In the words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Beverley McLachlan:
In a pluralistic constitutional democracy, majorities are not permitted to impose their moral values, their conception of the good life, at the expense of those who do not control political life. . . . This activity of interpretation is more than simply deciding what these and those words mean . . . Rather, it involves assigning meaning where it is unclear, applying straightforward laws to complex situations, harmonizing laws that appear to be in conflict, and determining whether challenged laws are constitutional. All this is high level, specialized, intellectual work. (The National Post, June 18, A1)
So, judges do not impose values, they just "assign meaning where it is unclear"? Can we have meaning without expressing values? Does this sound like some sort of Orwellian Doublespeak?
Throughout the ages, marriage has involved a male and a female as the social unit most suited to ensuring the best start for the next generation and, with it, civilization's continuance. What is not clear? Only with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did that clarity become a problem -- necessitating judicial expertise -- much judgely cogitation and expense. The problem with values is that if the majority must not impose theirs, yet, by judicial fiat the values of a minority are imposed upon this majority -- in the choice of children's textbooks or in accepting--even touting--a "lifestyle" in the schools and in our taxpayer-funded CBC, to give but two examples -- then it seems logical to conclude that it is the minority who are imposing their moral values on the majority. Was a Roman Catholic school not ordered recently to reinstate an openly practising homosexual teacher (the Vriend case), despite his obvious flouting of Roman Catholic teaching--flouting his employer's own value system--that practising homosexuality is a sin, although being homosexual is not? Is the imposition of minority values superior? Or is this reading too simplistic on my part?
A Trilogy: From the Trenches
What follows are three pieces, a poem Auto Wreck from 1942, then a first-hand account of policing the most notorious section of Highway 401, one cop's Night from Hell, and finally an excerpt from A Coney Island of the Mind. To me, they fit together to paint a picture of policing -- the careless driving and the mayhem that results. See for yourself; read on.
Auto Wreck
Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating,
And down the dark one ruby flare Pulsing out red light like an artery,
The ambulance at top speed floating down
Past beacons and illuminated clocks
Wings in a heavy curve, dips down,
And brakes speed, entering the crowd.
The doors leap open, emptying light;
Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted
And stowed into the little hospital.
Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once,
And the ambulance with its terrible cargo
Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away,
As the doors, an afterthought, are closed.
We are deranged, walking among the cops
Who sweep glass and are large and composed. One is still making notes under the light.
One with a bucket douches ponds of blood Into the street and gutter.
One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling,
Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles.
Our throats were tight as tourniquets,
Our feet were bound with splints, but now,
Like convalescents intimate and gauche,
We speak through sickly smiles and warn
With the stubborn saw of common sense,
The grim joke and the banal resolution. The traffic moves around with care,
But we remain, touching a wound
That opens to our richest horror.
Already old, the question Who shall die?
Becomes unspoken. Who is innocent?
For death in war is done by hands;
Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic;
And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms.
But this invites the occult mind,
Cancels our physics with a sneer,
And spatters all we knew of denouement
Across the expedient and wicked stones. (Karl Shapiro, 1942)
My Night from Hell
They say that police work is 90% pure boredom interspersed with the odd interesting situation which takes up another 9%. That last 1% is the "sheer terror" factor -- the one that gets the adrenalin pumping and keeps us all in the game. Such was the case the other night.
I went to work at 6:00 pm and by 6:15 I was heading for the highway -- all normal and very routine. At the 401 I noted with some alarm that traffic was moving very fast -- much too fast for safety. At one point I made six stops in less than half an hour -- all those drivers going 150 K or more in a 100 K zone. No charges -- just stopped them and ripped their asses.
The flashing lights help because it looks as though there are more police out there than there are. Traffic began to slow which was what I was trying to achieve, and by 11:00 pm it had lightened -- more trucks than anything else. I congratulated myself; I had made it through another night.
I should have known better.
Around midnight at the Ingersoll detachment I had just returned to my car when all hell broke loose. A pickup truck westbound on the 401 tried to exit the highway and hit the off ramp much too fast -- 100 K in a 20 K zone. He entered a ditch, crossed over the "on" ramp and plowed into another DEEP ditch on the north side of the road.
