I’m sure I’ve said the same thing over the years, but Lawrence Lessig recently said it in the context of the BlackLivesMatter movement.
LARRY LESSIG: What I think the meaning of Black Lives Matter is… people are focusing on the Black part, I think we should focus on the Lives part.
When you have a system of fundamental inequality, what that does is disempower people, and in America to be disempowered as a black person is not just that you aren’t getting roads built, or that ambulances take longer, it is that your life is not respected, so you are actually risking your life to be a black person driving in certain areas, because we have instituionalized this idea that inequality of so deeply in America.
Ferguson is an amazing example of how they have structured their tax system to basically tax through fines. Taxation through citation. Police officers aren’t police officers, they are tax collectors.
You park your car, get a traffic violation, you don’t pay that fine on time, you get a fine on top of that, you don’t pay that on time, you get an arrest warrant, you’re facing $500, and these are not people who have $500.
Regardless of the race issue, police are increasingly robot-like apparatchiks, divorced from the people they are in theory supposed to “serve.” Right across the street from me, some young people I know were having a party, and when one of them inadvertently stepped onto the sidewalk while holding a can of beer, a police car zoomed in and gave the guy a ticket for “drinking in public.” In front of his own house! I understand that there are laws, but it just seemed so unreasonably like a game of “GOTCHA!” (motivated by substantial fines, of course) that I thought that as the older man who lives across the street I might try to attempt to interject some common sense. So, I explained to the senior officer that I lived across the street and that these kids were not being rowdy or making excessive noise. Guess what? He would not answer me, or even look at me! He heard me, and scowled menacingly in my general direction to let me know it — a total robot. So why the fuck is this rude jerk entitled to my tax money? And of course, had the young guy been black, he’d have been far more likely to be wanted for some unpaid parking ticket and hauled off to jail. That’s the way the system works.
I agree with Lessig that lives matter, and I would even go so far as to say that even dog lives matter.
Comments
9 responses to ““Police officers aren’t police officers, they are tax collectors.””
All government income from fines should be remitted entirely to the general fund of the government having sovereignty (states or federal in the US), and the funds then proportionally returned to taxpayers as a refund or credit towards taxes owed.
But then there is far less opportunity for graft.
On a related note, due to changes in Missouri law, St. Anne, MO is losing several officers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/st-louis-county-municipal-court_560ac082e4b0af3706de0328
Because of the taxing structure of cities they have limited revenue sources as do school districts. Also it is easier for citizens to limit their taxing power as do counties and states forcing many smaller cities and some big ones to become photo radar speed traps to gain revenue. This leads to disrespect for authority as in chicago where they cut yellow light time to get more photo radar tickets and in mesa az where they lowered speed limits to get more tickets. Ferguson mo. is result. Changing the taxing structure of cities and school district so they can get enough revenue to operate would solve this problem.
Cap’n: you concentrate on the revenue side of the income statement, but aren’t expanding expenses the actual problem?
Eric: ditto. That is, if the police unions weren’t so politically powerful, and their pensions so outrageously expensive, wouldn’t this be much less of a problem?
What we have is a conspiracy: local politicians and local law enforcement unions conspiring against both taxpayers and fee- (and fine-) paying citizens to increase revenue to support politicians and government employees.
capitalist road kill then don’t complain about your next ticket your keeping taxes down. in kansas they have done such a good job of keeping teachers salerys low so they can’t find certified teachers so they are hiring unemployed people to baby sit class rooms. the republican legislature just passed a law alowing non certified unemployed to “teach” in schools.
@Cap’n:
What’s Kansas doing with their school money? Per-pupil spending is close to the national average, and Kansas spends more per-pupil than three out of its four contiguous neighbor states. Through 2013, anyway.
So, where’s all that money going if not toward teachers’ salaries? Lots of fat cat administrators with bloated salaries? Teachers’ pensions?
police are increasingly robot-like apparatchiks, divorced from the people they are in theory supposed to “serve.”
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1015/stossel102115.php3
The misdeeds of our rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are misdeeds, assist in carrying them out.
Tolstoy
Or, I would add, act as apologists for them. And Tolstoy’s point applies to cops and their apologists. In spades. Nuremberg defense notwithstanding.
That’s why its called revenue enhancement.
Heh. I love the “Dog live matter!” line. 🙂
Yanno… reading this and any number of similar articles and blog posts across the ‘net over the past two years, and the comments beneath them, brings to mind something that a prescient and often scoffed at pundit once said.
It’s time to play name that quote: “All politics in this country right now are naught but dress rehearsal for a full scale civil war.”
Where’s Billy Beck when we need him?
Happy Halloween, Eric. 🙂