You are driving on the freeway; it’s a nice day, few cars out, and the posted speed limit says 55mph. How fast are you going? You get to a part where there are more cars and the flow of traffic is 65mph, 10mph higher than the legal maximum. How do you feel? In the left-hand lane, a car is going 55mph. How does that make you feel?
If you are a representative driver in the US and you answered honestly, you have just admitted to being a criminal. For non-drivers, I will tell you that the posted speed limit is the legal maximum speed you may drive in clear conditions, however it is commonly treated as the minimum acceptable speed limit. The left-hand lane is meant to be for passing, so it is generally the fastest; slower moving vehicles are expected to drive in the right-hand lane. In practice, it may be unsafe to drive at the speed limit in the left-hand lane unless forced to by traffic.
Whereas the laws of the road are meant to keep us safe; most people think very little of breaking those laws (within reason; based on a personal assessment) unless they see a cop car, and in fact it can be unsafe to precisely follow speed laws when nobody else is. (Speeding is dangerous! Don’t do it! It’s just that “speeding” in real life is less precise than the law.)
Laws are not real things that exist, that you can point to for clarity. Laws are collections of words that are constantly being interpreted and reinterpreted with the most recent interpretation meant to hold more sway than a prior interpretation. As if there is an ultimate true law we are chipping away at.
If laws were real, self-enforcing things, we would be safer drivers.
Criminals are also not real types of people who exist, whom you can righteously deny rights. A crime is only a crime if a law enforcement agent or entity believes it to be a crime. When you drive at the flow of traffic a bit above the speed limit while maintaining a safe distance, you are not a criminal; you’re in sparkling violation. A person is only a criminal if they are convicted (perhaps presumed to be convictable) of having committed an act a law enforcement agent or entity believes is a crime; and even then the judge can decide the defendant doesn’t deserve to be treated as such.
There is a lot to be said about the ramifications of an entirely subjective criminal system! Not today!
Today, we are going to embrace criminality! Today is not about abolition; today is about seeing through the laws and knowing we actually don’t care about them at all!
If you don’t break speed laws, you may not be aware of the laws you break. Because they don’t matter until they do; and when they do, nobody will think you were a criminal if you didn’t know better (your mileage may vary by race, immigration status, gender identity, etc)!
Laws are not here to protect us. Just like law enforcement is not here to protect us.
Laws exist so that the people who secretly count more than the rest of us will have recourse. Law enforcement exists to protect the property and interests of those who secretly count more than the rest of us. This has always been the case. When a law is created that does not serve the people who secretly count more than the rest of us, it is generally not a popular law! And though there have been more and more and more of those, there is a sense in which they mostly function to “preserve the union” and those who secretly count more than the rest of us will still, as needed, make sure to nurture resentment in those most susceptible to it.
As humans we have much of the same needs as those who secretly count for more than the rest of us; this is why it seems like laws and law enforcement keep us safe. Murder is illegal! (Unless it’s law enforcement; or a denied insurance claim…) Theft is illegal! (Unless it’s taking land from Indigenous people; stealing art from across the internet; or forcing people to exchange their living hours for non-living wages..)
The entirety of Law however is much, much more than keeping normal people safe. If they even do that.
How does a bill become a law? People. People have meetings and come to agreements. Not people trained in keeping us safe, mind you! Just regular people who have chosen to spend their days in meetings and making fundraising calls. Have you ever been to a meeting? Do you think a meeting of people with different interests, concerns, and values is going to result in something you would be proud of? Please be real with me. (If you have these amazing meetings, though, hmu.)
This is not to say that I want to abolish all laws. But we should view them for what they are. A living record of decisions people made about issues people had, with some people secretly counting more than the rest. Basically all of us at various times do things that go against some decided law. Some of the laws only matter if something bad happens; then you have an at fault party. Some laws should matter much more than they do, but they interfere with the interests of people who secretly count more than the rest of us, so they are evaded possibly by workers who have no idea. Some laws are just formal determinations so certain decisions can remain consistent and “fair.” (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; you are reading a work of art.)
In conclusion, laws are solutions to problems often favoring people in power, we all break them even while making moral/safe decisions, but when we break a law we are only considered criminal if other people say we are. Everything is subjective and designed to protect the interests of people in power (they enjoy “order”).
Exercise
Now we are going to, for fun, introduce a new law. This law is called The Textbook Burning Law. This law says that all textbooks must be burned.
Under what might have been your previous view of your relationship with the law you might have hesitantly started gathering textbooks, ready to comply but probably not going to initiate just yet because how can this be a law?? But if it is, it is, right?
Instead I want you to think, “This is an unjust law that should not be followed; I need to find out whether and how it is being enforced. It is only criminal if someone with power says it is, but the Dictator of the Textbook Burning Law is not coming to my house; currently the police do not have the right to search my home. I should definitely ignore this law, but keep vigilant.”
Under what might have been your previous view of your relationship with the law, if the police came to your door and awkwardly asked if you had any textbooks to burn, you might have gotten nervous and reluctantly handed them the pile you had already made. The books they take from you will make your neighbor more likely to give up their books.
On the other hand, if you are prepared with the understanding that this law is not a law you need to voluntarily follow, when the police knock, if they sound friendly, you might simply not answer. (You have the right not to answer regardless, but, you know.) If you answer and they ask if you have any textbooks for the burning you can say no, you don’t have any textbooks to burn. They say okay have a nice night and move on. The fewer books they collect the less power they have to collect more books; and at this stage, in my hypothetical that is definitely not happening right now in the United States, it is safe to decline to participate because nobody wants this.
Important: Anyone who creates a Textbook Burning Law is not going to stop there. As is explained in On Tyranny, the power comes from voluntary compliance; from obeying in advance. When someone creates a ridiculously oppressive law that is not in any way the norm for that society, it is a test of power. It is telling them what they can get away with. It is thus everyone’s* job to make every oppressive unjust law as difficult to accomplish as possible.
*It is not everyone’s job! If your existence is being criminalized or your health is at risk etc it is not your job to risk death. But I want to say it is everyone’s job in the sense of a collective. It is not something that can be left up to politicians or leaders. Everyone has to figure out their own anti-fascism and for some of us it is survival.
The Textbook Burning Law of course is not mostly about individuals, it is mostly an attack on schools. How should schools respond? Already I can see letters being sent about “understanding the need to comply.” (Great, I’ve just made up an administrator to be mad at.) Schools that rely on funding from The Textbook Burning Law dictator will be in a different position than schools that don’t. I am not an administrator! I cannot tell you specifically how it all might look, however, think about what happens between a Law being signed and your funding being cut. Think about what will be enforced and how. Think about how you can delay. Think about how you can literally comply while missing the fascist spirit of the law. Maybe let your most confused colleague take the lead! Create a new position to comply with the laws, create a whole new system of organization! Be Creative!
Unfortunately, this fun exercise is based on current events I barely want to think about. I have not seen the news in days! I was getting panic attacks!
What Musk and Trump are doing now in DC is not okay and it is not normal and all of your training on how to succeed in capitalism is working against you (Spoiler alert: capitalism and fascism are good friends, roommates even) and telling you to follow the rules. If you have recognized the fascism you might think well these rules are not the important fascist rules, and also they are illegal so they won’t last. That is capitalism talking you down from the tantrum you deserve. Part of the fascism is not just the abuse of power, or the racist laws, or the promise of death; part of it is the psychological warfare waged against anyone attempting to stay even partially informed. Everything that is happening from the Musk/Trump administration right now is designed to kill people.
Every order that comes from them needs to be taken just that seriously.