His air bags went off and saved him from serious injury. He fled. With a truck and no driver, we assumed that he was pissed and didn't want to lose his license.
While dealing with this situation another accident occurred about 15 miles east of us. Some dummy travelling west and impaired touched bumpers with a transport truck, crossed the median and ended up on his roof in the eastbound lane. He wasn't hurt and was soon on his way to the pokey but his pickup was full of beer (he was a bar owner); it was quite a sight to see the highway littered with broken beer bottles.
Both eastbound lanes were blocked.
Knowing that help was needed down the highway, I had the vehicle from my accident towed away; then I headed east to help out at the other accident. I wasn't there long before I was required to return to Woodstock because the City Police had found my driver who had fled -- not pissed, but in need of medical attention. I took him to the local hospital.
I wasn't there five minutes when the Sergeant started screaming "Get back here...NOW" (to the second accident scene). When George starts with that kind of talk, you know things are seriously amiss and I didn't waste any time. I started out Dundas Street which becomes Highway 2 which joins the 401. Red lights and siren. I saw movement on the shoulder of the road.
On go the "binders" and two deer ran across the road in front of the car. The damned things breed like rabbits around here and they live right among us in our cities and towns.
At the accident scene I learned that there had been two more accidents at that location. The second occurred when traffic was halted for a few minutes to allow the tow truck to roll the pickup back onto it's wheels and get it off the road. Some inattentive jerk drove into the ass end of a transport truck.
OOOOHHHH....KKK!
The guys started cleaning that one up. Note that when accidents happen on major highways there are flares out, traffic cones, police cars with flashing lights -- the scene lit up like daybreak with the help of firetrucks and ambulances. You can see it a mile away.
But not 'little missy'. . . oh no . . . not her!
She came thundering through the cones, the flares, even the cop -- who had to make like Roger Rabbit as he leapt out of her way. She slammed into the side of a brand new Crown Vic police car, taking the entire side out of it.
George was understandably upset with her (she wasn't injured) because he had nearly lost a cop. When I got there the scene was total mayhem but there was little I could do. I went up the highway to a crossover point about a mile west of the scene to re-route traffic. The MTO guys were already on their way to shut the highway down at Highway 2. I did this for awhile and soon traffic stopped coming from the west. So then I went to the truckers (a long line of them) and told them they had a choice...a three hour wait or 20 minutes of backing up to reach the crossover point where they could then detour.
It's quite a sight to see a hundred trucks all backing up the highway at night.
Anyway, things were going smoothly and trucks were making the crossover.
THEN...along comes another 'little missy' -- all in a daze!
She was in the westbound lane and approaching but a LONG way off so I started a transport across the median.
How the hell do you miss something as big as a house and lit up like a Christmas tree? How do you miss the cruiser with all it's lights flashing, the cop with the traffic vest on and a flashlight with a red cone on it waving at you to slow down?
SHE DID!
And she damned near ended up UNDER the transport before she realized her error -- tires howling and screeching.
She lived to tell the story. Before letting her go I said, "Have we got your undivided attention now? WAKE UP!"
I think she got the message.
The remainder of the night was uneventful and I got home an hour late -- but at least I got home -- as did everyone else involved.
That's the story -- just one of the many that happen every night while you sleep.
And that's why I do this -- so people like you CAN sleep well.
From me, thanks to this cop -- and to all the cops out there -- for doing this often thankless job so the rest of us can be safe.
Excerpt: A Coney Island of the Mind
In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the moment when
they first attained the title of
'suffering humanity' They writhe upon the page
in a veritable rage
of adversity
Heaped up
groaning with babies and bayonets
under cement skies
in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
bent statues bats wings and beaks
slippery gibbets
cadavers and carnivorous cocks
and all the final hollering monsters
of the
'imagination of disaster'
they are so bloody real
it is as if they really still existed
And they do
Only the landscape is changed
They are still ranged along the roads plagued by legionnaires
false windmills and demented roosters
They are the same people
only further from home
on freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
The scene shows fewer tumbrils
but more maimed citizens
in painted cars
and they have strange license plates
and engines
that devour America . . . .
(Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1955-58)
