The Achilles' Heel of Government
February 23, 2002
One recent visitor writes:
Looks great so far, but I'm concerned that your driving
timeline ends over a year ago. I'm looking forward to
updates on your saga.
Well, here's the update: My Jeep continues to run just great, with
125,000 miles accumulated now. It's got some minor mechanical
glitches I have to tend to, but with that much milage, I think it's
running pretty dang good.
Speaking quite seriously, there are no updates to give. I've had
no license for over 3 years. I continue to use my car almost daily
for a variety of purposes. I haven't bothered the state for a
license, and the state hasn't bothered me. The locals and all the
other highway hogs sharing the road with me have no clue of the
danger my non-licensed status poses to them, and for good
reason: there is none.
As long as things stay that way, I'm happy. I do, afterall, have a
life to live and spending it fixated on the state is not my idea of
fun. For now, that particular battle is over.
Of course it's likely that sometime within the coming years some
unfortunate cop, (hopefully not my nephew who's thinking about
joining the police force) will find himself asking me "license and
registration, please". We'll go through the whole routine and it'll
probably end up much like the stop back in '99. After taking
about 4 man-hours of police time (he will have to call for backup,
right?) I'll get a ticket or two and they won't let me drive away. A
friend of mine will get a call and come out to drive my jeep a few
miles down the road where I can safely take back the wheel and
proceed my way.
I'll write up an account of the stop and put it on my web site
complete with an audio recording, and an analysis of everything
the cop (and I) did right and wrong. The unfortunate officer
would likely, after a time, find out about it and then suffer
through having his peers read about him on the web site of that
"audacious and crazy guy that doesn't have a number".
Next, in traffic court, the judge will have to suffer through
several motions to dismiss, and a complaint related to his defective
oath of office (unless his oath is more proper than the last judge I
visited).
Then, because judges cannot have relationships with either party
appearing in court before him, he'll have to consider a demand to
recuse himself if he happens to be enjoying a so-called
"privilege" in the form of a driver license, since the state that is
granting him the pleasantry will be my opposition.
If we get that far, the officer will then have to answer basic
questions about the constitution he took an oath to uphold and
defend and if he's like most anyone else, he'll fail miserably
necessitating another motion to dismiss (since the court can't
possibly accept testimony from a witness that takes oaths with
reckless abandon, can it?)
Then the officer will have to answer questions about the nature
of the charges at hand, and if it's in Maryland, will have to
explain why the citation says the charge is criminal (since the
judge will probably have already explained it is not).
If the case involved a speeding ticket, the cop will be challenged
to produce an engineering study required by federal law for all
posted speed limits, which he won't have.
This sort of thing will go on and on. In short, if I do well, I
will prove embarrassing enough for the judge to find a excuse to
make me go away, not that one will be hard to find. He'll certainly
not be excited about giving me the opportunity to appeal the
case over to one of his buddies in a judicial court of record
where, unlike traffic court, on-the-record refusals to grant such
interesting motions can be appealled.
No, it will be far simpler just to say "case dismissed" or "not
guilty" and make everything, including me, go away.
Will it go that way? Of course there are no guarantees, except
for one. With every police encounter I endure and every traffic
case I fight I will simply get better and better.
The only thing, though, is that I don't want to get any better. I
don't want to go through this hassle. It's very stressful and there
are dangers associated with upsetting certain police officers. I
have a life to live. I have dreams I want to have come true. I have
friends and family that I value and that I enjoy spending time with.
So, if you want an update, there it is, complete, perhaps, with a
description of events yet to come!
Bear in mind, the legal tactics I describe are hardly sarcastic. The
more of government I see, the more convinced I am that the
Achilles' heel of a bureaucratic government is bureaucracy itself.
The laws government inundates us with are just as burdensome
to the governing as they are to the governed.
From IRS agents conducting audits without a proper delegation
of authority from the Secretary of the Treasury, to state
applications that violate federal privacy act laws, even to the
very definition of "dollar" which the state cannot define without
exposing a violation of constitutional and federal law, the
government has no shortage of deficiencies which can be
exploited.
Until the behemoth collapses under it's own weight, which any
government that doesn't follow it's own laws must eventually do,
a good tool to keep might just be a good old fashioned shovel.
Then whenever some bureaucrat starts complaining about what's
buried in your back yard, all you have to do is go digging in
his!
Neil
This Web Page:
http://www.cjmciver.org/lwan/2002-02-23.shtml
