Building Blocks of a Rational Society: Essential Services
Society is an abstract concept, defining that state of interaction we face while moving from our homes to our work and back. Proper civics secure this flow for all men. We have electricity and plumbing for human convenience, and government is for the same purpose. We don’t live for its sake. Our stability comes from our social mediums being held constant—sound roads, sound laws, and a stable money supply, securing unrestricted commerce between those in a policeable province. Our police force protects us from harm and protects the property we have made or acquired. Our armed forces do the same by protecting us from outside threats, be they invasions (planned disasters), or natural disasters. Our city planning and road commissions ensure an efficient flow between work and home, (and of work and home, given our water/sewer and utility services). Our pleasure travel became possible only by establishing what we needed to live: trade routes. Civilization’s priority is ensuring the flow itself, so roads come before houses (not meaning their existence, but their location). Our executive branch of government determines the use of our armed forces (checked by congress) and all foreign relations, hostile or peaceful. Our legislative branch determines our policies towards other nations, as well as outlining proper legal relations between citizens.
Our societal organization provides for every likely mishap, so that we needn’t feel guilty in not stopping beside every broken down car. With a clearly defined hierarchy of life—its interruption being the foremost issue to avoid—outside of a life or death situation, the stranded motorist gets a call to those paid for this purpose: rescue vehicles, tow trucks or whatever is appropriate. What is most important to the citizens is order: that no form of anarchy be allowed to reign. To have a sound police department guarding the observance of rational laws, and by their very presence, quelling criminal action. It is not their position to dispense justice; it is only theirs to stop the use of force. Not to relieve their anxiety, but to use the minimum force necessary to restore the civil flow of society.
For one, what a relief it was to the country to see the 55 mph speed limit abolished. People could move again. High speed limits keep cities small. They allow civilization to spread out by bringing greater distances so much closer, which relieves congestion and improves business everywhere. Limits, if any, are to be determined in the road design by its ultimate sensible gauge: at what speed the populace chooses to travel it, so our officers can stop interrupting the flow and get back to real police work. It is our right and obligation to ensure that laws governing the roads are rational. To limit one’s mobility is to limit one’s effectiveness at self-sustenance, which only breeds dependency.
These are my rules for driving: 1) Don’t get killed. Know your machine in adverse conditions and situations of aggressive recovery. 2) Be predictable. No swapping around mindlessly. Those who do so are typically in a hurry to get nowhere. 3) No contact, no foul. Hey, driving can be hell. No laws can harness the public to insure safety to the most lethargic. From the highest Self-made to the lowest Spirit Murderer, everyone is out there. Nothing is so socially competitive as traffic. Quick adjustments, smooth efficiency, honor, swift logical calm, furtive moral failure, hedonism, senseless aggression, you see it all. Traffic is a deliberate reflection of subconscious morality—people drive like they live.
Traffic and local ordinances aren’t the only set of laws to be reexamined. Every regulation requires money subtracted from our pockets for its enforcement, so we should be as frugal as rationality permits. The concept of fairness recognizes and respects the choices and the results of those choices for every individual. Justice is done by maintaining proper credit or blame to those responsible for specific improvements or losses and holding harmless those not, in any realm. There are no victimless crimes that we should be wasting our time trying to collect fines against. For instance, the law needs to stay out of bedrooms and outside of any such consensual exchange between adults, homo or heterosexual, right or wrong. Legislators cannot peak in to inspect for moral consonance. Trying to legislate in areas that would require a KGB presence on every block and in every home just clogs up the works. We have to trust the citizens until given a specific reason not to, and invest our attention and public money elsewhere.