Something that seems to be lost on an alarming number of people these days is that government doesn't have to exist.
It exists because we fucking say it exists.
That's it.
Government isn't some magnificent dragon circling overhead, breathing fire down on the peasants whenever they dare question its authority. It's not some all-knowing, all-powerful creature we're obligated to bow before lest we be reduced to a smoking pile of ashes.
Nope.
Government is something we created. We give it authority, we fund it, and through the processes we've established, we can change it, shrink it, expand it, or get rid of parts of it altogether.
I know this because I've actually seen it happen.
I grew up in a small fucking town. Well, technically I didn't grow up in the town, but that's where I went to school, so close enough. Back then, the population was something like 356 people. And when you consider that a good portion of those people were retired, disabled, children, or women who, as was common at the time, worked in the home rather than at a paying job, you begin to appreciate just how small the local tax base really was.
And yet, we had a town cop.
Not a police department with a chief, three deputy chiefs, a public information officer, and somebody whose entire job was to explain why nobody could answer a simple fucking question.
A town cop.
That's what we called him: the town cop.
He was paid out of the town's coffers, funded by taxes collected from the people who lived and did business there. It was a pretty straightforward arrangement. The community wanted a police officer, the community agreed to pay for one, and the community had a police officer.
Until it didn't.
One year, when I was still young, the town couldn't afford him anymore. And because this was a small town, everybody was talking about it. The people responsible for making those decisions looked at the money coming in, looked at what it cost to provide services, and decided the town cop was a luxury they could no longer afford.
So they got rid of the position and relied on county law enforcement instead.
Problem fucking solved.
The town still needed water, sewer, streets, trash collection, and all the other things that make a community function. Something had to give, and the town cop was what gave.
Now, I realize this isn't exactly the storming of the Bastille. Nobody was dragging a king out of his palace or overthrowing an empire. It was a small town making a budget decision.
But that's precisely the fucking point.
Government was serving the community, not the other way around. The community decided what it could afford and what services it wanted to provide, and the government changed accordingly.
Flash forward forty years or so, and it seems like an awful lot of people have forgotten that relationship.
We've somehow developed this attitude that government is a permanent, untouchable institution, and that the people who exercise its authority are entitled to deference simply because they've been handed a badge, a title, or a fucking office.
I don't buy it.
And that brings me to my latest adventure with law enforcement.
You might remember the young tribal police officer who pulled me over on US 285 a few months ago for careless driving.
He was on the frontage road when he observed me riding on the highway. According to him, I was weaving in and out of traffic, and that was inherently dangerous.
I disagreed.
Rather enthusiastically, as I recall.
He'd observed me from another road, then maneuvered his patrol vehicle onto the highway ahead of me, activated his emergency lights, and proceeded to drive slowly along the shoulder. I slowed down because that's what you fucking do when you see a police vehicle with its lights flashing. Eventually, I had to pull alongside him and ask whether he wanted me to pass.
He told me to go ahead.
I did.
Then he pulled in behind me and stopped me.
It was one of the strangest fucking traffic stops I've ever experienced.
Once we were on the side of the road, he explained that changing lanes through traffic was dangerous. I explained that riding a motorcycle requires a different understanding of space, visibility, and the hazards created by surrounding vehicles.
He told me he rode motorcycles himself.
Then he suggested I should ride slower than the traffic around me.
Well, fuck.
I'd been riding through monsoon conditions that afternoon. The pavement was wet in places, and vehicles were throwing water, sand, and road grit into my face. On a motorcycle without a windshield, that shit matters. So does getting trapped in blind spots, boxed in by larger vehicles, or stuck behind somebody whose tires are spraying everything on the road directly into your goggles.
My lane changes were deliberate. I was paying attention to traffic and moving through it to put myself in a position where I could see and be seen.
The officer saw weaving.
I saw a series of decisions made in response to the conditions around me.
And that's the disagreement I wanted a court to examine.
Because the law doesn't prohibit changing lanes. It prohibits careless, inattentive, or imprudent driving under the circumstances. Those circumstances matter, and I wanted to know what, specifically, he believed I'd done that crossed that line.
