Point & Prosecute

A man lit up a cigarette during a Jay's home game and no sooner had a plume of smoke wafted upwards another man stands up and snaps at a Sky Dome official. Then the man merely points to the offending smoker with his nose perched ever so high. Having prompted the official to repsond he takes his seat quickly and goes back to surveying the empty field. The official of course forced the required solution and dealt with the smoker.

Now, one can hardly take issue with a man doing his job and upholding the law. I can even sympathize with a an ardent citizen. But the manner in which it all played left me unsettled. After pointing out the offense the finger-wagging man acted as though nothing happened. He merely stared at the empty playing field as he had done before. If you looked away or were engaged in conversation you wouldn't have seen any of it. That got me thinking. Does this guy believe he can just point and prosecute? Does he really believe that the authorities exist to remove those things we find distasteful? We aren't required by common decency to mitigate some unpleasantness ourselves? No chance afforded a man to say he is a fool and correct his foolishness?

Of course not. I had never given much thought to the motive of the man who tattled on the smoker. But I think I know. You see, the man sat 10-12 rows behind the smoker in the open air ball field. I imagine that the tattler knew full well that the smoker will seek him out, he will look around for the person who ratted him out. How many people around the smoker would strain their necks to identify his accuser? The tattler did not want this to happen. He did not want to be seen. Why is that?

Maybe he was frightened of the man. He was not a small, he not did appear timid. Pointing people around like your born with a pedigree to do it certainly doesn't denote a demure character. Maybe he was embarrassed by the fact that the when smoke traversed the distance required to pass his lips it would be a fraction in the millions, if not billions, of the original plume. Most likely he was embarrassed for just being a tattler. People of conviction don't look away. They don't sit down quick enough so their actions go unnoticed.

It's why we westerners value a whistle-blower. Real whistle-blowers aren't afraid of the full glare of justice. They don't have the luxury of using authority as a blunt instrument. It would seem vulgar to even mention anonymity when speaking of real whistle-blowers but I must because it reveals something in my subject's character. That he avoided an awkward social interaction thus avoiding his having to truly bear witness is it not possible he feels he has a bone to whack the other with? Is it curious that the law and it's civilizing spirit is made party to the animation of humanity's more mundane and trivial darkness.

How many of us wish we could force people to have exact change at the ready when boarding public transit? And if only we were given the power to make them do it. Ask yourself that question when you're running late and that latte-sipping web developer can't remember which pocket he put his change in. We all have pet peeves we would see eradicated as though we were the fuhrer himself and with enough of us working to do just that, that is exactly what we'll be like but in a million little slivers.

And why be that when we can be Canada. As she is and has always been.