IN response to Henry Getley: Forgive them their jobsworth trespasses, Owen Morgan wrote:
It’s said that there are so many federal, state and local laws in the United States that nobody can go through twenty-four hours without breaking at least one of them. Our own laws must be getting that way. The trouble is that the proliferation of people with authority (or who think they have authority) to impose the law always seem to fasten on the most ridiculous ones, precisely because they know the people they are persecuting are the most instinctively law-abiding.
If you invent a daft law about ‘social distancing’, any number of village Earps will arise to enforce it. The local constabulary will probably give them a pat on the back and, maybe, a commendation, too. Try getting those same rozzers to respond to somebody’s pillaging of your property. There’s a reason that there are so many variants of the joke on the correct way to report a burglary.
‘Officer, a bunch of men in masks are smashing their way into my house.’
‘I’m relieved to hear that they are being socially responsible. Was there anything else?’
