The Fucking Public

Just saw a post on Instagram about Albuquerque's automated speed enforcement program, bragging about the millions of dollars the city has collected through its cameras. And goddamnit, it lit my fucking fuse.

Go figure.

By now, you all should know how I feel about automated enforcement. I fucking hate it. I think it's un-fucking-American. I think it spits in the face of the principles of individual liberty this country was founded upon. And I think the whole concept turns the relationship between citizens and their government completely fucking upside down.

Government is supposed to serve the people. Not watch them, track them, photograph them, and send them a fucking bill.

And before somebody starts telling me that speeding is dangerous, that people need to slow down, or that the cameras are supposedly making the roads safer, save your breath. I'm not arguing that people should be allowed to drive like fucking idiots. I'm arguing that there is a fundamental difference between a police officer observing an actual violation, exercising judgment, and taking appropriate action, and a machine automatically deciding that somebody owes the government money.

Cameras don't have judgment. They don't have context. They don't know whether somebody is accelerating to get out of a dangerous situation, passing another vehicle, or responding to something happening around them. They see a number, compare it to another number, and spit out a fucking invoice.

That's not policing. That's automated revenue collection.

And apparently, Albuquerque has gotten pretty fucking good at it.

According to the post, the city has collected more than $11 million in fees since 2022. Forty cameras are already operating, three more are planned, and there's even talk in the Legislature about changing the revenue-sharing arrangement so municipalities can keep a bigger piece of the pie.

Eleven. Million. Fucking. Dollars.

And we're supposed to applaud?

I'm surprised there hasn't been more vandalism of these cameras, to be perfectly honest. Albuquerque isn't exactly famous for being a crime-free paradise. You'd think that somewhere in a city with its share of criminal mischief, somebody would have taken an interest in those expensive little roadside money machines.

But apparently not.

So instead, you're just going to have to suffer through another one of my rants about liberty.

Or, more appropriately, the loss of it.

Because I think liberty has been dying on the vine for a long fucking time, and a significant part of that decline has come from government's seemingly limitless appetite for money.

Taxation itself isn't some modern invention, of course. But somewhere along the way, government seems to have developed the idea that if it can find a way to extract another dollar from somebody, it ought to fucking do it.

And extract it, it fucking does.

My God, do we have taxes.

Sales taxes. Property taxes. Income taxes. Business taxes. Payroll taxes. Fuel taxes. Excise taxes. And then there are the licenses, registrations, permits, inspections, and fees that may not technically be called taxes but sure as fuck feel like them when you're the one writing the check.

You want to work? Pay somebody. You want to own something? Pay somebody. You want to operate a business? Pay somebody. You want to drive the vehicle you already paid taxes on when you bought it? Pay somebody again.

At some point, you'd think all that money would be enough to sustain the basic functions we organize local governments to perform.

You know, the boring shit.

Maintain the streets. Fix the potholes. Keep the water running. Maintain the sewers. Pick up the garbage. Keep the streetlights working. Provide police and fire services. Do the things that allow a community to function without falling into complete fucking chaos.

That's not a particularly complicated job description.

And yet, here we are, watching local governments expand into more and more aspects of our daily lives, hanging cameras and sensors over anything they can claim falls within their authority, collecting data, issuing penalties, and congratulating themselves on the amount of money they're bringing in.

And here's where I really start getting pissed off.

They keep calling it public property.

Public roads. Public rights-of-way. Public infrastructure. Public safety.

Well, newsflash, assholes: I am the fucking public.

My neighbor is the public. The woman driving to work at five in the morning is the public. The guy riding his motorcycle home after a long day is the public. The family trying to make ends meet while paying every goddamned tax and fee government can dream up is the public.

You are not the fucking public.

You are the government.

You were hired, elected, or appointed to look after our interests. You were entrusted with authority for the purpose of serving the people who live here. That authority is not a blank fucking check to monitor every movement, monetize every mistake, and treat the people you're supposed to serve as an inexhaustible source of revenue.

And don't give me that bullshit about how the money goes toward traffic safety.

Maybe it does. Maybe some of it actually pays for worthwhile projects. But that doesn't answer the question I'm asking.

What gives government the moral authority to turn ordinary citizens into targets for automated financial penalties and then celebrate the money it collects from them?

Because that's what really bothers me about the whole fucking thing. Not just the cameras. Not just the fines. It's the attitude.

It's the idea that government can continually expand its reach, collect more money, and justify the whole operation by pointing to some supposedly beneficial outcome.

As though a good intention automatically makes an intrusion acceptable.

As though individual liberty is something government gets to weigh against its latest program and discard whenever the numbers look favorable.

That's not how I understand the principles this country was founded upon.

The entire point of a government with limited powers is that there are things government shouldn't fucking do, even when doing them might be convenient, profitable, or popular.

And the more we accept the idea that government can watch us simply because the technology exists, the easier it becomes to justify watching us for something else tomorrow.

Today it's speeding. Tomorrow it's whatever other behavior somebody in an office decides needs a sensor, a camera, an algorithm, and a fucking fee schedule.

Where does it stop?

More importantly, who's going to tell them to stop?

Because I don't see much evidence that government is particularly interested in restraining itself. Quite the opposite. Every new source of revenue becomes something to preserve. Every new program develops its own bureaucracy. Every new enforcement mechanism becomes another tool somebody will eventually find a reason to expand.

And the public? We're expected to shut up, pay the bill, and be grateful that somebody is keeping us safe.

Fuck that.

I'm perfectly capable of understanding that speeding can be dangerous without accepting that the government should build an automated network to extract money from motorists. I can support safe roads without supporting surveillance. And I can believe that people should be held responsible for their actions while still insisting that government exercise judgment, respect due process, and remain accountable to the people it serves.

Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.

But somehow, whenever somebody questions automated enforcement, the conversation gets dragged back to whether speeding is bad.

Of course speeding can be bad, you fucking idiots.

That's not the point.

The point is liberty. The point is restraint. The point is whether government remembers that its authority comes from the people, not the other way around.

And when a city starts celebrating millions of dollars in penalties while planning to install more cameras, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the people paying those penalties to question what the fuck the actual priority has become.

Because from where I'm sitting, the dollar signs seem to be getting an awful lot of attention.

And individual liberty?

Not so fucking much.

Government belongs to us. The roads belong to us. The public spaces belong to us. The authority government exercises exists because we, the people, entrusted it with that authority.

We didn't surrender our fucking lives in the process.

So stop treating the public like a collection of wallets moving through your jurisdiction. Stop pretending that every new intrusion is justified because you can attach the words public safety to it. And stop celebrating how much money you can extract from the very people you're supposed to serve.

Fix the fucking potholes. Keep the water running. Maintain the streets. Do the job we actually need you to do.

And remember who the fuck you work for.

I am the public.

You are not.

And right now, you're doing a pretty fucking terrible job of remembering the difference