Are we all criminals?
There are so many laws that it is impossible to NOT be a criminal.
I don’t think I can possibly disagree with that statement. Heck, I was a criminal all the way to work this morning. But, traffic violations aside, I’d say gunner is absolutely correct. I’m not a hardened criminal or anything. Just a regular guy. I listed before a rundown of laws I’ve broken:
When I return home from work, the wife and Junior meet me on the road in the subdivision about 50 yards from my house. The reason is that Junior likes to drive. What this means is that she sits in my lap and holds the steering wheel while I pull into the garage. That’s probably borderline child abuse. I’ve been known to put trash directly into my city-supplied trash receptacle without placing said trash in a bag. A bag for a box just seems wasteful. I have an item made in Cuba in my home. Junior’s weight had fluctuated at around the 20 pound mark for a while (sometimes she weighed 20 pounds, sometimes 19 pounds). We didn’t weigh her on a daily basis so she may have been illegally in a forward facing car seat a few times until her weight was consistently above 20 pounds. She was, however, of the legal age of one year. After all, once the Doc said she’s above 20 pounds, we switched car seats. One of my dogs made a quick lap around the neighborhood when the Mrs. or I somehow neglected to secure the latch on the gate of our fence. We have leash laws. I made a copy of a movie and loaned it to a friend. Seen Porn on Al Gore’s Internets. I sprayed a chemical pesticide inside my garage to take care of a particularly nasty looking critter of the biting variety. Using it in a manner inconsistent with its labeling is a violation of federal law. Participated in a football board. Played poker.
As I said, those are just the ones I can think of. There’s probably more.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
This is actually one of the requirements for a police state. See, if you are a criminal no matter which way you go on a situation (like making it illegal to mow your yard during anything defined as a drought but writing a ticket if your grass is more than 2 inches tall) then it all comes down to prosecutorial discression. That give the state the ability to arrest you whenever they feel like it, and you are free simply at thier whim.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
A reading:
“But, after all, I did break one of your laws.”
“Well, what do you think they’re for?”
Dr. Ferris did not notice the sudden look on Rearden’s face, the look of a man hit by the first vision of that which had sought to see. Dr. Ferris was past the stage of seeing; he was intent upon delivering the last blows to an animal caught in a trap.
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?”, said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against — then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power that any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
(Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”, 1957, p. 436, emphases original)