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Dead Constitution
See other Dead Constitution Articles

Title: On “Speeding” (It's All About Theft)
Source: Eric Peters Autos
URL Source: http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/11/02/on-speeding/
Published: Nov 3, 2012
Author: Eric Peters
Post Date: 2012-11-03 17:22:15 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 249
Comments: 12

The government cares about revenue – and control. It posts speed limits accordingly.

At best – that is, assuming benevolent if condescending intent – they are posted based on the least common denominator: The abilities (rather, the lack thereof) of the most inept Clovers possessed of a license to drive. If one old lady can’t handle a curve without reducing her speed by 20 MPH – or execute a safe passing maneuver without needing an entire mile of perfectly straight road to do the deed – then everyone else must be compelled to operate at her level, rather than expect the old lady (and Clovers, generally) to up-rate their skills to an acceptable level.

The corollary of this dumbing-down of expectations is enforcement based not on actual harm done – or even plausibly threatened – bur rather on the fact of a statutory violation (as is true of 90 percent of law in this county today).

Thus people are routinely ticketed for no reason other than their having exceed an arbitrarily set – and often deliberately under-posted – speed limit.

Well, there is a reason: To collect revenue.

If “safety” were truly at issue – if all these technical foul infractions were in fact dangerous – then offenders would be dealt with – quite appropriately – criminally. The system does not ticket people who brandish firearms – and then send them on their way with their weapon, on the brandisher’s promise never to brandish again. Yet the system – as a matter of routine – issues millions of tickets every single day to allegedly dangerous drivers who are in possession of an implement potentially as or more lethal than a firearm – and is happy to let them continue driving, so long as they keep on paying.

It is only failure to pay that results in them deciding you must be prevented from driving. Note that even DWI offenders almost always have their driving “privileges” restored – provided they pay the fines and pay to attend the ASAP classes and pay the insurance mafia what it demands.

So long as you pay, you are a-ok.

It is – and always has been – all about the money.

Well, there is one other thing: control. Deliberately under-posted speed limits (and other ridiculous traffic edicts, such as mandatory “buckle up” laws) provide a ready excuse for the state’s enforcers to pull people over almost at will. This, in turn, gives these enforcers the opportunity to look for other “violations” – which may and often does lead to more revenue – sometimes, even the vehicle itself under the war on some drugs’ asset forfeiture laws.

More profoundly, though, it is a way for the state, via its costumed enforcers, to assert its authority over us. To remind us – As Lenin once put it – who does what to whom.

It is a characteristic of unfree societies that “laws” – and their corollary, enforcers – are ubiquitous. Impossible not to encounter merely by dint of existing and trying to function.

The object is to keep people in a state of perpetual apprehension. And by “people” I mean ordinary everyday citizens – not the always small element in any society that is actually criminal in the common law (natural law) sense of creating victims via their actions. These people – the real criminals, who create real victims – are incidental as far as the state is concerned. There’s no money in them. Or control, either. The sweet spot, for the coercive authoritarian state, is the average person just trying to go about his life.

This is why, in non-free societies, non-crimes are criminalized – and pursued much more aggressively – than real crimes that involve actual victims. Because that’s where the money – and the power is.

But back to “speeding.”

By any reasonable standard, if we are to have set speed limits (and that’s debatable in terms of its desirability) shouldn’t they actually be limits? The maximum velocity under absolutely ideal conditions, assuming a top-notch driver in a top-notch car, etc? But what do we actually have? We have statutory speed limits that are typically set 5-10 MPH below the normal cruise-controlled, sail fawn gabbling flow of traffic. Think about this a bit. On any given road, almost all the cars are driving slightly faster than the statutory speed limit.

What does this tell you about statutory speed limits?

It tells you they’re not limits – in other than a purely contrived, political-legal sense.

If virtually every driver can – and does – trundle along at a pace that is slightly faster than the legally permissible maximum as a matter of routine does it not imply the limit should be considerably higher? If everyone – or nearly everyone – is cruising along languidly at 70, does it not imply that probably it’d be ok to drive faster than that at least sometimes?

The fact that almost everyone – even Clovers – “speed” as a matter of routine speaks volumes about the nature of most statutory speed limits.

Widespread, almost universal flouting of any given law is strongly persuasive that the law itself is preposterous. And malicious. Think Prohibition. Or, closer to home, the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit for highways that was in force for 20 long years. Politicians decreed that what had been legal yesterday (70-75 MPH) and so – one must presume, reasonable and safe – was all of a sudden “illegal speeding.” Did the highways change overnight? Did the cars? Did people suddenly become incapable of driving 70 safely on Tuesday even though they had done so on Monday? Then, just as arbitrarily, the law was changed again. Just as suddenly, it was once again “safe” (we presume) to drive 70 on the very same road – in the very same car – with the very same person behind the wheel – who the day prior to the law’s going into effect would have been ticketed for “dangerous speeding” had he driven the same speed on the same road in the same car.

It was a farce – yet people learned nothing from it.

Because the situation on today’s secondary roads is precisely the same as the situation was on the Interstates during the reign of Drive 55: Near-universal disobedience of speed limits we all know are not limits in any meaningful, real-world sense. Rather, they are political-legal constructs we must pretend to pay lip service to whenever a cop – a revenue collector – is in the area.

And so the game goes on. As it must. Because the government must have revenue.

And absolutely must control us.

Our “safety” requires it.

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#1. To: James Deffenbach (#0)

Civil disobedience would behove the good activist to spray paint , steal, or otherwise destroy the speed limit signs.

