Orin Kerr posted an article from the Washington Post on the DC police going after jaywalkers and questioning whether DC is becoming too much of a nanny-state.
Some of the commenters debated the seriousness of jaywalking. I, on the other hand, commented why last year I jaywalked on purpose:
"When I was in DC last summer I started jaywalking BECAUSE DC had become a nanny-state. In fact, I wouldn't even call it that. I'd call it a police-state. For people who haven't visited in a while, they might not recognize it anymore, with its landscape of concrete barriers strewn about everywhere. Remember when you could go in and out of the Smithsonian museum whenever you wanted? You can't do THAT anymore. No, now you must queue endlessly to pass through the metal detectors and get your bags searched. The energy of the city had long since been disrupted by these public demonstrations of civic fear, and it was heartbreaking. To say nothing of personal liberty-destroying.So yeah, I jaywalked, on purpose, as a form of civil disobedience in protest of what the city had become. It was the least I thought I could do."
Comments (3)
As today's events in London show, there is a reason why Washington is like it is. For example, without having Pennsylvania Avenue closed, the White House would be well within the range of a truck bomb. Don't care for all the security myself, either, although it is nice to skate now in front of the White House, but the bottom line is that I am not prepared to demand convenience at the cost of spilt blood.
Posted by Anonymous | July 7, 2005 10:23 AM
Posted on July 7, 2005 10:23
London has a huge amount of surveillance mechanisms and other accomodations put in place to avoid terrorism, and yet this happened anyway. So I still don't see the argument in favor of these liberty-infringing impositions (it's more than just inconvenience, although I think inconvenience is a worthy concern on its own) because *all* that results from them is that liberty is infringed, yet safety is still not yet achieved.
(I would also argue that we waste too many resources on topical bandaids of limited effect rather than substantive investments that might truly make the world safer, but that's a post for another day.)
Posted by Cathy | July 7, 2005 10:37 AM
Posted on July 7, 2005 10:37
BTW, I don't necessarily have any objection to a nicely-landscaped pedestrian plaza in front of, say, the White House. Cars have no inalienable right to petition government, but people do. So keeping cars away seems fine with me, but keeping the people away from their civic institutions does not.
Posted by Cathy | July 8, 2005 1:12 PM
Posted on July 8, 2005 13:12