by Claire Wolfe
Picture yourself in the following situations. Then imagine the consequences:
1. You have a dog that’s specially trained to chase and attack anybody
who runs. You’re walking the dog off-leash in an area where children are playing. Predictably, a little boy runs; your dog goes after him and knocks him to the ground. Worse yet — a police officer witnesses the attack.What happens to you and your dog?
2. You have been caught red-handed lying to federal officials about
criminal activity.How long is your prison sentence?
3. You are a prominent and wealthy author doing a book signing in a mall. Your bodyguards overhear a man saying he is going to ask you a thorny question. When the man actually does ask his question — and perhaps touches you in some way — your bodyguards confront him and drag him off.
How much trouble are you in?
4. You make a fortune on insider trading on the stock market, which everyone knows is illegal. Your deeds become national news.
What’s your punishment?
5. You throw an explosive device into a home. It goes off as it’s designed to, permanently disfiguring an innocent woman.
What consequences do you pay?
Here are the answers:
1. No, the police officer does not shoot your attack dog. Nor does he arrest you or cite you for keeping a dangerous animal. Far from it. The police department calls it an “unfortunate accident” and praises the dog effusively. Because in this case the dog and its irresponsible dog walker are members of the department.
2. Nothing happens to you for lying to federal officials, of course. Not if you’re the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, Eric Holder. Never mind that lesser folk routinely get hit with federal charges for doing much less.
3. And if you’re a book-signing author who also happens to be Dick Cheney, and your bodyguards are Secret Service agents, nothing happens to them or you — although the man whose First Amendment rights you violated does eventually takes his case to the Supreme Court.
4. And if you’re a member of Congress who trades stocks using the secret inside information you routinely get as part of your job, the only consequence is that you get even richer than you already were. Because what’s illegal for us peasants is perfectly okay for you.
5. Finally, you can throw all the explosive devices you like if you claim to be fighting the war on drugs even if there are no drugs or criminals in the home you’re invading. The taxpayers eventually get the tab for your irresponsibility.
These are all examples in which members of the government class get a free pass under circumstances where you or I would be in serious trouble. Grotesqueries like these can be found in the news every day.
Three of my examples involve politicians. Nobody feels much sympathy for them (especially for Holder, whose latest lies are designed to cover up some serious anti-gun machinations. Nevertheless, members of the political class are increasingly an elite to whom none of the rules apply.
Two examples involve the police, and I know a lot of people assume that police officers should get a free pass. But when police bear no consequences for harming the innocent, they get sloppier in their investigations, more brutal in their tactics, and more heavy-handed in their dealings with the public. The result is increasing violence against the innocent.
The bottom line is that our “public servants” are becoming increasingly arrogant and terrifying masters. Despite the occasional Supreme Court case or million dollar tax-paid settlement, the worst offenders aren’t paying any personal consequences.
As long as they get away with it, our lives are only going to get worse.
Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number, and a contributor to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and Tough Times Survival Guide, Vol. 2.