Of Crime & Criminals

If we know something is wrong and if we still do it, isn’t that equal to committing a crime? Ten of ten the answer will be yes. But when we look around us as we go about with our daily lives, the reality becomes starker that all of us are law breakers. We commit crimes and move on as if everything’s normal. That’s when I realized why we keep spouting pearls of wisdom, such as a law is meant to be broken.

For us, talking about crime is just a matter of hiding guilt and conveniently convincing ourselves that what we are doing isn’t wrong because everyone else is doing the same. The logic: two negatives equal a positive. Fight fire with fire; steel cuts steel, so I guess the way to fight crime is by committing a counter crime.

And I am not even talking about murder, rape, theft and the likes. I am talking about small things that are considered wrong but where the line between wrong and crime is invisible or at best blurred beyond recognition.

Smoking most likely kills; secondhand smoke kills. But we continue to puff away and nonchalantly blow smoke in the faces of unsuspecting bystanders. The government plans of ways to curb smoking but will not stop the manufacture and sale of tobacco products for anything that generates revenue is fine. Then why call contract killers criminals? Charge a tax and make killing legal.

Prostitution is a crime; prostitutes are criminals. But we have millions of women in the trade 99% of whom have been forced into it against their wishes. And we justify the continuance of this trade with absurd logic such as they provide an outlet to desperate souls who if they do not have this outlet could go around raping our women. To save our women, letting other women suffer is fine. I guess people who think so have the larger good of mankind in mind and are Saints. And again people who visit these sex workers are no criminals either. There we turn capitalist; if a service is available for a price, then we must make maximum use. Yeah, right!

We are in desperate need of a Gas cylinder. That justifies bribing the delivery guy to ensure out of turn delivery. That’s called enterprise, I guess. And what’s so criminal about getting what one wants? By hook or by crook, what’s so crooked about it?

While driving, my goal is to reach my destination in the quickest possible time. So what’s wrong in cutting lanes, jumping red lights, and maybe on a really good day knocking down a pedestrian, cyclist, or a motor cyclist or all three? The government should have made a special lane for me. Since it hasn’t, it’s the government’s fault that I have to resort to these tactics to reach my destination as fast as I can. So I guess the government is the criminal here. And in our political masters’ understanding of democracy, the government can never commit a crime. Hence, none of us are criminals.

In short, what I am getting at is we do so many things in a day that are ethically incorrect and technically qualify as a crime that somewhere we have lost our sensitivity to doing things right even if it is going to cost us a bit. It is high time that we shed this cloak of convenience and start doing the small things right and we will see that the larger things will automatically start taking care of themselves. The logic: if we stop committing smaller acts of indiscretion then we will not think of indulging in extravagant ones. The question is, are we as a society game to give up our little luxuries for a bigger luxury—a zero crime world.