The police in Henley today blocked off the main town car park for a Remembrance Day parade. Because the local council have double-yellow-lined all of the surrounding streets (to force you to use the pay-as-you-go car park), the nearest place to leave your car was about half a mile away.
Needing to drop someone off for the parade, I did the sensible thing any anarchist would do and parked up on a double-yellow line. I was away from my car for approximately 35 seconds, but this still gave a member of the fascist tax-enforcing licensed highwayman agency (a.k.a. British police) enough time to get there before I got back, with a ticket book in hand about to be opened.
A surge of adrenaline coursed through my veins, but I at least retained enough sense to bite my lip:
Fascist: Is this your car?
Anarchist: You have blocked the car park and I needed to drop someone off for the parade.
Fascist: Did you see this was a double yellow line?
Anarchist: (Says nothing. Gets into car and turns key in ignition.)
Fascist: Don't park here again!
Anarchist: (Closes door firmly and drives off, hoping the adrenaline surge will drop off quickly)
Obviously, I could bang on about how these people are too busy harassing taxpayers rather than catching criminals, and other assorted diatribes, but that would be uninteresting.
Once the adrenaline died down and I was back home, I did notice a few vaguely interesting things, however. The first was my intense anger at being approached directly by an agent of the state. I was absolutely livid and did absolutely the right thing by getting as far away as possible, from her, as fast as possible, before I did or said something I would later have regretted; I probably need to take an anger management course! The second was my complete internal derision for this agent and my total lack of confidence in the "fair play" and "judgement" of the British police.
They are now for me nothing but licensed highwaymen and I would rather be completely without them. I would then be able to arm myself heavily and I would be free from having to pay for their cars, salaries, bursaries, and pensions, and could then use the money to pay for some decent security and protection, via private insurance agencies.
The final point of interest was that at no point in our "conversation" was the police woman in any way polite. There was no "Is this your car, sir?", or "Could you please not park here again?" rhetorical questioning. It was straightforward questioning as if I was already a court-convicted criminal and direct provocative orders daring me to answer back.
This lets me into the mindset of the British police, who used to famed for their politeness. It means that they distrust us, those of us who are forced to pay their wages, that they are afraid of us, and that they see us as people who need more jack-booting than in previous times, because we are becoming more pushy and more non-compliant in our attitudes towards them.
I'm not suggesting that we will rise up tomorrow and storm their cosy police stations, but it does suggest that there is a general pervasive attitude that the agents of the state, in whatever form they take, are becoming less trusted than they once were, and less powerful, as they become more strident and provocative in their words and actions to prove who is boss. I should also imagine that when these useless form-fillers and tea-breakers do occasionally knock themselves out by finding the odd villain, they are getting less and less successful in gaining prosecutions from juries, because the juries will be filled by more people like me who see the police as nothing more than dangerous money-stealing parasites, rather than security-generating "public servants".
This will push them into trying to have more jury-free courts, to gain convictions, which will once again lessen their hold over us as the government turns itself more and more of an open dictatorship.
And so, at last, with these higher brain thoughts about the nature of the state and how it touches our lives, my lower brain exhausted the last of its adrenaline and calmed itself down.
The sooner we are rid of these fluorescent-jacketed maggots, the better.
3 comments:
To some extent its seeing them concentrate so much on traffic offences that winds me up - i.e., an easy option for them as as to help them meet their performance targets. This esp. at a time when, as I understand it, new evidence came to light the other week to suggest that crime had shot up in the last ten years and that for the last few years this increase had been understated because of errors on the part of police in compiling rata returns. Does this mean they are illiterate aswell as rude????
In the US, according to LewRockwell.com, new potential police recruits are given IQ tests. If they score too highly, they don't get in.
Perhaps something like this is happening in this country too? I must say, I do socially meet senior policemen occasionally (God forbid), and none of them ever strike me as being secret chess champions.
Fortunately, I think most of them still have their heart in the right places. It's just that the system they work within is rotten, rather than most of the people.
I'm sure the harridan who felt the need to harrass me on Sunday is in her private life a perfectly nice person, even though she felt the need to treat me like a sub-human piece of scum for daring to defy her by parking right in front of her on a double-yellow line (despite her road-block, which meant I was not causing any kind of an obstruction).
But then, I'm sure I could probably say the same about most of the SS soldiers in Auchwitz, who felt the Jews they killed were similar pieces of sub-human scum. It is the system that is the problem. It is the system that we need to deconstruct and rebuild in a better way, i.e. a Molinarian/Rothbardian/Hoppeian way, using the free market to provide security services rather than the state.
But we must also remind ourselves that they are not our servants. We are THEIR servants. We exist to pay their wages and obey their orders. That is our role in life. Theirs is to rule us.
And I find this state of affairs intolerable and will not rest until we can change it.
There is a mental disease that afflicts public servants called Petty Officialdom Syndrome. POS can occur in any administration or department, as long as it has direct contact with the public. I think of it as political MRSA.
POS can be cured by regular cleansing of the spirit. A low POS signifies a high morale, and vice versa. If there is POS at a high level in a heirarchy, it is very difficult to prevent lower levels being infected.
The method of cleansing is unimportant, just so long as it works.
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