Abusive governments

Prohibitions. They are a sign of the times. Blame, blame, and blame. From the distant and utopian "it's forbidden to prohibit" that the elders of today used to champion when they were young, to the "let's prohibit everything"; lest there be a loophole of freedom through which the world's machinery goes to hell.

The individual is guilty and must be treated as such. Their re-education and reinsertion requires forcibly adapting them to the fold. It is true, of course, that rules primarily concern those whose character compels them to obey them.

Governments and administrations have highly refined punitive mechanisms to repress and punish administrative misconduct or to continually burden ordinary citizens with new obligations.

The leviathan's priority is the majority of mortals. Good, docile people who accept, willingly or not, the obligation to jump through ever-tightening hoops. Citizens with names and surnames who renew their ID cards when necessary and who, when they receive a certified letter from the government, fear the consequences of whatever they've done wrong and go out of their way to make amends for their sins.

How can governments celebrate record tourist numbers and extort money from those with 20-year-old cars?

On the fringes of that well-behaved population, exceptions are allowed. It's easier and more profitable for a government to pursue a citizen who more or less keeps their affairs in order than a repeat thief. A pickpocket lives better on the bus or train than a forgetful citizen who hasn't renewed their monthly pass. The fine for the latter will sooner or later be collected—as long as they are part of the population group whose property can be seized—while the former will get away with it. It will always be easier for the police—and more profitable for the administration—to approach and fine a smoker on the beach—oh, what a crime!—than to dismantle an apartment that acts as a drug distribution center.

But the fact that most of us accept the coercive decisions of governments—and that many citizens even celebrate them—doesn't make them good. And of course, they're not fair either. Democratic governments have tended over time to accentuate their abusive nature. Protected by the common good and the general interest, they openly trample on and shrink citizens' areas of decision-making privacy. From Brussels to city councils, passing through national and regional executives, much of the administrative web is designed to trap citizens, not to protect them, much less to defend them.

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We now have before us a case that cries out to heaven: the gradual ban on vehicle circulation. Cars with existing restrictions and others on the horizon for supposedly polluting too much. We're not speaking from a theoretical perspective. I'll share some case studies from my personal circle of friends, out of the thousands that could be listed. An Audi 6 Avant TDI registered in 2010, and a VW Passat 2-0 TDI from 2006. Well-maintained cars, with impeccable bodies and engines that still have a long life ahead of them thanks to the diligent and thrifty nature of their owners: a farmer from Terra Alta and a salesman from Baix Llobregat.

Who are the governments to force these people to spend their money—whether they have it or not—on a new vehicle? They punish the savers, the true environmentalists who don't succumb to the temptation of unbridled consumption, or, worse yet, point the finger at those who can't afford to consider an alternative. That's what governments and administrations are doing.

It's so we can breathe easier! Tell others this story. For example, how can governments celebrate record numbers of travelers and tourists arriving by boat and plane while simultaneously extorting the citizen who keeps—by choice or necessity—a twenty-year-old car? The answer is obvious. That citizen is easy prey. But there's a word for someone who is strong with the weak and weak with the strong: abuser and coward. The accent of today's governments.