Laws without enforcement are not even worth the hard drive they are stored on.
The final day of the Pacific Airshow was cancelled due to an anchor dragging an oil pipe over 100 feet and then puncturing it. At least that is what the oil company is saying. The problem is this absolves them of responsibility and there is no one to blame. This is the kind of thing that lawmakers and lawyers love. They can debate about who pays for it for years, while they are paid by the taxpayers and lobbyists.
It’s More Than One Anchor
Monday morning after the airshow the beaches were littered with debris. Toilet paper, styrofoam, beer cans and potato chip wrappers as far as the eye could see. It is of course illegal to drop anchor on an oil line or toss trash overboard. Yet it happened. It is illegal to burn car dealerships in Kenosha Wisconsin, But it happened. Those torching the car dealership claimed to be “peaceful protestors”.
In both cases, enforcement was near zero. Some might call it “tolerance”. I call it anarchy and disrespect. Sadly we have books filled with laws that are not enforced. Those laws are there because people didn’t know what to do. Why not toss trash overboard? The ocean is huge. Boaters don’t see that it ruins the beach for people who can’t afford a boat and are sitting on the beach. Some disrespectful boaters might say “Who cares?”. The respectful boaters will make the extra effort to haul out their trash and use the dump stations.
Before Covid there was a “no front plate” crackdown. Now you can see people with expired tags and no plates at all running red lights with a cop car at the same intersection. Why have license plate laws without enforcement? Civility requires respect of others and participation. If we all stop paying our fuel taxes and license tags, there is no money for roads.
Everyone Has Joined In.
A drive down the freeway on any given morning was a lesson in civil disobedience. The slow lane was regularly 10 miles an hour over the limit. The fast lane routinely broke triple digits. Why have a speed limit if the Highway Patrol is just going to sit on the sides and wait for the accident? Why don’t we add 50 cents a gallon in fuel tax (Al Gores’ plan) so fewer people drive and drop the speed limit? It works on the Autobahn doesn’t it.
The reason that doesn’t work in the US is that our driving standards are too lax. Germans on the autobahn “drive right”. There have been more than a couple of early morning runs from Orange County to LA where an über driver was doing just 10 over in the diamond lane with a dozen cars jammed in behind and passing on the right. About as dangerous as it can get.
It isn’t just on the roads
For many years I was an electrical contractor. Eventually I threw in the towel. California is a two class system. Those who have nothing to lose work cheap and illegally without a license. The costs to get licensed, stay insured and do the work made it impossible for a small business to succeed. To hide this fact California even pays for free “business” classes for small contractors who pay all of the fees. During the class you learn that you aren’t charging enough and should just get a job working for the bigger companies.
Instead of enforcing the laws and going after unlicensed contractors, the state was spending money to convince me and those like me to work for someone else. We had something to lose so we should protect it. That class was my first introduction of “rule by fear”. The reality is that if you don’t have anything to lose you don’t care about the laws. Since there isn’t anything for the state to take when you have nothing, they leave you alone. If you have money, even if you are licensed, the permit office will watch for every chance to charge you more.
Bleeding Heart Illiberals
Once upon a time UC Berkely was the center of freedom. Anyone could speak there. After a generation of students that have been so sheltered from life took over that has ended. In the 1950’s University Policies of speach were to protect the government they were funded by. In the 60’s, Vietnam and other failures on the governments part led to those policies being used as rolling papers.
Today quite the opposite is now happening. There is no free speech at Berkley. There is no challenging of their “status quo” allowed. There are no “scary words” allowed. The bleeding hearts of freedom are now asking for a highly defensible castle. They don’t need cops to enforce those rules though. They use the useful idiots on social media. A series of the right tweets and a bike lock thrown at a Trump supporter is “peaceful protest”. The Trump supporter “doesn’t belong” according to the ex professor that used the bike lock as a “weapon of convenience”. If that isn’t assault, what is?
Is Civility in the US Dead?
There was a time when Rosa Parks broke the law. But she did it peacefully and with purpose, because the law was wrong. Martin Luther King joined those ranks some time later. UC Berkley students in the 1960’s protested the lack of free speech. Today their grand children are preventing free speech. What happened?
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” – Benjamin Franklin
At the core of progressive liberalism is “progress”. Somewhere along the line we stopped progressing and let hatred and fear take over again. How else do you justify hitting someone with a bike lock? It is clear we have way too many laws on the books, and not enough enforcement. That aside why can’t we be descent to each other. What happened to respect for people?
Instead of learning about the truth, many if not most are reacting to headlines. 140 character or less fear mongering headlines are not distributing power to the people. They are helping a few who know how to manipulate take advantage of those whose emotions control their lives. Those who gave up liberty of their minds for simple security.
Laws without enforcement don’t do anything in a world ruled by fear and uncertainty. As long as you just read the headlines and don’t understand the truth, we can’t move forward. Liberalism just might be on it’s last breath thanks to the illiberals from within. The Anarchists might just win after all.