Instead, we spent part of our roadside conversation debating whether I should even be riding motorcycles.
At one point, he suggested I consider giving them up.
That one really pissed me off.
There's something about riding that people who don't feel it will never understand. Motorcycles aren't merely transportation to a lot of us. They're freedom, therapy, community, and a connection to the world that you simply don't experience through a windshield.
There's a reason people build adaptive motorcycles and trikes for riders who've lost limbs or suffered catastrophic injuries. The riding community understands that losing the ability to ride can mean losing a piece of yourself.
We find ways to keep people riding.
Because once you've heard that call, you don't just turn it off.
And after everything I went through recovering from my own motorcycle accident, being told to give up riding by a young officer on the side of the highway wasn't exactly the advice I was looking for.
So, yes, I challenged him.
And when he handed me the citation, I chose to take it to court.
Not because I particularly enjoy spending my time in courtrooms. Believe me, I've got better fucking things to do. But because I disagreed with his assessment, and I wanted the opportunity to have the facts examined.
The first hearing was postponed.
Fine. Shit happens. Judges get sick. Schedules change. I understand that.
But yesterday was supposed to be my day.
I showed up prepared. I had the statute. I had my questions. I wanted to ask the officer where he'd been when he observed me, how long he'd watched me, how many lane changes he'd actually seen, and what specific action he believed was careless.
I wanted him to explain his conclusions.
And the little fucker didn't show up.
Seriously.
After all that, the officer whose judgment had been sufficient to interrupt my ride, detain me on the side of the highway, and require me to appear in court wasn't there to answer questions about it.
Now, I don't know why he didn't appear. Maybe he had another assignment. Maybe there was a scheduling problem. Maybe somebody forgot to tell him. I have no fucking idea.
But I was there.
I took the time to prepare. I showed up when I was supposed to. I was ready to challenge the allegation against me.
And I wanted the same accountability from the person who made it.
That's what bothers me about the whole thing.
A police officer has extraordinary authority. With the flip of a switch, an officer can compel you to stop what you're doing, pull to the side of the road, identify yourself, and answer for your conduct through the legal process.
That's not a small fucking thing.
That's the government exercising power over an individual.
Sometimes that power is necessary. Sometimes it's exercised appropriately. And sometimes the person on the receiving end has every reason to question whether it was justified.
The badge doesn't settle that question.
Neither does the officer's confidence.
And neither does the fact that some government somewhere has decided that a particular behavior deserves a citation.
The whole point of having a process to challenge government action is that government can be wrong.
Officers can be wrong.
Judges can be wrong.
And citizens are allowed to say so.
I understand that traffic laws exist for a reason. I understand that public roads require rules, and that some conduct creates risks for people who never agreed to assume them. I'm not arguing that everybody should be able to do whatever the fuck they want behind a steering wheel.
I'm arguing that when the government accuses somebody of violating those rules, it ought to be prepared to explain why.
Not merely announce that something looked dangerous.
Explain what happened. Explain what made it dangerous. Explain how the facts support the allegation.
And then let the person accused challenge those facts.
That's not disrespect for the law.
That's respect for the limits of government power.
Which brings me back to that little town and its town cop.
The people there understood something that seems to get lost when government becomes large enough, distant enough, and bureaucratic enough that nobody remembers who it's supposed to serve.
The government wasn't the boss.
The people were.
And when the people decided they no longer wanted to pay for a town cop, the town cop went away.
No dragon. No fire. No divine decree.
Just people making decisions about the institutions they'd created.
I don't expect every officer to agree with me. I don't expect every judge to rule in my favor. And I certainly don't expect to win every argument I have with somebody wearing a badge.
But I do expect the people exercising government authority to understand where that authority comes from.
It doesn't come from the badge.
It doesn't come from the patrol car.
And it sure as fuck doesn't come from being twenty-five years old and convinced you know everything there is to know about riding motorcycles.
It comes from the people.
And the people have every right to question how it's used.
Because government isn't a fucking dragon.
And I'm not a fucking peasant.
