e-volved living

I generally walk fast.  It’s partly due to my East coast roots – no time for dilly dallying (even more true when it’s cold out.)  Add to that my Taurean impatience – slow walkers, people standing around chatting, baby strollers and stray children, step aside please.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy walking, that it’s just a means of getting where I’m going.  Quite the opposite as I, in fact, try to get out for a stroll every day, if possible, and find it both refreshing and meditative.  I just like move at a lively clip, to get the heart pumping and lungs working, and to cover more ground.

That being said, naturally I prefer not to wait for a crossing signal when the coast is clear.  It’s an unnecessary drag on the momentum.  So, as I coasted, on foot, up to a red crossing signal today, and observed a police officer stopped there, and no cars approaching, my instinct and my assimilated citizen persona had a quick and dirty duel.  Guess which side one?

I looked both ways and kept right on marching.  About two steps off the curb, though, a “hold on there”, or some similar halt, was heard.  Being kind of intimidated by people in starched uniforms with guns, clubs, and walkie talkies, I halted and turned to him asking incredulously, but politely, “are you standing there enforcing the crossing signal?”  He replied that no he was just waiting for the light to turn green, and emphasized that I needed to do the same.   Santa Monica is the only place I know to have strict rules against jaywalking, and it has peeved me while walking around there.  I’ve always taken it as my right, everywhere else, to cross the street when I please.  “So it’s actually a law that I must stop and wait for this light?” I continued my questioning, while trying to catch my dropping jaw.  “Yes”, he said with a slight chuckle at my lack of knowledge.  My anarchistic wheels were spinning hard, superseding the intimidation of authority.   “What is the penalty for failing to stop?”  With another perplexed chuckle, “Well, I’m not totally sure.  A ticket and maybe even a fine.”  With one eye locked on the crossing signal, hoping for a change before instinct or bluntness, or both, got me in trouble, and jumping off the curb at the green light, I called out as I stoked up that forward momentum, “Hmph, well I guess you learn something new every day.”

Why is there a law that limits when I may cross the street?  I’m not a total anarchist.  I do belive in a level of governing principles for society, but this is well beyond that level.  He’s a peace officer, right?  Fine, then.  Go encourage peace by working with the homeless man who spends his time at the bus stop right next to the crossing point and in the park across the street.  Maybe he’s tried.  I don’t know.  I know there’s not an easy fix for homelessness.  But, my point is that there are certainly better uses of everyone’s time than creating, enforcing, and abiding by a useless law like this.

I believe in personal freedom, as long as it doesn’t involve hurting anyone else (creatures and the environment included.)  Some other examples?  A woman’s right to choose whether to have a child.  Everyone’s right to choose who they are intimate with, and to make it a legal bond.  To the people who disagree with abortion and gay marriage I say “It’s not your right to limit the rights of others.”  While I find it idiotic for people to ride motorcycles without a helmet, or ride in a car without the seat belt, I don’t think there should be laws against these things either.

It’s pretty obvious I’ll always be Dorothy from New Hampshire, who’s state motto is “Live Free or Die.”