I am driving along early in the morning for work.
I drive a lot.
You want to make money, you have to go where the money is.
I recently bought a radar detector because I have a tendency to speed when I have to travel long distances.
It works quite well.
Except for one small detail.
A radar detector, won’t detect rats, and there’s a lot of them out there.
I am driving a long and I see a highway patrol officer.
My detector had warned me long before I saw the guy on the horizon. I was driving normally.
I see him turn around behind me and I knew he was going to pull me over. I am going exactly the speed limit (thank you cruise control).
The lights come on, I go to the side of the road, pull out all my papers and he steps up.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” (standard attempt to get a confession)
“Nope.”
“You were going pretty fast?”
“No I wasn’t”
“Well I got a call that someone in a vehicle like yours was driving at a high rate of speed.”
I just look at him. The silence stretches. The man is hoping I will fill in the empty silence with confessions.
“Are you going to write me a ticket?”
“Were you speeding?”
“Are you going to write me a ticket?”
“Were you speeding, it’s a yes or no question?”
“Are you going to write me a ticket?”
I end up with a warning.
I wonder though, if he had given me a ticket, if the person calling it in had thought it through. The County seat was a good hour drive from where I was and I was heading away. The person that ratted me out, could live near there, but might not. If I got a ticket and contested it, the state would have to subpoena the guy that observed me speeding and they would have to come to the hearing and waste part of their day.
The government is dependant upon its citizen’s ratting each other out in order to prosecute people. And people do it all the time. People may not be coming to other people’s assistance, but they will call the authorities for everything. Loud party – call the cops.
Grass to high? Call the cops.
Problem at school? Call the cops.
Dog barking?
Call the cops.
Trash to high?
Call the cops.
People playing poker?
Call the cops.
Someone sleeping in their car?
Call the cops.
In prison, it is generally understood that child molesters are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. But there is one person, everyone hates.
The Rat.
As society decays, people turn more to the police and pass more and more laws to enforce behavior because there is no social contract between individuals anymore. This process will continue until we get to the end point that no one wants to call the cops, because calling the cops ends up a bad idea for everyone.
