What's the harm in breaking the law?

I'm pretty sure you and I can trust each other, but what about that guy over there? I'll bet he is breaking some law somehow, maybe speeding, or perhaps not paying all of the taxes he owes. How can he possibly get away with stuff like that?

Well, yeah, maybe I did go a few miles over the speed limit this morning, but there was that big SUV behind me and he was following too closely, and after all, I was just going at the same speed as the guy ahead of me.

And about the IRS (Internal Revenue Service to you). If I am paid in cash to work and the guy who paid me is paid in cash, that is nobody's business is it? That is penny ante stuff. Why keep a record of something like that? The government will never know, and if they do they will never miss such small change.

"Where's the proof?" a friend of mine always likes to say. Why do they make laws that nobody follows? Maybe they should listen to you and me and change the law.

And if we're never caught, maybe it didn't really happen. It's a lot like the tree that falls in the forest. If no one hears the crash, there is no sound, is there? Nobody knows, right? Of course, a few years from now if you lift up the rotten, worm eaten log there are all kinds of nasty mealy bugs, worms, centipedes and sow bugs thriving there. They knew the tree fell and they got fat off it.

But of course I don't mean you.

Russ Vannier

Hoffman Estates