As I was returning home from an errand this morning, I met on the road a man driving a utility tractor with a front end loader attachment. We are surrounded by farmland, so this is hardly unusual. I’ll see three quarters of the 2009 John Deere catalog between now and Thanksgiving.
What was unusual, however, was this man’s load. In the raised bucket, he carried a boy of 6 or 7, lying on his left side with his head propped on his elbow. This is on a public road where the speed limit is 45, and the typical traffic flow speed is 50 or so.
Now if the bucket rider is 18, the libertarian in me says leave Mr. Darwin to his work. The statutory line of adulthood has to be somewhere, and 18 seems a reasonable place to draw it. But a first-grade kid? Yeesh. Think he fully contemplates what will happen to him if Papaw hits DUMP when he meant to hit RAISE? Think that boy needs legal protection from dumbass grandparents? I do.
Unfortunately, it’s about even odds anymore that whatever law would snare the man I saw this morning for his foolishness would probably get me too, for giving my son a ride around the yard in my lap on a lawn tractor with the deck disengaged.
We’ve developed an intense, unhealthy, and widespread fetish for new law in this country. We pass them all the time, because “something must be done.” Consequently it occurs to far too few anymore that we should do so cautiously. There should be substantial novelty to a new law, but there isn’t. It’s just what we do. And all too often, there’s a “hang ’em all, get the guilty” mentality.
- We pass “zero tolerance” drug laws because we don’t want dangerous illicit drugs in schools. Then, we expel a third-grader with an aspirin.
- We pass child pornography laws with severe penalties. Then, we apply them to never-been-in-trouble, generally well-adjusted kids who send naked self-portraits to other never-been-in-trouble, generally well-adjusted kids.
- We pass child endangerment laws because kids lack the judgment to properly evaluate potential danger. Then, we don’t distinguish between my front-end loader guy and a child being permitted to ride in a pickup bed on a low-speed farm road.
For the most part, I don’t think legislators, particularly at the state and local level, set out to write bad law. Rather, the bad law results from disregard of what government is really supposed to do (and the bad results come from small minds with axes to grind). Whether that disregard is malicious or ignorant, the result on the ground is the same. Our state constitution is much-maligned for several good reasons, but it did get one thing quite right:
“That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.” – Constitution of the State of Alabama, 1901, Art. I, Sec. 35
“There oughta be a law!” Are you sure?
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that may the only part of alabama’s constitution that i agree with!
BigDave: It is, indeed, an absurd document in many ways.