One of the most cancerous examples of the state reaching into lives beyond its human abilities is the highly impersonal speeding camera. Roads develop emergent group dynamics that rise to suit the conditions of the moment; speeding cameras destroy that spontaneous form of self-organisation and force the citizen to deal with the bureaucracy by rote - learning where the cameras are to avoid penalty.

It is all the worst aspects of central decision making with no feel for fluent local requirements, and the matching of impersonal technology for the purpose of revenue. It is the state at its most opportunistic, inhuman and cynical.

I am not suited to politics, but if there is a single issue that would make me participate in the election process it is speeding cameras. They are the most physically affrontive form of local government to republicanism.

One of the purposes of minimal government is to allow the liberty of individual thought and response to the moment to create new efficiencies through self and social organisation. The economy is often used as the example where spontaneous self-organisation out does central planning or even state interference in achieving the most efficient outcomes.

It is the same for the road.

If anything shows humanities capability for self-organisation it is that our ad-hoc road system functions at all. Every morning and night nearly half the first world's population drives to work and back. It should be chaos but the daily routine is dominated by how few accidents, deaths and disruptions there are. It is a testament to human's adapting - through liberty - to the situations of the moment; letting people in; being patient, etc etc. It is a monument of self-organisation.

The irony is, the quickest way to make the self-organisation collapse is to involve the state. New Jersey policemen know that if they turn their lights on during rush hour they will back up Rt.287 for ten miles as pulling over someone will cause a concertina effect and eventual traffic jam.

Another quick way to make the self-organisation break down and force itself to re-organise is for there to be a disturbance on the side of the road like road work, or speeding cameras. They all cause drivers to stomp on the brakes and lead to the consequent concertina effect which becomes a traffic jam. People actually brake several mph/kmh below the speed limit, often ten to fifteen kmh, for a speeding camera which shows their mistrust of the state and surveillance technology and the fear that enforcement is arbitrary.

Because the state has come so large there is a constant push back against increasing taxes. This is obvious in the United States which has a political culture of lower taxes in the electorate. Consequently it has become fashionable for governments to try and raise greater revenue through increasing fines for breaking the law.

Australia at the state level is enacting legislation to make road fines increasingly higher and higher. Queensland offers repayment plans to pay speeding fines. Once it gets to this level that a citizen who uses the road needs a repayment plan to continue to use it, then it has moved into the realm of cruel and unusual punishment.

Virginia in the United States recently had a law which increased fines on drivers to arbitrary levels. It failed under the equal establishment clause and county judges have been throwing it out for those charged under it. Apparently it is not a popular law with Virginian police officers either as it makes their job appear more arbitrary than it already is.

One of the fears of the state using civil and criminal fines for revenue raising is that it takes on the arbitrary nature of proscription from the Roman days. This was used during the Roman Civil Wars from Sulla to Augustus to confiscate property from the wealthy in order to fund the state's continuance. The state, as defined by the Consul or Triumvirate, arbitrarily decided who was a criminal and fined them - with the result of the loss of their property.

Taxes and the upkeep of the state are a shared commitment from all citizens, not one levied against those that infringe civilly or criminally. The state should never include as consistent revenue that which is raised from fines. Otherwise the state will use the criminalisation of its citizens to maintain itself and seek new ways to cause greater numbers of its citizens to fall under civil or criminal penalties of increasing size. This is beyond what a state is and moves it into a modern analogy of proscription under liberal democracy.

More

• Reduce Speeding Fines in Queensland
• Virginia Speeding Fees Unconstitutional
• When is a Law Unjust and Unreasonable?