_______________________________________________________________________________ The US government has declared civil war on itself. Its lust for war grew so great... Liberty before death. We run , we live, We fight again, till we win. We did not start this fight. We damn sure did not willingly pay our taxes to buy the bullets and drones that shall be used to kill us. We will correct the violations of this rogue nation....our rogue nation. We will fix this because nobody else can. You will work to help me help us all to fix this failure. After you're done educating yourself,Take Action!!!

titorite  posted on  2012-11-03   17:29:27 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: titorite (#1)

Sounds like a winner to me.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.    Lord Acton

The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken

"..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..."  Lawrence M. Vance

Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)

James Deffenbach  posted on  2012-11-03   17:34:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: James Deffenbach (#2)

I 130 is a prime example.

That toll road gets it's limits raised while the roads it is supplementing get their limits lowered.

The coercion is obvious. The insult deserves reaction

_______________________________________________________________________________ The US government has declared civil war on itself. Its lust for war grew so great... Liberty before death. We run , we live, We fight again, till we win. We did not start this fight. We damn sure did not willingly pay our taxes to buy the bullets and drones that shall be used to kill us. We will correct the violations of this rogue nation....our rogue nation. We will fix this because nobody else can. You will work to help me help us all to fix this failure. After you're done educating yourself,Take Action!!!

titorite  posted on  2012-11-03   18:04:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: titorite, 4 (#1)

The best example I know is the toll-road just to the east of Austin (that no one drives) raising the speed limit to 85MPH, in the hope that morons will pay to use it.

Toll roads, whose tolls NEVER go away, are the biggest local scams of all.

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

Lod  posted on  2012-11-03   18:16:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: All (#4)

Sorry, I was out feeding dogs and doing some dinner prep.

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

Lod  posted on  2012-11-03   18:17:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: James Deffenbach (#0)

Yet the system....is happy to let them continue driving, so long as they keep on paying.

Pay toll to the troll.

“With the exception of Whites, the rule among the peoples of the world, whether residing in their homelands or settled in Western democracies, is ethnocentrism and moral particularism: they stick together and good means what is good for their ethnic group."
-Alex Kurtagic

X-15  posted on  2012-11-03   18:28:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Lod (#4)

Did you see this??

Hennessey VR1200 Twin Turbo Coupe runs 220.5 mph on the SH130 toll road near Austin, Texas and becomes the fastest Cadillac CTS-V in the world. Runs were made on a closed course with a professional driver.

Texas tuner John Hennessey's work on big Detroit iron has its acolytes and detractors, but the man knows how to show off his wares. To highlight the top- speed performance of some of his big rigs, Texas authorities let him take a full-speed blast down the state's newest toll road outside Austin that opened today, one that features an 85-mph speed limit. It's just long enough for the 1,200-hp, twin-turbo Cadillac CTS-V coupe to hit 220.5 mph.

Hennessey told Jalopnik that the stunt came about after a conversation with state officials and an offer to test out a toll tag system to see if it could accurately report fines at triple-digit speeds. In addition to his 1,200-hp CTS- V coupe, Hennessey also brought a 707-hp Chevy Camaro ZL1 that managed to hit 203.9 mph along the same strip, with an even better sound. Hennessey says the CTS-V might have done 230 mph had he been granted another mile of tarmac.

And for the record: All of the electronics used by Texas state officials, including their radar guns, worked perfectly during the run. Word to the wise: 85 mph will probably be fast enough.

“With the exception of Whites, the rule among the peoples of the world, whether residing in their homelands or settled in Western democracies, is ethnocentrism and moral particularism: they stick together and good means what is good for their ethnic group."
-Alex Kurtagic

X-15  posted on  2012-11-03   18:39:23 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Lod (#4)

The best example I know is the toll-road just to the east of Austin (that no one drives) raising the speed limit to 85MPH, in the hope that morons will pay to use it.

Thats the one SH 130

I saw this awesome clip from the Austin news, Two cars driving the speed limits leaving for san antonio at the same time. One Takes 35 the other took SH 130. The dude that took 35 got stuck in traffic for a moment and still made it to san antonio first.

_______________________________________________________________________________ The US government has declared civil war on itself. Its lust for war grew so great... Liberty before death. We run , we live, We fight again, till we win. We did not start this fight. We damn sure did not willingly pay our taxes to buy the bullets and drones that shall be used to kill us. We will correct the violations of this rogue nation....our rogue nation. We will fix this because nobody else can. You will work to help me help us all to fix this failure. After you're done educating yourself,Take Action!!!

titorite  posted on  2012-11-03   18:40:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: X-15 (#7)

Just damn.

Thanks for this one.

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

Lod  posted on  2012-11-03   18:45:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: titorite (#3)

I 130 is a prime example.

That toll road gets it's limits raised while the roads it is supplementing get their limits lowered.

The coercion is obvious. The insult deserves reaction

Yes, it does.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.    Lord Acton

The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken

"..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..."  Lawrence M. Vance

Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)

James Deffenbach  posted on  2012-11-03   22:18:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: X-15 (#6)

Thank you. I don't have any sound right now (long story) but thanks anyway.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.    Lord Acton

The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken

"..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..."  Lawrence M. Vance

Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)

James Deffenbach  posted on  2012-11-03   22:19:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: X-15 (#7)

It's just long enough for the 1,200-hp, twin-turbo Cadillac CTS-V coupe to hit 220.5 mph.

DAMN!

Godfrey Smith: Mike, I wouldn't worry. Prosperity is just around the corner.
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)

Esso  posted on  2012-11-03   23:24:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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