both government-run and privately-funded. The government run displays involved far more expensive fireworks, and were more elaborate; but the aggregate of the individual actors who bought their own fireworks was ultimately more impressive than the aggregate government displays.

There's probably a lesson in that somewhere, but our friends on the left might note that not everyone is a trained fireworks engineer; I noted the fact myself after watching a guy set off a mortar that exploded a fraction of a second after launch, perhaps ten feet in the air. No one was hurt, but they certainly could have been.

Independent people get to do this kind of stuff, even though it entails some significant risk. That's what freedom is. Sometimes, of course, freedom kills.

A New York man died Sunday while participating in a ride with 550 other motorcyclists to protest the state’s mandatory helmet law.

Police said Philip A. Contos, 55, hit his brakes and his motorcycle fishtailed. Contos was sent over the handlebars of his 1983 Harley Davidson and hit his head on the pavement.

I sometimes ride motorcycles without a helmet, and always ride horses without one (that's what Stetson hats are for). In fact it is truly pleasurable, tooling down a backroad or a two-lane highway, feeling the wind on your face, and without the heavy helmet wearying the muscles of your neck. I'm not sympathetic to the joyless nanny-state crowd that wants to tell me that their interest in having to pay for my possible medical care gives them the right to tell me that I shouldn't do dangerous things.

Keep your medical care, if it comes to that. (My sister, who shares more than my genetics, tells me she is taking up BASE jumping as her retirement plan.) I certainly do not wish to suffer head injuries or any other injuries; but I wouldn't want a safe life. It's not the life for me. If that means my life ends up being short, well, so be it; I'll run my hazards.