Sleeping is Now a Crime – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk
Posted by M. C. on March 10, 2019
In the near future it will likely be illegal to drive your own government mandated self driving car. What else is there to do but snooze?
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019/03/07/sleeping-is-now-a-crime/
It’s become one of those self-evident truths Massa Tom once wrote about to state that government has become overtly punitive – as opposed to keeping the peace, its sole legitimate function.
There are many examples. Here is the latest.
Virginia’s Roanoke County has hurled a fatwa (news story here) making it a crime to sleep in your own car – even if that car is parked on your own property.
Which nicely delineates the true ownership of “your” property.
“Violators” are subject to arrest – and a $250 fine. Also a possible Hut! Hut! Hutting! – since the fatwa endows armed government workers with the legal power to come onto private property, rap their knuckles or flashlights on private property (the vehicle, its windows) and demand ID and so on from someone not harming anyone.
If the person questions, is the least bit recalcitrant . . . Hut! Hut! Hut! Bash the window in and drag the victim out.
Keep in mind: The law not only permit but specifically empowers the AGWs to perform
Even assuming an AGW who isn’t looking for a reason to hassle someone, the plain fact is the law empowers him to hassle anyone he likes.
The person napping – or sleeping – can no longer tell the AGW to go away. Well, no longer has any legal power to demand the AGW go away.
In his own car – even if parked on his property. Or – and this is just as important – property owned by someone else, who is not complaining about it.
This ugly business is, however, to be expected – and expanded. In many states, it has been illegal for years to sleep it off in your car. The once-upon-a-time responsible thing to do after having one too many has become the legal equivalent of the irresponsiblething; the “violator” may be charged with drunk driving . . . even though no driving has taken place.
Thus encouraging drunks to drive.
Why not, after all? At least you’ll be a moving target – and you’ll probably make it home without killing anyone (as opposed to certainlynot killing anyone if you were left in peace to sleep it off).
Both sleeping it off – and just sleeping (or even just napping) have in common the thing which used to be relevant insofar as the law was concerned but no longer is:
No harm done.
Because the law now concerns itself with being the cause of harm. It began a long time ago, with little things – seatbelt laws, for instance – that set the precedent for more (and bigger) things.
I’ve tried, for many years, to get across the point that precedent become practice. That if X is permitted, Y will follow – if the two are based on the same general principle.
Thus:
If a person who has long ago paid the bank in full for his home is forced to continue paying the government what amounts to rent in order to be allowed to live in “his” home, then why not also pass a law making it illegal for him to nap – or sleep – in “his” car, even if it is parked on “his” driveway – and in front of “his” home?
Precisely.
Be seeing you
MCViewPoint 
Kenneth T. said
Guess I’ll have to sell my car/register it as well to some (fictitious) made up entity and…
“why no officer, this is NOT my car…”