ArcaMax

Why should anyone be subject to punishment merely for driving "x" speed? Is it not of a piece with punishing someone for merely consuming alcohol? The justification usually given is that "speeding" might cause harm.

Well, sure. But that's something that can be said with equal validity about… well, pretty much anything. You might cause harm - to yourself or someone else - by climbing up a ladder to clean the gutters. But this is not a chargeable offense. Yet. What about punishing people when - and only if - they actually do cause harm? It's a crazy idea, I realize.

Imagine: The only people who'd have to worry about cops or facing a judge would be those charged with having tangibly caused harm to an actual victim or actual property owned by someone else. This would have to be proved, too.

There would be an end to this business of people being put through the system who know in their bones they've done no harm to anyone - and who, accordingly, feel no moral guilt - yet who are nonetheless punished for their manufactured offenses against the state. Can the state be a victim? Is the Tooth Fairy real?

Do you feel guilty of wrongdoing when pulled over by a cop for not wearing a seatbelt? Who have you harmed? What justification - other than "it's the law" - is there for punishing you?

How about driving some arbitrary number above an arbitrarily posted number? Does doing this make you feel morally guilty? When you get nabbed by a cop, does your internal monologue run along the lines of, "well, yeah… I did a bad thing… I deserve this." Or do you feel disgust, anger - and resentment?

This has broader - serious - implications. People lose respect for legitimate law and order (that is, for dealing with people who've actually harmed someone else). This confuses things, makes it more difficult to deal with those who actually do cause harm to others. (If you doubt this, take a drive into a "bad" neighborhood; where are all the cops? They are manning radar traps in the "nice" neighborhoods!).

Laws without a moral basis are just arbitrary rules. They have no moral force - and that makes people subjected to them cynical.

A really excellent example is the "Drive 55" that lasted from about 1974 to 1995. Overnight - and for the next 20 years - it became illegal "speeding" to drive 70 on the exact same highway that it was previously perfectly legal (and, one assumes, "safe") to drive exactly the same speed. Millions of people were simply ripped off, had their money stolen from them under color of law.

The contempt this bred is incalculable. It festers to this day. Because while "Drive 55" is no more, the same rigmarole exists on secondary roads. Every day, thousands of people are cynically pulled over and issued what amount to ransom notes - state-sanctioned extortion - for driving at reasonable and prudent velocities that happen to have been codified as illegal. The fact that virtually every one "speeds" - this includes cops - is the clearest, most inarguable proof that the laws are absurd.

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