Created Equal?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

-The Declaration of Independence

 

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

-Abraham Lincoln

 

I have been increasingly troubled lately by what I observe to be a blatant unfairness in the law, and in the application of justice.  Partly, it is due to current events.  There are daily cries of injustice and corruption and unfair inequality from many quarters. 

 

The situation in North St. Louis continues in the news, with protesters trying to block the highways to gain attention for their demands.  They want elected officials removed from office and replaced.  Claims of racism are everywhere, and State Senator Nadal has called the Governor a coward on the floor of the Missouri capital for not addressing the unfairness.

 

There are calls for what amounts to a suspension of due process in the case of Officer Wilson.  Many people would seemingly be just fine with seeing him lynched rather than go through the wheels of justice, which turn too slowly and do not guarantee the verdict the mob wants.

 

I will set aside the specifics of that situation for a moment and instead I would like to talk to you about equality under the law.  

I travel a lot as part of my occupation and this involves a lot of hours of so-called “windshield time”, driving for hours from one customer to another.  We have safety talks every Monday morning and we often talk about driving safely and not speeding or texting and checking your mirrors and scanning the horizon.  In addition there are required periodic safety courses about driving that we have to complete.

 

I am very aware of the need to drive safely and I have driven over a million miles without causing an accident.  When driving on the interstate I set my cruise control to an appropriate speed and watch the road while listening to music or news or talk on the radio. 

 

Unfortunately I cannot always stick to highways and sometimes I find myself driving small roads through little towns or in the city on congested and often confusing streets where the speed limits change constantly and there are never ending stop signs and stop lights and merging lanes and one has to really stay on your toes to keep from violated any rules. 

And lots of cities count on that.  From rural towns who drop the speed limits like a rock as you enter their town to city cops who want to pull you over for any small infraction, municipalities often rely on fines from drivers like me to fund their city coffers.  Who among us is not aware that we have to be especially diligent near the end of the month as police departments rush to meet their quota?

 

“Just follow the law”, we are told.  Yes, we need traffic laws to keep us safe.  But sometimes those rules are focused more on revenue than safety.  And not everyone has to worry about obeying those laws supposedly designed to keep us safe.  Some folks are exempt.

Recently a number of places have enacted laws against texting while driving.  In our  Monday safety talks we have reviewed the dangers of texting and driving many times and we all understand the dangers of distracted driving.  Taking your eyes off the road to look at a cell phone or laptop or whatever means you are not paying attention to your primary responsibility, which is driving. 

In many places where they have enacted these laws they have exempted law enforcement.  Just recently an officer killed the founder of Napster who was on a bike riding properly in a marked bicycle lane.  The officer veered out of his lane and ran over the cyclist because he was using his laptop at the time.  No charges, because he was performing official duties. 

''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers''

-Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI,'' Part II, act IV, Scene II, Line 73. (Shakespeare)

 

In Missouri you can take a ticket to an attorney and they will then go “have a talk” with the prosecutor and have your charge reduced to a non-moving violation, such as a broken tail light.  You did not have a broken light, you were speeding.  But everyone from the prosecutor and defense attorney to the judge and defendant agree to participate in a great big lie.  

 

They sign documents that say you had a broken light because everyone wins.  No points go on your license.  You pay your attorney, and you pay the city, often more than the ticket for speeding would have cost.  For those with enough money to pay everyone off you can continue getting speeding tickets until the cows come home and never show any points on your driving record.

 

Police officers, of course, have what is known as “professional courtesy”.  They do not write tickets to fellow police officers as a courtesy to their “brothers in blue”.  Likewise attorneys themselves only need to make a phone call to get their tickets “taken care of”, usually without even needing to pay a pesky fine.  Since most judges are attorneys you will never see a judge getting their license taken away for too many speeding tickets.

 

And what happens if you are not an attorney or police officer or wealthy enough to pay money to get things “fixed”?  You have to go to court and pay the fine and get the points on your license.  If you get 2 or 3 tickets you may find your license suspended or revoked.  Then, if you have a job, you will face either having friends or family drive you to and from work or you will drive on a suspended license.  Once you get caught driving without a proper license you will find yourself in jail.  

Depending on your job and the circumstances, you may lose your job for not showing up to work.  They do not let you sit there in jail with your cell phone and make calls.  You may get one or two and then it is taken away and you have no contact with anyone.  If you need to contact someone about taking care of your children or call your boss or a family member you are out of luck.  You are a criminal. 

 

Those of you who saw the video recently of a district attorney caught driving while intoxicated (VERY intoxicated), it is enlightening.  She was processed like anyone else, and she was outraged.  She wanted to make sure they knew who she was.  She wanted to know why she was being treated this way and she became angry and abusive and had to be restrained.  Mind you, this was a white woman, a district attorney, in Texas.  She was appalled at the way she was treated; even though it is clear she was quite drunk and should never have been driving. 

 

Let me ask you to imagine for just one moment that we could somehow take away all of these special privileges.  What if, suddenly, everyone was treated exactly the same?  What if there were no professional courtesy for anyone and nobody could pay to have charges reduced? 

 

Imagine attorneys and judges and cops and wealthy folks and politicians getting points on their licenses and then losing their licenses and eventually getting put in jail with no phone calls just like “regular folks”.  I know how unlikely it is but please bear with me; imagine all of these people who were formerly insulated from the process that they work with every day suddenly being subject to the same rules as the poor guy who cannot afford an attorney to get it “fixed”.

 

The laws would change in a heartbeat.  The rules would change.  We would no longer tolerate the speed traps and end of the month quotas and there would be outrage and calls for action from those wealthy folks who never understood the anger coming from the poor folks in the inner city before.

 

If texting while driving is unsafe, then it is unsafe for everyone.  If you were speeding then you did not have a broken tail light.  It makes no difference how much you make or what office you hold or what badge or uniform you wear or what your title is or who your father was.  Justice is supposed to be blind.  All men are created equal.  These are not just words; these are the central ideas that went into the founding of our nation. 

 

We need to change the way we do things.  Laws and rules need to be changed.  We need to demand an end to the double standards and make everyone subject to the same rules regardless of your station in life.  Congress needs to be subject to every law they pass, as does the President and the Supreme Court. 

 

If we truly think that if you get caught in three end-of-the-month speed traps you should lose your license then that should apply to everyone, including the law enforcers and the politicians and attorneys and judges.  I think such a change would result in more focus on truly unsafe activities and less on revenue generating gimmicks.

 

Municipalities should not rely on fines for operating revenue for their city operations.  We should look at a system where fines are diverted into a county or state fund and then redistributed based on population.  Courts should be open to the public and press so that everyone can be aware of what happens.  Police officers should wear body cameras and carry tasers and mace to avoid having to use lethal force.

 

We absolutely need reform to eliminate injustice and corruption and to ensure that everyone is subject to the same rules.  The words of Lincoln and Jefferson and others are not just letters on a page.  They are the central tenets of our republic.  We who hold these values must speak up and defend them.  Now would be a good time.