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Joe and the Law
 Remember the scene in Jurassic Park
III when the pterodactyl flies off holding the kid in its
talons?  It
calls to mind certain incidents in my own family life.
Our lives have been unkindly
described as chaotic, but, while bridling at that, I would not contest the word
eventful, though I hasten to assure you that none of the events has
actually involved pterodactyls. On those occasions when children have
inexplicably vanished, they have later offered some pretty far-fetched
explanations, but being carried off by flying reptiles isn’t among them.
Cops, sometimes; pterodactyls, never.
I mention this because at least one
reader has expressed mild alarm at my recent
allusion to an arrest warrant for my grandson Joe. I don’t want
to give my public the false impression that Joe is a hardened criminal, so
I’d better issue a clarification.
This warrant resulted in a
policeman rudely awakening me before dawn one morning last November; I
managed to explain to him that he had the wrong Joseph Sobran, and that I
was fairly certain that I had no outstanding obligation to do community
service. The cop finally left my doorstep rather grudgingly, apparently
disappointed that he hadn’t collected a scalp; he didn’t even
apologize for breaking my slumber.
My curiosity piqued, I phoned Joe
to ask him how he’d managed to get on the wrong side of the law at
age 17. It transpired that he and some friends had been out late one summer
night, and a policewoman warned them that they were all in violation of a
curfew their city had imposed. This offended Joe’s Jeffersonian
instincts, and he said so volubly as his companions submitted meekly. So the
spiteful woman punished his impertinence by giving him, and him alone, a
ticket. When she demanded his home address, he gave her mine instead
(where he had in fact lived for some years).
Joe ignored the ticket,
didn’t show up in court to dispute it, and was presumably convicted in
his absence and sentenced to community service. When he didn’t show
up for community service either, the long arm of the law swung into action
and pounded on my door.
![[Breaker quote for Joe and the Law: My grandson's crime]](2005breakers/050602.gif) So
that was Joe’s crime: smarting off at a cop. At one time
I’d have reproached him for showing disrespect, but those days are
behind me. Too many cops prowl around looking for chances to ruin young
men’s lives for trivial infractions. As far as I know, Joe doesn’t
do drugs, but he knows that if he so much as puffs a joint he can go to
prison.
I don’t expect that to
happen to Joe, but it’s outrageous that it happens to anyone. One of
the results of the unconstitutional “war on drugs” is an
artificially high crime rate, especially among young black males who harm
nobody but ... well, you know the story.
“The way to get rid of crime
in high places,” says my old friend Timothy Wheeler, “is to get
rid of high places.” And the way to get rid of most of our criminals is
to get rid of unnecessary laws. It’s astounding how many laws are
passed and how few repealed.
And so many laws are petty,
intrusive, absurd, and downright immoral. Why should we have an uncritical
respect for them? And why should we respect either the politicians who pass
them or the police and courts who are willing to enforce them? Can such
people be reasonably considered benefactors of society? Can we even
presume that their motives are honest, let alone benevolent, when a man like
Bill Clinton can rise to the apex of law enforcement?
“It’s no use telling
our rulers to mind their own business,” C.S. Lewis observed.
“Our whole lives are their business.” You can run afoul of the
law nowadays by standing still. Doing nothing is illegal. It means shirking legal
obligations to pay taxes, show up for duty, and obey an array of
commandments that makes the Talmud look like the Boy Scout Handbook.
Politicians always promise to make
even more new laws, as if this were some sort of achievement. It rarely
occurs to them to pare down the fantastic body of laws already on the
books. In their minds, there is no such thing as enough.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2005 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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