Now this one gives me cause for an exasperated “GIVE ME A BREAK“!
Two men on a New York City subway have been arrested and charged criminally with “man spreading“. For those of you who, like myself, up to this point have had no comprehension that such a law exists, let alone doing so would or even could be considered a “criminal offence”
Granted, no-one should be able to occupy more than one seat on public transit yet I haven’t heard of any obese people being hauled off to jail and then court for infringing on the sitting comfort of others on public transit.
I don’t take public transit so I’ve been blessedly unaware of this criminal activity, but really!?! Has our society really come to this?
Apparently, sitting down with your legs apart (there are certain physiological motivations underscoring this egregious activity) has now become a “criminal offence” that can get you hauled off of your daily commute and taken before a judge.
I have in the past been required to hop on the Toronto subway and I can tell you that those tiny seats (I can get my legs into any position in a window seat that really doesn’t impose on someone else space) leave a lot to be admired.
I agree that people should not take up two seats even if using one relieves them of their cumbersome baggage (the TTC operates quite an efficient run out to the airport for example) but to now create a “criminal” (CRIMINAL) offence for sitting with ones legs apart seems somehow Orwellian to me.
I’ve seen people with bicycles on the subway. Could that be considered illegal? I’ve seen obese people so large that two seats barely encapsulate their presence in these seats. Are they also to be charged criminally?
Daily, I sit in my condo in College Park and watch degenerates congregate to smoke their dope and shoot up whatever it is they shoot up while consuming cheap alcohol in open bottles (all things I thought were against the law) but, guess what? They do it in a park that is immediately across the street from Toronto’s main police station!
I see people opening threatening the health and welfare of law biding citizens by lining the sidewalks and doorways to buildings smoking cigarettes stripping me and everyone around me of our rights to clean air to breath (millions of people die every year from second and third hand smoke related illnesses) and no-one, including our judiciary, finds anything wrong with that.
So how is it that a man sitting with his legs apart (I see women doing it all the time but this phenomena is labeled “man spreading” as if sitting with one’s legs apart is somehow gender specific) has become a criminal issue?
This speaks volumes as to where our society is and where it’s going. I can hardly wait to find out all of the other offences in the subways. What about reading a newspaper on a crowded/packed subway car (when I say packed I do mean packed – precisely why I don’t take public transit)?
And what about those outrageous offenders of escalators who stand to the left instead of moving to the right to allow those wanting to walk during the free ride upstairs?
My point is that our society is overwhelmed with anti-social behaviour and for anyone to think that making anti-social behaviour an indictable offence is just downright stupid.
Oh, I’ve heard the argument that stopping petty crime will materially affect major crime, but this is an unproven, if not unprovable, misplaced and materially flawed logic.
The logical question is where will this all end?
I prefer to sit as I see fit and if that means continuing to drive my car instead of giving into the flawed logic of making doing so, so inconvenient that I turn to public transit, to now face criminal offences as petty as sitting with one’s legs apart, well I just don’t know what to tell you!
I’m Charles
