Breaking the law is, honestly, not that hard to do. There are thousands and thousands of laws, and there are some laws that are pretty obscure. If you don’t know the entire legal code by heart, it’s pretty likely that you’ve broken a statute or two along the way.
However, even if I’m wrong there, we have scores of laws we do know about that we break. If the speed limit is 65 and you’ve gone 66, you’ve technically broken the law. It’s highly unlikely that any officer will pull you over for that infraction (though I was once pulled over for going 56 in a 55 zone – I should write about that another time), but it is an infraction nonetheless.
Have you ever crossed a street where there’s no crosswalk? You’re a lawbreaking jaywalker. Or have you texted while driving? Lawbreaker. And maybe you were texting and not wearing a seatbelt at the time. Double lawbreaker! What about all of those smokers who toss their butts on the ground and not in a trashcan? Littering lawbreakers! (And that one’s a big pet peeve of mine.)
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was very common to download copyrighted movies and videos without paying for them. Sites like Limewire and Napster were thin excuses for piracy and everyone on there knew they were breaking the law. (Pleading the fifth here.) The only reason people stopped doing it was because authorities finally started cracking down on the biggest offenders and people decided it was better to pay a little bit to avoid the pain of big fines.
We’ve all stepped a toe or two over the line from time to time, but that doesn’t make us shameful trolls. But it should give us a merciful eye toward people we see doing things we know they shouldn’t be doing. Consider Matthew 7:1-5, where Jesus admonishes us to not pass judgment on people and instead focus on fixing our own problems. It’s not that we can’t identify wrong actions; we need to do that because we need to know right from wrong. But we’re not supposed to judge other people’s souls because that’s God’s job. Our job is to love them in spite of their failings.
And to also buckle up and keep our texting hands-free.
The great human tradition of “accidental law-breaking.” We’ve all been there—one moment you’re a respectable citizen, and the next, you’re a fugitive because you jaywalked five feet outside the crosswalk. Tragic.
Laws are funny creatures. There are so many that even the most upright among us have probably broken a few without realizing it. Maybe it was that “harmless” movie download back in the Limewire days, or maybe it was pushing the speed limit just enough to feel like an action hero. The irony? We all like to think of ourselves as law-abiding until we remember that one time we “forgot” to signal a turn.
But hey, if perfection was the standard, society would be one giant courtroom drama. Instead, maybe the best approach is to show a little understanding. After all, the same person judging a jaywalker today might be the one parking “just for a minute” in a no-parking zone tomorrow. So let’s all agree—wear the seatbelt, put the phone down, and maybe, just maybe, stop treating traffic lights as suggestions.