I fought the law..

.. and the law won

After my last brush with the law (see Drinking and Driving) people have often asked me why I didn't fight it. One went so far as to say that if I wasn't guilty, then I should have fought it, and since I didn't fight it, I must have been guilty. This led me to ask more people what they thought of the episode and get their reactions to it.

My first reaction was to fight the case. After all, I was innocent. A few beers multiple hours ago wouldn't make you blow the legal limit, and finally, they made me blow into the bag three times. It took a call to a judge who happened to be a friend of mine to set me straight. Putha, he said. You can fight it if you want, but you'll show up in court, say you're not guilty. Then it will get postponed, and then you'll show up again, and the judge will ask the policeman to show up next time, and then he might. Or he might not. Then it'll get postponed until he does. And if he doesn't show up a third time you'll win the case. Or he'll show up and he'll make a statement, and then the next time the case is called you'll make a statement, and then you'll be called in another time to hear the verdict. It'll cost you time, and money for the lawyer. Better to go in, say guilty your honour and save yourself the time and trouble.

The cops, of course, know this, and therefore they act with impunity. There are enough cases where my friends have been brought into the legal system with nothing but the word of a cop that they did something wrong. Where the only crime they did was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As one cop said to a friend of mine, There are thirty-two charges on this charge sheet, and I can charge you with any of them, and either way it will cost you.

So lets face it, the legal system in dotelkay is totally and utterly fucked up. And the more people come in contact with it, the more they realise it. As is told in many places, If you want to screw someone up for the next twenty years, get them involved in a land case. And that is very true.

So we bribe cops, so we pull strings, simply because to not do so will mess up our lives to a far greater degree than if we didn't. I've seen big posters that say I will neither give nor take bribes, but we all know that for the huge, steaming pile of bullshit that it is. Dotelkay runs on bribes. The uncorrupt cop is rare, and if he exists will be killed or marginalised in some way by his peers.

So back to the reason that we don't fight the law. After all, if we are to change the laws that we deem are unfair, we have to fight them. There are some cases where the law has been fought, successfully and to the benefit of everyone. But most of the time in dotelkay we have a tendency to just break the laws that are inconvenient to us, and bribe our way out if we get caught. People tend to like it that way. Because it makes it easier to deal with the System. The cops like it too, because they have this massive hold over the people, Do as we say or we'll make an accusation against you that you'll spend the next year fighting. Even I have been told that if I don't do as the cops say they would arrest me for being a terrorist, and no one would hear from me.

But again, why don't we fight? The answer, as I see it, is simple. It's simply more convenient to just go in and say guilty and pay the fine and get out. The information doesn't go on record at the RMV. If it goes on record in the courts, it's in document format which will have to be dug out from a huge pile of documents. There is no computerisation of charges brought against you. The insurance companies don't set your premium on whether you've been caught or not. So, on the whole, it's really simple to plead guilty and not mention it ever again. And since there are people who know that I was brought up on charges, it is like I have joined this exclusive and friendly group: People caught DWI.

Most people, knowing the way the system operates, don't give a damn. They consider it yet another badge of experience.

But what many people fail to consider are the consequences of these actions. By refusing to fight the laws, many unfair laws are allowed to remain on the books. By giving the police so much power with little to no responsibility, we encourage the corruption in the police, and by extension, other sections of the government. This also increases the contempt of the common people for the police. By creating laws that are continuously broken, we create a contempt for the law as a whole.

Maybe eventually we'll start fighting against laws that we deem unfair. But personally, I don't see it happening until the price of not fighting is greater than the price of fighting. And seeing the way that the dotelkay judicial system is arranged, namely to punish you for daring to challenge the system, I won't be holding my breath.