The Wrong Arm Of The Law

Sunday, November 18^th 2019 will go down in my personal history book as one of the darkest days of my life. At least, that's how it still feels right now, almost 17 hours after my little encounter with the wrong arm of the law.

_{Image by Alexas_Fotos - source: Pixabay}

Everything went wrong yesterday. It started at work, where all day I had customers that had the most difficult questions about their internet connections, broken networks, bills that don't add up... It was extremely busy for a Sunday at the customer service desk, so extra personnel was called for, but even with the added help of the temps, customers had been waiting for half an hour on the phone before they got through to me; so no one was in a good mood before even starting to explain the problem.

But that's just "one of those days", nothing bad had happened yet. Then I got a call on my way home; my girlfriend was at her parent's house because the old man had fallen and no one could lift him upright. No biggie, as we spend a lot of our time taking care of these great folks, and we will as long as they need it. So I turned the car around and went there. With the old man securely in his sofa, my girlfriend and I had a cup of coffee, said goodbye and went home; she decided to leave her bicycle there and I would take her back there the next day.

When we got home I got a call from a good friend who asked if I didn't want to come over to finish the final endurance races in the PS4 game Gran Turismo ... 5? Since I've been so busy lately, I welcomed the invitation with both arms; it was about time for some well deserved R&R. But when I got there, I wasn't able to even finish one of the races in the "professional" class; it must be lack of sleep or something, as these races are a breeze under normal circumstances, and also the fact that I haven't played a racing game for so long could have something to do with it.

When I looked up at the clock it was already 3:45 AM, so I said goodbye to go home: my girlfriend needs to wake up at 5:00 AM and I always make her a coffee when she wakes up. I was barely 1 kilometer underway when I saw "Stop Police" in my rear-view mirror. Now, I wasn't speeding, nor did I drink alcohol, so I had no problem pulling over; was probably some routine check or something. And it was; the very young police agent was polite and explained that he had pulled me over because he thought I was driving in a rather sporting way. This is true; I do drive in a sporting way, accelerating rather fast, not braking too much or too early before a corner... but all within the speed limits of course.

Since I know nothing else than to be honest, I explained this to the young man, and he was satisfied, as long as I didn't mind cooperating with an alcohol test. Naturally I agreed to cooperate, but, being the overly honest person that I am, I added that I did smoke some weed at my friend's house during the virtual racing. I explained this has a calming effect on me, and nothing else, which is also true. I've been smoking weed since puberty. I live in The Netherlands, where weed has always been allowed, and during this rather friendly conversation I had with the young policeman I didn't realize that nowadays you're not allowed to drive after smoking a spliff...

_{Routine drink-and-drive checks... there's nothing "routine" about people...
source: Wikimedia Commons}

I took a deep breath and blew into the alcohol detector; after a few seconds the light went out and the young man said everything was okay, but that he had to issue me a driving restraint nonetheless... To my complete surprise I was, according to the letter of the law, "driving under influence". And to my even bigger surprise I saw the look of sorrow in the eyes of the young policeman when he told me this; he was clearly not happy to do this, to be obliged to do this to me. He knew very well what would follow.

"So, we're talking friendly here about my drive home and my evening all this time," I said, "and you can see clearly that I can see clearly; I'm not a danger to the public, not a danger to myself or someone's property. You've said so yourself a short while ago in this very lucid conversation we're having now. Am I right?" He bent his head to his shoulder to talk into his walkie-talkie: "I need some assistance here, I don't have a drug tester in my car, could a colleague come over here and bring one?". He held up his hand as to say "Sorry, I can't answer right now."

After he had arranged for the drug test to be brought over he apologized and said "Yes, you're right, you don't seem to be a danger at all. But I can't know that by just looking at you, and the law says that you're not allowed to drive under the influence of THC. I'm not too happy to have to do this, but as a policeman I have to deal with the facts I know. If you hadn't said anything about the joint, you'd be on your way now, but like I said; now that I know I can not let it go by." Right then and there something snapped inside me. I was boiling from that moment on and I'm just starting to calm down now, the next day, writing this therapeutic post :-)

"Do you remember the days before the automated radar-traps we have along the road these days?" I asked the young policeman. His little police van was quite comfortable; we were on route to police headquarters where I had to make a statement, they had to hand over an official 24 hour driving restraint and they had to take a blood sample for further testing, as I naturally tested THC-positive on the drug test. The young man and his two colleagues explained all this in a very polite and calm manner. I also remained calm and correct, but I only know how to be honest, so I asked this question. "Yes, I do" was his answer. "So, when my father got pulled over for driving 3 or 4 kilometers per hour too fast, the policeman would check his license and warn him about the minor offence. 'I noticed you were driving a tad fast there sir, I'll just give you a warning and ask you to mind your speedometer', he would say and send him on his way. The automated radar traps don't have that human ability to look beyond the letter of the law."

"You, my young friend, are now acting like that automated radar trap," I continued. "Laws are there to reach some goal; traffic laws have the overarching goal of insuring both mobility and safety. The laws you're enforcing right now have safety in mind and I repeat that you yourself judged me to be no threat at all. So you're not helping anything here but the state coffers. You're not making the roads safer by removing me from them, which is the aim of the law. But like the machines you choose to adhere to the letter of that law." During my little righteous rant the officer was minding the road and looked straight ahead. He wasn't comfortable at all...

