Thursday 24 December 2015

Santa Cop is coming for you



24th of December, Christmas in the air.

Everyone is happy, busy shopping for last-minute gifts, smiling and wishing a Merry Christmas to each other.

This morning, I go to the post office to send a belated present to a friend. I decide to take the bike, for it's a beautiful sunny day, and everyone is out in the car - so parking would be a massive headache.
Just as I am in front of the post office, a cop on a motor bike pulls me over. I am not wearing a bike helmet, like the 80% of people in Fremantle. It is the 24th of December. I am a decent fella on his bike, perfectly sober, going to send Xmas presents to friends, then back home to his family. The cop asks for my ID and gives me a $50 ticket. People walking by look at him with irony/contempt. A man, pushing a pram, shakes his head and says "Merry Xmas".

Police officer, you are a stronzo, if rather a figlio di puttana. You have just showed how Anglo-Saxons have screwed up the world, inventing pointless rules to justify the extortion of money. Mandatory bike-helmets are meaningless: if they are justified, then I want to see people wear a helmet always, inside cars, when running, walking, etc. The last thing one needs for Xmas is a close encounter with the nanny-state, except nannies do not take children's money when they disobey.

Ever heard of the harm principle? It says that state's interference with people's lives is justifiable only when one's conduct can cause harm to others. We ought to be free from state's interferences as long as we don't hurt others' rights - that's what a liberal state is for. So, drink driving, bad, because you can kill others. Smoking in public, bad, because you can harm others. Heavy drugs, bad, because it kills your capacity to make choices in the future, and you could harm others.


Bike helmet? As long as we ride our bikes carefully, the state has no right to fine us for not wearing a helmet. This country is going crazy. In New South Wales you now get fined $106 fine if you do not carry an ID when you ride a bike. Not wearing a helmet or holding onto a moving car cost $319. So, I suppose I should not complain then, here in liberal Western Australia.

Insane. Merry Xmas everyone.

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