The Speeding Exemption

In Orwell’s other book – Animal Farm – we read about a mutiny against the farmer by the livestock, who draw up a kind of Declaration of Rights premised on the idea that all animals are equal. This is painted on the side of the barn for all to admire.

Over time (and in the dead of night) caveats and exemptions are inserted – by the pigs – culminating in the new idea that some animals are more equal than others. The pigs begin wearing clothes, sleep inside the farmhouse – while the other animals sleep outside or in the unheated barn.

When it comes to driving fast, some two-legged animals are without doubt regarded by themselves as more equal than others.

And by the law, too.

If an armed government worker is in a hurry, it is justifiable (as he sees it – and as the law regards it) for him to drive very fast, indeed. As fast as he likes, really – there being no defined limit he must abide by.

“Too fast” is judged on a case-by-case basis – according to such doctrines as exigent circumstances, the exigence and the circumstance being subjective and interpreted by the armed government workers themselves – or by their higher-ups.

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