Spare us from those who know best

I don't remember when it was that I first saw "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," but it certainly wasn't when it was released in 1957.

I was 7 then, pretty much limited to Disney movies.

But when I saw it later -- probably in the '70s on late-night television -- I recognized the story right away, a parable of science and technology outstripping morality.

I always hated it when that happened. Either they were turning a troubled kid into a werewolf or creating a tarantula the size of Rush Limbaugh. Bad stuff.

There has actually been a pretty strong strain of that running through American life. For two or three generations, some of the greatest "liberal" minds in America believed strongly that retarded people should be sterilized.

The classic quote was simple.

"Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

It was Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell HolmesOliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who said it in Buck vs. Bell, an 8-1 decision supporting the sterilzation of the mentally retarded. That's one of the reasons we weren't able to speak with too much moral authority when we learned that Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was trying to create a "master race" by killing Jews, homosexuals and those same imbeciles.

Imbeciles have always had it tough.

If only that were the limit of the uberintellectuals' drive to create the "perfect society."

There are so many people in this country in positions of power -- liberal and conservative alike -- for whom the rest of us have about the same value as dogshit on their shoes.

Whether they're the conservatives who want us to rule the world in a Pax Americana or the liberals who think people should be punished for smoking or being obese, they're out there and they know what's best for you.

Think about some of the worst laws ever passed and how they have been abused.

Let's start with eminent domain laws. The idea of taking over someone's property to put it to better use for the common good is pretty dodgy at its best. I mean, who's to say that the hospital wouldn't have been just as effective two miles to the west.

But when the Supreme Court upheld a Connecticut city's use of eminent domain to get land to build a mall, Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson probably was spinning in his grave.

Then there are the asset confiscation laws that provided the government with tools to fight the War on Drugs. At their best, the idea was to hit drug traffickers by taking away their ill-gotten gains. That's barely acceptable when it's people of good will and good judgment applying the laws.

But if you want to see what could happen, and probably has more than once, read Dean KoontzDean Koontz's novel "Dark Rivers of the Heart."

The asset confiscation laws are particularly horrific in that the only way you can get your property back is to go to court and win. If the government decides to drop the charges and not prosecute you, your property is gone.

There are times when I think we're about two steps from a tightly regimented totalitarian society, and I wouldn't want to bet on which side would get us there, the liberals or the conservatives.

Back to science for a minute. Did you know science is working hard to create human organs inside pigs that can be used for transplants? Did you know that some of the research involves the possibility of creating a human brain inside a pig's head?

Of course it would be male.

I'd like to buy a ticket on the next train to 1825.