How I became a Libertarian (and maybe you could too)

If a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested, and a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged - then a libertarian might well be a conservative who has been harassed by the police for walking his damn dog.
 

So I'm not Rosa Parkes but hear me out. I was walking my dog on an almost deserted beach mid afternoon and wondering where the hell everyone was when a NSW Police taxpayer funded four wheel drive vehicle drove along the beach and stopped nearby me. My dog had never seen a vehicle of any sort on the beach and ran to greet it in her friendly doggy way. Down goes the window and a uniformed police officer beckoned me over.

There is a serial rapist about and cruelly preying on lone middle-aged men in board shorts, he said - not. Nor did he warn of sharks nor rips nor burqua clad beach babes. The threat to society, he explained, was my good self and my canine accomplice.

“Your dog is too far away from you (he did actually say this that's why it's in quotes) The law states that the dog must be under your direct control which it is not.” His well trained eyes took in my facial expression and classified it as nonplussed so he explained “It might run off into the sand dunes, or get in a fight with another dog. Or something.”

Now I am old and I am wise and I have learned to hold my temper by keeping my mouth firmly shut so I nodded in thanks to the officer for his input and let him go about the business of harassing the one other dog walker on the beach about half a kilometre away.

Well.

At first I assumed that some rich city dickhead had paid a couple of mill for a beach house and found that it fronted a off leash dog beach and started a campaign of complaint to make the dogs go crap somewhere else. Or the Greens dominated Council of Cat Owners had once again escalated the War on Dogs and let slip some dogs of their own.

But no – it turns out that in Byron Bay some brain dead sociopath had encouraged a young woman to pat the dog in the back of his ute.

She did - and the dog bit off her nose .

It turned out that the dog was vicious (duh) and officially a dangerous dog supposed to be muzzled and on a leash in public. Obviously it was neither.

So of course the logical thing to do is to dispatch the Police force to a beach 30 kilometres away and harass anyone throwing a stick into the surf for their dog to retrieve. And not only dispatch the crack troops of the Future Crime Department but those from the elite Future Imaginary Crime Squad who can dream up offences such as Dog Found in Sand Dunes with Intent.

It's called overpolicing. And it's a thing.

Now you may think this trivial. No one was hurt, charged or seriously messed up in any way. But had I told this cop what I thought of him, his job and his Body Mass Index I could well have been arrested right there on the beach. My dog would have objected to this and could well have been shot. 

If you think I'm being dramatic - remember what happened to young Corey Barker at the Ballina cop shop when half a dozen police kicked the crap out of him for mouthing off while in their custody for a charge that was later dropped. Or the Brazilian student who was stomped strangled tear gassed and electrocuted to death having run from Sydney police after unlawfully consuming a packet of biscuits. Or Cameron Doomadgee - beaten to death in police custody in Queensland in 2004 - arrested for calling a police deputy a dog.

 

But this is not a critique of the NSW Police Force. This is about freedom and how we are giving it away like it is a worthless relic from another century.

I this what you want for your tax dollar? Do you want to be caught in a web of laws and regulations, of police and rangers, parking inspectors, speed cameras every time you walk out your door? Do you wish to suffer for every piece of stupid shit done by people you have never laid eyes on? Do you want to be harassed maybe arrested tried convicted beat up or shot because some shiny-bummed bureaucrat sends a knee-jerk memo to a bunch of TAFE educated shift workers? Do you really truly want a bloody nanny?

Not me. Thanks anyway.

No I'm not going to rant.

I just want you to consider that might be going in the wrong direction where it comes to the creation of laws and their enforcement leading to a culture of creeping oppression of Australian citizens. Of you and me. Of us.

Consider that our freedom is something the law and it's forces should be dispatched to protect not destroy.

And don't forget that, for now anyway, you and I are free.