Road Pirates and Arbitrary Law

There is something about cop car headlights in the rearview mirror that fails to exude comfort and security. I'm pretty sure the most fervent bootlickers wonder in the back of their tiny minds whether they are the intended prey, too. Thise of us with a healthier skepticism of police propaganda know damn well that quotas and corruption are an epidemic in the law enforcement monopoly industry.

I was on my way home after spending the evening with some friends. It was about 10:30 PM or so local time. I got a funny feeling about the car behind me as I took the highway out of town.

I think the first clue was seeing sedan headlights. Around here, besides pickups and SUVs, the usual passenger cars are compacts. A full-size sedan from a domestic make is rare.

The second clue was speed. I was driving at the speed limit of 45 mph, and these headlights were approaching quickly. Someone was clearly speeding. That means either a cop car or a redneck in his lifted pickup at that hour. And the headlights ruled out a pickup. And he took a position uncomfortably close behind me. Following distance rules don't matter to the road pirates.

This puts a driver in a quandary. If the cop is corrupt, what will he use to justify a stop? I wasn't inclined to accelerate to a full 55 mph when the limit increased, because it was dark with intermittent fog. A cop looking to fill a quota would decree that 55 was unsafe for conditions. However, remaining at 45 could be used to justify a stop for driver inattention. I chose to accelerate to 50 and set the cruise control so I could focus entirely on perfect lane position. Don't want to be accused of weaving, after all. I thought about pulling over to the shoulder to allow the apparently impatient car to pass, but that could be construed as failure to maintain my lane. I was given ticket a number of years ago a few miles further along this same stretch of highway for that very justification. The man in the black dress with the silly hammer just took the cop's word and approved the extortion in court.

Fortunately, this coproach apparently decided I wasn't worth the trouble. Was he running my plates through a laptop whilst tailgating me in the dark on a foggy highway? Probably. Good thing I wasn't on my cell phone, though, because that would be distracted driving.

He eventually passed me, and then I knew for certain that my suspicions were justified.

It's also probably a good thing I didn't ignore the stupid stoplight earlier on while still in town. There was no traffic, and it chafed to wait for the timer on the stoplight, but had the road pirate been lurking at that point on my drive, I would have committed a crime by disregarding the signal despite the absolute absence of any necessity to wait whatsoever.

And that is the tyranny of legality. The dictates of bureaucrats must trump common sense when the rules are unnecessary, and will be used to justify harassment whenever someone needs to flex some counterfeit authority. Something is rotten, but the majority seems addicted to the taste of Kiwi.

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And just think, there are people whose only crime is being born a minority, but that is used by many cops to justify far more abuse. It ain't privilege to blend with the white populace, but it is discriminatory abuse when cops statistically do impose themselves on minorities. That should be addressed, too, and that in turn should minimize my risk as a bonus.