Hassling the Law-Abiding
23rd August 2012
There is a widespread phenomenon in the Western democracies that I refer to as “hassling the law-abiding”. I’m familiar with the American version, but the Canadian, Australian, and Western European versions are surely similar.
The general idea is this: complex modern welfare states mobilize bureaucrats and law-enforcement agents to coerce conformity from ordinary people — normal well-behaved citizens who are (mostly) peaceful and productive members of society.
The prototype — some might say the Platonic ideal — of hassling the law-abiding occurs every day at the airport. When I travel by air I have to stand in line for half an hour, have my baggage X-rayed, remove my shoes and belt, and endure TSA employees staring at my junk on a screen. These procedures are supposed to ensure my “security”, but all they really do is display the absolute power of the State and allow sadistic low-level employees to get their jollies humiliating and inconveniencing thousands of innocent travelers a day.
Your tax dollars at work … sort of.
I could list more examples, but you get the idea. Law-abiding people experience routine hassles because they are, well, law-abiding. The authorities do this stuff to us because they can. Ordinary citizens are generally compliant, and put up with these things because they’re brought up to be lawful, orderly, and respectful towards authority.
Bruce Schneier accurately terms this ‘security theater’ — government employees who don’t really want to do anything, but are fully vested in wanting to appear to be doing something.
Those who might really be dangerous — the guys in the beanies and nightgowns with their women dressed in shapeless black bags — are the ones who get the religious exemptions. Nobody wants to offend their religious sensibilities or, God forbid, profile them, so they can count on having the rules suspended for them whenever they yell loud enough. They’re not all that law-abiding, but they can cause mass trouble when riled. It’s much easier to just hassle Mr. Jones and let the others slide on by.
[insert sound of Maynard G. Krebs reacting to a mention of ‘work’ here]
And, practically speaking, it’s easier that way. So, no matter how much money it costs, no matter how many man-hours it wastes, we have to go through all this pointless folderol.
The only thing that saves us is that we don’t get all the government we pay for.
When those officers on the street in Toronto or Dearborn or Chelmsford confront a potentially explosive situation, they know that they must contain it in the cheapest way possible, or face wrath from above. And, let’s face it, cracking down on Christians and Jews is much cheaper than trying to keep a Muslim mob from murder and mayhem. Just think of the amount of police overtime and fuel use that would be required if the dogs or the crosses or the bacon or the Israeli flags were to get too close to the culturally enriched!
Cracking down on the guy walking his dog and the guy riding his bike is far easier — and cheaper — than actually enforcing the law. Police know that natives are far more likely to be peaceful and compliant than the enrichers. So they twist the arms of the law-abiding, and make sure they comply.
Like passing gun control laws that oppress the law-abiding and don’t even slow down the ones who are minded to commit a crime with a gun. The Path of Least Resistance is king.
If it takes, say, twenty officers to manage those annoying white guys with dogs and flags, how many would it take to contain the rage of all the Rage Boys if the flames of Islamic righteousness were to be ignited? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?
Think of all the overtime! And the negative headlines! And the official investigation! And the questions on the floor of Parliament or Congress!
It’s far, far cheaper to hassle the law-abiding kaffir.
The fact that this actually amounts to the enforcement of sharia in the democratic West doesn’t ever have to enter the minds of those who do the enforcing. At most, they’re hoping to avoid being fired or sued for being “racist” and “discriminatory”.
They’re not thinking, “Gee, I want to do my part to bring Islamic law to my country!”
But they’re doing it anyway.
That’s the real cost. And there are no benefits.