ABC News reports that Michael Knight’s ’82 Pontiac Trans Am – the Knight Industries 2000 (KITT) – was “speeding” (36 MPH in a 25 MPH zone) and its current owner, the Volo Car Museum, was sent a ticket. That is, a demand for money – which is what a “ticket” is. These “tickets” are used to extract hundreds of millions of dollars annually from motorists who’ve caused no harm to anyone. It is am interestingly Talmudic concept when you stop to think about it.

The Talmud being a pedantic litany of laws that must be obeyed because they are laws. It is claimed these laws are God’s laws whereas secular laws such as those prohibiting driving faster than an arbitrarily decreed speed are the government’s laws – but it is a distinction without much difference in that the government demands the same sort of obedience that God does. Whether any harm has been caused is irrelevant and certainly no defense. All that matters – as regards your “guilt” – is whether you were in fact driving faster than the arbitrarily posted speed limit.

And even if you weren’t driving at all, apparently.

KITT – the star of the TV show, Knight Rider – is parked in a museum. Yet KITT’s current owner – the Volo Car Musuem – got a piece of payin’ paper from the city of New York. More precisely, from the operator of the automated speed camera that claims it caught KITT doing 36 in a 25. The proof? The “KITT” vanity license plate attached to someone els’s black Trans-Am. The speed camera – which is tied in with various corporate-government databases – identified the “speeding” Trans Am as the one parked in the Volo Car Museum.

Now there are a number of interesting things about this ticket – aside from the obvious thing that KITT (the actual KITT) is innocent. The first thing being it doesn’t matter. It is up to Volo to prove their displayed KITT wasn’t the “KITT” caught “speeding” by the speed camera. Sentence first! Verdict After! That was the cry of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland and Americans now live in Wonderland; i.e., they live in a country where their innocence is almost an irrelevance – both morally and legally. They are regularly required to prove they are innocent, as opposed to the government having to prove they are guilty.

These automated speed camera tickets are far from an aberration. They are an elaboration – of the principle that it is the burden of the innocent to prove they are not guilty.

Two examples will suffice to make the point.

First, so-called “sobriety” checkpoints – where innocent people who’ve given no reason to suspect they are guilty of anything are stopped by government enforcers and required to prove they are not “drunk” to the satisfaction of a government enforcer. Merely refusing to play along with their own presumptive guilt is sufficient to trigger an arrest – and conviction – for not playing along. Irrespective of any evidence that establishes the refusenik was “drunk” and even if the evidence proves the refusenik wasn’t “drunk.” It is its own, separate “offense” to decline to play along with those who used to have the burden of proof that you had done something illegal. It now being illegal to decline to furnish proof of your innocence (or guilt).

Second, what is styled “civil asset forfeiture.” This is a bland-sounding term for if we want your money, we’ll take you’re money (say it like the rapist redneck in Deliverance). It is considered “suspicious” – by the government – for any of us to be found in possession of “excessive” cash. How much is “excessive”? Whatever the government says is “excessive.” It can be the $20,000 you have in an envelope that you hoped to use to buy a used vehicle with when you got pulled over for a “speeding” ticket  – or it could be $200. In theory, i could be $20. It is entirely up to the government to say how much cash is “excessive” – and once that is decided, your money is presumed guilty of being “illicit” and it is then taken from you – and it is then up to you to prove it is not illicit. To the satisfaction of the government that took it and says it is.

Back to the speed cameras – and the “Notice of Liability/Certificate sent to the actual KITT’s owners. Not the Talmudic language. It is a “certificate” and Volo is “liable” – implying Volo is presumptively guilty. Stand – and deliver! (This is what flintlock-wielding highway robbers said back in the day).

The difference – one of them – being that people back in the day were understood to have the right to fight back. Today, you don’t even have the right to be presumed innocent. The camera says you were “speeding” and you are presumed guilty. You may perhaps be allowed to send in an appeal/explanation in the faint hope that perhaps the anonymous government drone who reads it (this assumes it is read) will be swayed by it to void the ticket. Some municipalities go full Orwell on this dirty business and demand to know who it was – if it wasn’t you.

It was Julia! Do it to Julia! Winston begged.

Consider the evil of this. In order to prove one’s innocence, the government requires the accused to finger someone else as guilty.

There is a way out of this. Several actually. The first is the instinctive one. Smash these machines. But it is the second and more fundamental way that would truly remedy this evil. That would be to do away with legalism – Talmudism – and hold people who cause harm responsible but leave everyone else alone. The practical/everyday way to implement this would be to return to the idea that in the absence of a victim there can be no such thing as a crime.

And that it is a crime to punish people for “offenses” that involve no victim.

. . .

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