The End of Discretion 

Laws are everywhere... and you're breaking one right now. Which one? I don't know... and neither do you. That's the problem. What saves us all from being in jail is the discretion of those who catch criminals, and the discretion of 12 people in a jury box. So what happens when those people are removed from the equation? We're starting to see that revolution... and I think as a result, people will begin to push back more than politicians anticipate.

The classic example of the scenario is traffic enforcement. Everyone speeds... I speed, you speed. Hell, even my 66 year old mother speeds (although 5 over hardly qualifies). Yet how many tickets have you ever gotten? Personally I've only received one speeding ticket in my nearly 10 years of driving (and that was five years ago). But now with traffic cameras becoming more common, you could be getting a speeding ticket every day. Where before, cops pulled you over because your speeding was likely hazard compared to the flow of traffic, now you'll get a ticket because the city wants more money. In fact, in Scotland, traffic deaths have increased since they're started using speeding cameras even though the number of tickets has also increased.

And they do want that money. Tickets of this nature have become the new tax. In some cities where stop light cameras were used, the city actually shortened the time of the yellow light in order to catch more people going through on red! When a dispute over the funds generated arose in Greensboro... they just turned them off. Is this about making intersections safer, or making more money? How many times have you driven on a major 4 lane divided highway, and see a 30 MPH speed limit? There are a couple spots in Wisconsin like that... and every time I drive through them, there is a cop hanging around. If traffic laws are that arbitrary... then that tells me that the majority of speed limits are too low and ought to be re-examined.

But it goes beyond traffic violations. Have an old tire in your backyard in New Mexico? You'll go to jail for a couple years. Read the entire article as it's excellent. Got a dirty home? Well that's worth a fine. Adding so many laws only diminishes our respect for them. They don't make people behave more cautiously, they make people ignore the laws. They remove the stigma attached with being a criminal.

Every now and then I actually think what I would do if I were running for a legislative position. The more and more I think about it... the more and more I settle on this platform: "Nick Schweitzer - I'll repeal laws for you." That's how I'd spend my time. I'd go through the books one by one and try to repeal as many stupid laws as possible. I'd also be as condescending towards my colleagues in the legislature as possible when they tried to enact one another nanny law. Job number two would be to make being a legislature a part time job with cut pay. If these are the types of laws they're coming up with, then they have way too much time on their hands, and don't need to be there that often. I probably wouldn't last long... but who knows... maybe I could do some good.