Costly to Govern

[Updates below.]

Jay Jardine points out an example of turning the jackasses in government against themselves. In Fight Every Ticket, he proposes "Costly to Govern" as a fitting epitaph for his gravestone, thus providing the title of this post.

The biggest problem with resolutely standing your ground, middle fingers pointed skyward and aimed at The Law and Its Enforcers, are the liabilities the state has assumed you owe it once you break its rules:

1. Permanent criminal records that most employers might check, thereby possibly making you less attractive as a future hire
   
2. Court fines, legal fees (assuming you don't represent yourself), and the uncountable opportunity costs of spending your time resisting the state
   
3. Revocation of any or all the "privileges" the state grants you; for example, in the case of Texas that means prohibitions against driving on anything other than private roads
   
4. Warrants issued against your name allowing the police to arrest you at will
   
5. Incarceration and/or property seizure, if convicted.

At the moment, neither my vehicle registration or vehicle inspection stickers have been updated. Consider the following scenario that happens at least once a week:

I'm driving home from a friend's house after having three Lone Star beers and a few bong hits over a period of two hours. I'm driving home at my usual velocity, which is to say 10 to 15 miles over the speed limit. I'm spotted by a cop and pulled over. Imagine what I face now:

1. A misdemeanor (< $200) for not getting my car re-inspected
   
2. A misdemeanor (< $200) for not getting my car re-registered
   
3. The cost of the speeding ticket which varies depending on the mood of the officer and whether or not I've taken the safety course in a year:
   • Driver Safety Course: $95.00
     
   • Speeding - up to 25 MPH over speed limit: $236.00
     
   • Speeding - up to 10 MPH over speed limit: $146.00
     
   • Failure to respond on or before court date: $191.00
     
     1. Arrest warrant fee charged for the above: $50.00
        
     2. Denial of driver's license renewal DPS fee for the above: $30.00
   
   
4. If the cop smells beer on me and asks me to take a breathalyzer test, I am "subject to an automatic 180-day driver's license suspension" if I refuse to comply
   
5. If the cop decides to bust me for "intoxication" due to detecting marijuana on me, I face the following possible penalties for a first DWI offense:
   • up to a $2,000 fine
     
   • 72 hours to 180 days in jail
     
   • driver's license suspension: 90 days to 1 year

A pretty damn impressive list of shit to deal with, all for doing something I've done hundreds of times without inflicting pain or causing damage. "Tough on crime," indeed!

Would it be worth fighting these charges in the parallel hopes of getting them either dismissed or reduced and imposing extra costs on a government grown used to having its way with us? That's up for each of you to decide. Personally, an episode like the one above would be disastrous for me if I were convicted of everything and handed even the minimum punishments. I don't have the financial leeway to dabble in legal proceedings and no lawyer would want to take up my real argument against the whole affair; I'd have to settle with a lawyer who fights the case on technical grounds or appeals to my status as a good citizen.

*choke*

But the costs imposed on the State of Texas would far outweigh the costs imposed on me. The grinding machine of justice would have to accommodate my presence in the system. State employees would have to allocate resources to prosecute me, judge me, punish me, detain me, and file me. I guarantee their real, absolute costs would far exceed mine. Would it make a difference?

Probably not. I'd be a speck of a percentage in the general budgets of the City of Austin, Travis County, and the State of Texas. The coerced taxpayer foots the bill for these services, so it isn't like they respond to costs like a normal entity would. Nothing would be repealed unless I found a continuous line of astoundingly sympathetic judges and juries willing to overturn long-established laws and practices on principles that would threaten the government's ability to manage our lives.

In the end, I'd be out at least hundreds of dollars I don't have and hundreds of hours better I'd rather spend on...drinking beer, getting stoned, and hanging out with friends. For all that inconvenience, the governments involved would barely burp. Would the satisfaction of knowing I decisively won the battle of absolute costs while utterly losing the battle of relative costs be enough to justify the resistence? Not for me.

It doesn't seem fair because it isn't.

UPDATE 10/28/2004 10:22am
Related thoughts from Billy Beck.

UPDATE 1/28/2005 11:51am
Hypocrisy or Consistency?

UPDATED 6/8/2005 2:51am
An Austin Parking Ticket

Posted by Drizzten at October 21, 2004 12:57 PM