I can’t begin to tell you how much I dislike government. Sadly, it seems, this feeling extends to all governments. They all fall into my reject-file although I must confess to knowing and understanding my own governments better and in more detail than say, Myanmar or Senegal. Regardless of my knowledge level, tho, I hate ’em all.

There is a principle involved, I think.

Part of it, of course, is simply a character flaw in me. I have never fully accepted authority figures of any kind, starting with good ol’-but- sometimes-tyranical-about-bedtime-and-eating-vegetables-mom, moving to stupid-beyond-belief-but-dictatorial teachers and then progressing to anyone who thinks s/he might be the boss of me…….even when I signed on for that as an employee.

I am not always rational in my feelings.

But some authorities are way over-the-top. Homeland Security, Canada Customs, Revenue Canada – just to name a few. The RCMP, the passport office, ICBC – just to name a few more. Don’t even get me started on airport security! And, what little tolerance I have ever had for the police has completely disappeared with their employment of the phrase-cum-order: ‘GET ON THE GROUND NOW!!!‘ and their latest instrument in public relations, the Taser.

Call me crazy but I don’t expect our relations with Poland are too good these days. Nor with 11 year-olds. We don’t let kids run with scissors or babies play with matches. We even ‘plug’ up outlets in case some kid squeezes two fingers into a socket (virtually impossible). And we label packages of nuts as ‘Warning! May contain nuts!’. But we give idiots-in-uniform Tasers and guns?

Just so you know, I don’t feel that particular way about any individual cop. I feel sorry for the poor bastards. They are victims of the system, too. They think they are trying to follow the rules and save us from the bad guys. I have no problem with those intentions. It is the governments’ identification of just about everyone as a ‘potential bad guy’ that bothers me. It is the application of government ‘procedure’ over humanity that bothers me. It is the fact that so many of them are seemingly committed to fighting crime and evil by enforcing seat-belt laws and other ‘income streams’ for government that drives me crazy. The police don’t see themselves as they really are – income enforcement.

All this is my way of introducing my own recent criminal faux pas. Seems I caught a prawn or two without a license these past few weeks (mind you, I ate the evidence so I am safe). DFO Is welcome to come and do a forensic analysis of the remains any time.

Mea culpa. My bad. I ate a prawn without a license!

Don’t shoot!

To be fair, I buy a license every year and have done so for maybe twenty five years out of the last 40 on the basis that I ‘might’ go fishin’. ‘Course, I hate fishin’ and so I never go. But there was always the chance that I would and I rationalized it by saying, “I read that all the money goes to hatcheries and replenishing stocks, so it is money well spent.”

Man, I am gullible sometimes.

Just so you know: it all goes to General Revenues and the fish be damned.

But that kind of theft and negligence is not my crime. That is their crime. MY crime is to always buy my license around May 1st. I don’t know why that is the anniversary date, but it is. Maybe because it used to coincide with the first official day of the yachting season and I had visions of grandeur back then. I really can’t remember. But I buy my license around May 1st.

Not last year, tho. For some reason, I bought it in April. It expired two weeks ago.

I also rarely go prawning. In fact, I have gone maybe a dozen times in 7 years. Not this year. This year, I have prawned a dozen times already.

You guessed it. I was doing so with an expired license.

Fortunately, I was not caught. My boat was not confiscated. I was not fined thousands of dollars. And I escaped having a criminal record, being tasered and made bankrupt by the whole process. I even got away with some prawns. Lucky me.

This story, of course, is not actually or factually true. I deny every aspect of it and ascribe the fabrication to artistic license. I made it up. It’s called ‘fiction’. Try and believe that – I may need you for a character reference.

Maybe next blog I’ll make up a recipe for prawns and include a fictional prawn feast. But it’s not true you understand. Just kidding around.

“Why say it is just a fiction, Dave?”

Because the government also monitors all e-mails. They have given up on taking care of the fish and have, instead concentrated on carefully monitoring the sheep.

And that, my poor, voting, innocent wooly-headed reader is us. Baah!