Don't have balls

As incredible as it may seem, in Spain you can be fined for eating eggs from your own chickens, for paying a carpenter a thousand euros in cash, or for driving while wearing flip-flops. It's no joke. This is our current legal system. Little by little, we're moving toward a state that seeks to control everything from what we eat to the shoes we wear.

Having eggs is revealing. It's a violation not to properly register domestic birds. There's no record of food poisoning from unregistered chickens, but they're considered an epidemiological threat. It doesn't matter if you just want to make an omelet. Being self-sufficient will be more expensive than buying at Mercadona.

Cash payments of more than €1,000 between individuals (or smaller amounts resulting from split payments!) are also subject to sanctions. Any everyday exchange falls under suspicion if it doesn't pass through the State's fiscal scrutiny. Cash has become a potential form of crime. We're told it's to combat fraud and money laundering.

Flip-flops aren't completely banned while driving, but if an officer concludes they hinder your ability to react, they can fine you eighty euros. There are no statistics linking flip-flops to accidents, nor are there any studies to support this. The law is applied not based on facts, but on impressions. Incidentally, I wonder if Menorcan sandals are subject to a fine. It will depend on the discretion of the officer you're assigned.

Our lives are becoming a minefield. We walk around fearing we might step on eggs. The obsession with traceability—of products, money, movements—reflects a model of government based on mistrust: citizens are no longer subjects of rights, but a potential risk. The boundaries between public and private are blurred. Everything must be recorded, controlled, and monitored.

Security is the safe-conduct of oversight. And this is typical of totalitarianism. Of course, a modern society requires rules. But when we already inspect domestic chicken coops, the shoes we wear, and the cash we have, we feed an administrative machine that no longer distinguishes between what is sensible and what is absurd.

There will be those who think the opposite. That if rules aren't set, people will be in over their heads. These are ways of thinking. I respect that. But I prefer to live among rehabilitated and free citizens than among citizens whose sanity is the fruit of fear, control, and lack of freedom.

Don't have balls.