_{Speed-Ticket-o-Matic
Image by Kecko - source: Flickr}

This young man, who shall remain nameless, was clearly torn between a sense of duty and a sense at all during the whole ordeal. But I was gonna make sure that next time he would let the human behind the uniform do the thinking first, before letting the uniform speak. "I can appreciate your sense of duty in a way," I said. "There is something honorable to adhering to a code. You've chosen to adhere to the one they thought you in police-school and honestly act on the information you have. And there's a million occasions where that attitude could serve justice. This is just not such an occasion; and you know that." All this time I was slightly worried in the back of my mind about crossing a line where I would make things worse, and this was near that line.

He glanced at me and replied: "I know no such thing sir." Aww, I pushed him into defensive mode... "You might say that you're not under the influence, and I may judge you not a road-hazard, but there are rules about these things for a reason; there are scientifically tested measures of substances that influence one's mind. And the funny thing about people under the influence of one substance or another is that they always say that they are okay with it. I would advice you to look up some information about that." This was going nowhere fast, I thought.

At headquarters I was put in a room with three officers who took my statement, after which we had to wait for the doctor to take the blood-sample. It was 4:45 AM already, so I said I had to make a phone-call in fifteen minutes to check if my girlfriend is awake, and explain where I am. This was not a problem; all three were, as far as I could judge in my brief encounter with them, good people. But that's just what makes this so frustrating; the whole time there I was discussing with them why I was so angry, and how things like this give them a bad name. Here in the Netherlands we say to cops that arrest people just to score points "why don't you leave me alone and go catch real criminals".

I'm going home without my car, awaiting the results of a test which could mean a huge financial set-back, I can't take my girlfriend to her parent's house to get her bike and I have to explain to her why I'm not home, making her a coffee. "I won't have anything positive to say about you people to any of the persons I'll meet right after all this," I said to them "even if I believe you're all basically good people. This is what feeds the rumor that so much of what you do isn't for our collective benefit at all, but for the protection of an ugly status quo that benefits only those close to power. You are increasingly being seen as the Wrong Arm Of The Law."

In Dutch I said "Jullie worden steeds meer gezien als de Slechte Arm Der Wet," something I came up with at the moment and translates loosely to "You are increasingly being seen as the Wrong Arm Of The Law." Thinking back now, I could also have said "you're the Law Arm Of The Strong"... But they all understood my point of view, while still continuing to explain their side in this mini-drama, which amounted to what I said earlier; that most of the times a rather strict adherence to the law yields desirable results in their minds. But they were uncomfortable doing this to me, all of them. Body language doesn't tell lies. That's satisfying and frustrating all at once.

_{Being dropped off in one of these does make you feel like a criminal...
source: Wikipedia}

This is why rules make people lazy when it comes to uphold morals. People who do things because it's the rules or it's the law, instead of just doing what they know is right... that's just not acceptable at all. We're not promoting moral wisdom at all, but instead give props for moral stupidity, becoming moral zombies. After I called my girlfriend and explained what happened (she was quite upset of course) and after leaving some of my life-juice for the officials to investigate, the young man that arrested me offered to give me a ride home, as I wasn't allowed to drive myself anymore.

"You see," I said, "you're not obliged to give me that ride home, but I will gladly accept. Do you feel what I'm saying here?" His face had brightened up during that whole conversation in which I was mainly speaking, calling them mindless robots serving an evil Uncle Sam. He even said that he admired the way I was able to speak my mind without ever becoming disrespectful or insulting; "it's evident that you work in a place in service of people, sir, I admire the way you are bluntly honest about your opinions in such a correct manner." "Yes, thank you, but do you feel what I'm saying here? It's not in the rules that you have to drive me home. The punishment of the law is meant to teach those that don't follow the law a lesson; you could have adhered to the rules, shown me to the door and let me walk home to make the lesson even more unforgettable."

He stopped walking toward the van in which he was planning to drive me home, and started thinking: "You know, that's not even such a bad idea," he said without joy in his face or voice, "I should let you walk home through this freezing night." He had me there for a second. But he started smiling and continued to walk toward the car "yes, I feel what you're saying." I followed him, still mad and unable to laugh at this admittedly humorous gesture. "So, next time, be a human first and an officer later." We got in the car and enjoyed a silent drive back to my house. I sincerely thanked him for the ride home and sincerely assured him of the lowered popularity of The Law in my book. H smiled, waved good bey and went on his way.

And I wish this was the end of that day of misfortune. But no. I hadn't made a post yet!! So I was glad that another friend of mine sent me this hilarious 12 second video of someone in a very special Trump-costume; I at least had something. Still angry and confused about me being treated as a criminal, and having mixed emotions about the humans involved, I still thought that only a video is beneath my standards for a worthwhile post, so I started typing at least some accompanying text, while at the same time wondering how to upload the WhatsApp attached video to DTube and/or YouTube. I swear I had a real post about it, nothing fancy, but still...

But that also went wrong. If you look at my feed you can see the last post by me has the title "IGNORE THIS 1PLS"; that was the real post. Regrettably I apparently already had uploaded the video to DTube; I reasoned that I would upload it there first and then add it to the actual Steemit post later... Not realizing that uploading to DTube also creates a post with the same title on steemit! After that I even tried to find a way to delete the half-duplicate post, which shows how confused I was... So I just deleted it all and changed the title to ask people to ignore the post; my apologies to all those present in the auto vote trails that slipped by...

_{Our loss of wisdom - Barry Schwartz}

In closing, the above video explains very well what I mean by moral laziness; I reccommend it to everyone who's interested to learn more about why and how we're trading moral wisdom for moral ease of mind. Well, that's that then. Sorry for missing yesterday's post, my dear reader and excuse me for taking today's space for my own selfish therapeutic needs ;-) I can only hope you find it in your heart to forgive me; tomorrow I'll be back to normal, I promise.

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