Too much involvement of police and courts for too long

I have been bothered by this issue for quite some time,  but in general,  I do not find it addressed;  not in mainstream media, in any case. 

  First of all,  I have a basic respect for police,  for courts of law,  and for law and order in general.  What has disturbed me since the mid-1990s has been the hyper-activity and involvement of police and courts in too many areas of life.  I have gleaned this information,  and arrived at this opinion,  from the past decade and more of reading the newspaper,  and from viewing  online news,  television news,  and reality tv programs such as COPS and speeders and family court shows.  I have also noticed a horrifying   - to anyone with truly democratic sensibilites  -  increase of surveillance and the expansion of felony charges to include minor drugs and weapons cases.  Perhaps worst of all:  The 22 year old teacher who falls in love with a 15 year old student,  is now seen almost on equal par with the violent pedophile who rapes a six year old.

    On one COPS episode,  a fifteen year old boy was taken in by police,  after another teenage male called the police because he had been fondling the 15 year old sister,  who was his own girlfriend.  The arresting cop told the family,  "He might do a three year old".   I saw this episode in 2004,  and it still haunts me.  There was no logic,  no sense of reality,  to think that a teenage male fondling his own girlfriend might be displaying pedophillic tendencies.  

Another case in point:  I knew a friend in New Jersey ,  who was having trouble paying his bills;  New Jersey car insurance rates are absurdly high.  He made the admittedly stupid mistake of forging an insurance card.  Yes,  it was wrong.  I believe he deserved a fine,  and perhaps something such as suspension of driving privileges for a short time.  But he was not only fined an absurd amount,  but wound up on probation,  in which he was monitored for alcohol intake.  Luckily,  he was not a drinker.  But:  The invasion of his privacy, with a social worker popping in whenenever she pleased,  was in itself criminal.  And he had not been convicted of any driving violation,  just the false card, and certainly had never driven under the influence.  Why,  then,   did they have the right to say he could not have a beer in his own home?  

Regarding speeding:  What ever happened to the friendly warning?  Why does it seem to be the poor, and thus those most likely to become outraged at the hefty speeding fines,  which they can ill afford to pay,   who are stopped and then told if they do not calm down,  they will be "taken in"?  Why is marijuana treated as though it is a heinous act -  the possession of it  -  and why on earth are such Draconian and lengthy sentences imposed?

In truth,  I could go on and on.  But I do not want to.  I will not even bother to set forth what I have witnessed with the juvenile lock up :  No self -respecting libertarian could,  without becoming ill.  I want to know when things  will change,  when someone important will speak up and take real action.  As I said,  I believe firmly in police and courts of law,  when they are serving the community well.   In the words of Jesus:  The sabbath was made for man,  not man for the sabbath.  Even so,  the law was made for society,  not society for the law.  We are not here to pump up the egos of police,  nor to pay the high salaries of meddlesome social workers and probation workers,  and others who have become an enormous hyper-industry,  feeding  on the community around them,  rather than supporting its order.   I have studied enough Aritstolean logic,  Nichomachean ethis,  philosophical jurisprudence,  sociology,  and the writings of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and others to know that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.   

 Change was the mantra of the Obama campaign;  it was the banner which flew over the entire election process.  And yet there is a question:  One that surely must be forming on the lips of many others besides myself;  one that is silently lurking in the hearts and minds of many Americans: When is change coming to prune the hyper-industry which has made a monster of civil discourse and a temptation of civil disobedience?  In the words of the great social critic of the fascist period,  Ortega y Gasset,  Perhaps, before long,  it will be cried aloud.