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.

Speed limits as such - as enforceable mandates - ought to be thrown in the woods. They are arbitrary, morally indefensible - and one-size-fits-all.

People are individuals and some people are better at certain things than others. This includes driving. Tony Stewart is a better driver than I am. But I am a much better driver than my mother-in-law. Why should Tony Stewart be dumbed-down to my level? And why should I be dumbed-down to my mother-in-law's?

Imposing arbitrary, one-size-fits-all limits on anyone for anything is by definition unfair. At least, when it is artificial. That is, imposed by man. Nature is also arbitrary. Some people are smarter - or better looking - than other people.

But arbitrary man-made "speeding" laws based on a dumbed-down/least-common-denomiantor standard amount to ugly and stupid people punishing the good-looking and smart ones.

The people who support this support anticipatory and pre-emptive punishment. That is, laws that assume something bad will happen if "x" is not punished. And which punish the "offender" as if something bad had actually happened. Isn't this bizarre?

Innocence of having caused harm is (currently) no defense. It's not even necessary for the government to assert that anyone was harmed. All this is necessary, legally speaking, is for the state to prove that "the law" was violated.

Thus, it is "illegal" to possess pot because (so the theory goes) a hypothetical someone might commit some (unspecified) harm after having smoked pot. Or because the person from whom one bought the pot might have also sold pot to little kids. That you - the "offender" - have caused no harm to anyone is immaterial. And so it goes by the side of the road. And in court. And when reading your just-"adjusted" car insurance premium. Cue the keening wail that, absent speed limits, people will drive excessively fast and lose control.

Yet they do exactly that already - speed limits notwithstanding. Just as people still drive soused (and senile, too) The difference between the harm-caused/actual victim approach to laws - and the "it's the law" approach - is that the former only holds those who actually do lose control - for whatever reason - accountable. Everyone else is free to go about their business. What a concept!

Consider: Are you any less injured if the person who wasn't paying attention let a wheel dip onto the shoulder, panicked, then over-corrected, lost control and veered across the double yellow into your car was not "speeding"? And - conversely - how have you been injured by the driver - in full control of his vehicle - who just passed you safely doing 20 MPH above the PSL?

Morally speaking, there is nothing sketchy about recommended maximums, with speed advisories. For example a sign letting you know that there is a curve ahead and maybe it's a good idea to reduce speed. Drivers unfamiliar with that road - and never having driven that curve before - may find this helpful. But why should the local who is familiar with that road - and who drives that curve everyday - be subject to fines and harassment for taking the curve at a higher speed? Assuming, of course, that he does so without causing harm to anyone in the process?

That was once the American Way. Not "do as you please" - the dishonest, demagogic bleat of Clovers. But rather, do as you please... so long as you don't cause harm to others.

The false choice offered by Clovers is total control in exchange for total safety - the "risk free" world. But this is a quixotic quest that can never end, because risk cannot be removed from this life. We all get sick - and die eventually. Entropy happens.

What can be excised, however, is the risk to our liberties, our peace of mind, our enjoyment of life - presented by random and arbitrary interferences and punishments based not on what we've done, but on what "someone" might do.

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www.ericpetersautos.com or EPeters952@aol.com for comments.