Life in independent Sirius 4 was not unlike the way it was before. This seemed to jar some people, who thought they would be happier if the Earthian tyrants were gone. Certainly there was no more killing, no more men and women in dark uniforms patrolling the streets enforcing curfews, no more edicts from a military man charged with keeping the peace.
More than a few expected to be free from the notion that their earnings might be confiscated and used for purposes of “the general good,” or that someone else might decide on their behalf what constitutes the general good. They expected the control of their lives and property to be in their own hands at last.
But there were still taxes and regulations and laws. The mitigating factor was that now the taxes were going to “us” and not back to Earth to be laundered and some of it redistributed back to Sirius 4. The regulations were protecting “us” and “our” interests, not Earth’s. And the laws were for “our” benefit.
Still, the people started to wonder about it all.
Entry 69
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