Note: As a reminder, a tl;dr is at the bottom of the post, to save you the bother of actually having to read the post, if in fact one actually reads these posts anyway. Also, tl;dr is short for "Your post is too long and boring, and I don't want to have to read it all, but I want to make sure you I get the main points in case you happen to ask me questions about reading your blog in the future". Sweet Jesus, I have the word 'blog'. Who named these things 'blogs', anyway? It sounds like something you throw up. Now that I think of it, the word seems to be fitting for most blogs now. Including mine. Enjoy.
I have a small rant on our Justice system coming, but it was too long to include my insight on a well known social service called the Police Department.
I was recently the proud recipient of two tickets. I was guilty in both offenses: The first was running a red light, in which one of those fancy intersection cameras took a photo of my license plate and mailed an automated letter from the city telling me to pay them money. The second was just last night, in which I was pulled over for driving 45 mph in a 35 mph zone. I thought it was a 45 mph zone like every other non residential street in the city. Silly me.
I understand that when someone breaks the law, they should be punished. What I don’t understand, is why this punishment comes with a monetary fine. First of all – nobody learns their lesson from a traffic violation. If you get caught speeding, you aren’t going to automatically obey the speed limit the rest of your life. When I ran that red light, I didn’t know I was doing it – there were no other cars around, and I was looking for the freaking on ramp to the freeway. What I learned is that I need to look out for cops and cameras more often than pay attention to my surroundings. I usually always go the speed limit. If I do speed, it’s no more than 5 miles over the limit. I constantly see people driving 20 miles or more over the speed limit, driving dangerously close behind other vehicles, cutting everybody off while brushing their teeth, shaving, reading a book and stuffing an egg mcmuffin down their throat. I never see these people pulled over. When I got pulled over for speeding last night, I thought to myself, “Self, you should remember that it’s 35 mph on this street and not 45. Also, a cop might be on this street at 10PM on Monday nights”. I immediately learned my lesson, that it was a 35 mph zone, and it didn’t take $112 for me to realize that.
Here’s the depressing realization about traffic violations. It’s no surprise that police departments have quotas for issuing citations. That they try to meet a certain amount of citations issued each month, or each quarter. The fact that we are punished for breaking a traffic law by having to pay the city money is quite depressing. What are they doing with that money? I doubt it’s going to charities. The depressing fact is the City needs people to break the law in order to receive full funding for their police department, or any other department for that matter. We don’t know if the city takes that money and helps to fund the fire department or expenses for senators and representatives. If everyone were to obey every law for a year, our social services structure might crumble to the ground with the force of a thousand whales. I have never needed the police or fire departments to actually protect me, but they are pretty good at serving me citations. They aren’t good enough at taking our taxes and funding our infrastructure, and they haven’t been good at that for, well, probably ever. They need a society of deviants to make up for their deficits, and that’s just crazy talk.
I consider these citations as an additional tax – not a detriment to breaking the law. I don’t learn anything from having to pay the city for a small crime against society. I’ll continue to do it because it’s my way of paying those extra taxes so we can pay police officers overtime to sit at construction sites and watch movies.
tl;dr
Police departments exist as a social service within a city government. However, they make money from citizens by issuing money. The fact is they need this extra income to bridge the gap in funding. If we didn’t break the law, our police force would be disastrously under-funded, and larger more dangerous crimes would occur more often. So get out there and roll through a stop sign, drive 10 miles over the limit, and pee in public… do your community a service.
*Please don’t actually (get cought) peeing in public, as I hear this often results in being branded a sex offender.
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