The Praetorian “Speeder”

Armed government workers are in the unique position of being free to ignore the laws they  enforce on others. Because, of course, they have the legal power to use force – while the rest of us lack any real power to force them to obey the same laws.

The AGW caught in this video “speeding,” for instance. The term for driving faster than whatever arbitrary number happens to be posted on a sign. He has the power to “ticket” – that is, to force someone to interrupt their travels, submit to Roadside Kabuki (show government permission slips; speak politely with someone you’d rather not have had to deal with at all, etc. ) and hand them a piece of paper that amounts to a bill that must be paid – or else.

But he can – and does – “speed” without much if any worry about being subjected to the same, as you can see for yourself.

This particular AGW wasn’t “speeding” much – only 6-10 MPH over the number arbitrarily posted on the sign by the side of the road. And he may not be a dick; in other words  – someone who would “ticket” a motorist for doing the very thing he is doing in the video, which would entail  4 “point” on one’s driving record, a pretext for the insurance mafia to mulct the victim as well as the victimization of the fine that comes with the “ticket.”

Some AGWs are decent in that way.

But the rub is he could be a dick. Is empowered with the authority to dick with people. It is at his pleasure whether he will – or won’t. This is quite something, in terms of the power it gives the AGW over others who are not AGWs. It no doubt tends to make them feel . . . powerful.

Arbiters of what is allowed.

They are a kind of praetorian guard, without the lictor’s bundles but with guns and so far more dangerous.

This AGW’s “speeding” wasn’t harming anyone, of course. But that is just the point. No one should be subject to harm who has not harmed anyone. “Speeding” is nothing more than a trumped-up charge that serves as a kind of defective syllogism – equating the fact of exceeding the speed limit with loss of control, a wreck and harm caused to others. Of course, the syllogism is flawed because there is no loss of control, no wreck and no harm caused – as such, just because the driver was “speeding.”

It is possible, yes. But it is also possible when driving at or below the speed limit. The number is arbitrary, the putative harm asserted rather than actual.

Some will say, but “speeding” increases the chances of loss of control, a wreck and harm caused. Maybe so. But in fact not – in most (almost all) cases of “speeding.” If it were true that “speeding” resulted in loss of control, a wreck and harm even 10 percent of the time, there might at least be some plausibility behind the assertion of possibility.

But in fact it is much less than that, in terms of each instance of “speeding” – since almost everyone “speeds” at least a little bit most every time they are behind the wheel of a car. If “speeding” were the danger asserted, there would be loss of control, crashes and harm caused almost constantly.

Ticketing for “speeding” is far more likely than loss of control, a crash or harm caused. The speed limits are contrivances – one of a massive roster of such statutory pretexts for harming people who’ve not harmed anyone.

Which – ugly as it is to look straight in the face – is what armed government workers spend the majority of their time doing. Perhaps 15 percent of their time is devoted to the pursuit of people who have actually caused harm, as in theft of or damage to property and physical assaults of one kind or another; these encompass practically everything that ought to be against the law, morally speaking.

Instead, there is the 85 percent that is illegal which has no moral aspect to it whatsoever – other than the immorality of harming people on account of such “violations.”

It is perhaps too much to imagine a world in which people did not have to live in fear of the Hut! Hut! Hut! because they knew they were free to go about their business without any worry they’d be accosted by armed government workers absent their having done something that resulted in harm to someone else. A world in which the only people who needed to worry about armed government workers were criminals – defined by their immoral actions.

Defined by those actions having caused harm.

In such a world, of course, there would be no such thing as an armed government worker. There might be cops. More properly – more honorably – keepers of the peace. Whatever they might be called, they would not be a praetorian guard, above the laws they enforce, as exist in our ugly actuality.

 . . .