Went to the city council meeting
Monday night, I was given a heads-up that the City Council meeting might be of interest to me, since one of the things they were going to discuss is "nuisance properties." Living in a place that the city wants to repair, I figured I should be there, if only to find out what new evil plans are percolating in our council's so-called minds.
As it happened, all they plan to do about "nuisance" properties is to determine which ones they are, and post a list in the paper. I can live with that. However, something else came up.
A lot of the meeting was taken up with discussion about what to do about *gasp horror* tobacco sales to minors. Several stores had been taken in by a police "sting" operation, where the JBGTs* sent in a minor wearing a wire, with instructions to try to buy a pack of cigarettes. The minor was not carrying any false ID, and was instructed to tell the truth if asked about his or her age.
One of the owners of the affected stores asked for leniency; he said that he'd trained his clerks to always ask for ID and proof of age before selling tobacco, and pointed out that he couldn't personally be in the store every minute it was open. I thought his arguments made a great deal of sense, but later on, I thought of some things I wish I'd pointed out.
Firstly, I know of no law, as in no law, that makes it legal to induce another person to commit a crime, which, rightly or wrongly, the purchase of tobacco by minors is. That's entrapment, and the courts rightly frown on entrapment. Neither is it suddenly legal to commit a crime if told to do so by the JBGTs.
So both the policemen who were telling us about this little chicane, and their minor helpers (and how were those "helpers" recruited, I wonder?) were committing a crime. Now, if a peasant serf such as I were to stand up in front of the city council and admit to committing a crime, I rather think I'd be off to the police station wearing the latest in tool-steel bracelets, heading for a rousing session of questioning under bright hot lights. This would be followed up by, at the very least, a nasty fine, if not a period of involuntary confinement as a guest of the city, county, state or Federal government.
So why were the policemen not under arrest? Look, tobacco use by minors may not be the smartest thing for them to do in the world, but it's not exactly in the same league as treason, murder, terrorism, arson or massive fraud. And if the JBGTs have so little to do that they're reduced to this nonsense as a way to fill in their weary hours, maybe we don't need so many of them.
I rather wish I'd thought of this at the meeting, and had the courage to bring it up, but since I have to live here, I'm rather glad I didn't. The cops know who I am, and we get along, but if they decided to take out against me, they could easily drive me out of town with "routine harassment."
*JBGTs stands for JackBooted Government Thugs. It's one of my pet names for law enforcement, along with "the Filth," "the Imperial Stormtroopers," "the plague that God in His Mercy thought was too awful to turn loose on the Egyptians," and other such endearments.