Nice

you picked one of hardest to write about. you also did a damn fine job. well written little scene.

The "Eternal Prohibition" was left on Earth-That-Was, everyone was permitted weapons, and taxes were both the lowest of any government in history and actually treated as charity, then war was declared and things got worse

In Firefly the Core Worlds are peaceful and prosperous, but the government can do damn near anything they want to their citizens as long as they can justify it — such as cut up little girls' brains or dose entire planets with mind control drugs. The Rim Worlds are anarchic and destitute mostly run by thugs and debt slavers out of Dickens, but you can always look your accuser in the eye and settle it one way or another — or even round up a posse of fellow victims and exact some frontier justice. The argument seems to be that a healthy civilization needs both and any attempt to "rid the world of sin" will do nothing but harm in the long run.

Like a diamond. Flawless and many faceted.

This was poetry.