Is It So Hard?

So there I was, sitting in the stands of the night show at the Polynesian Cultural Center, waiting for things to get underway. Having been thoroughly luau'd about 30 minutes before, my body was moving quickly into full food-coma mode when I heard an oft-spoken piece of instruction preceding most performances: "Please refrain from using flash photography during the performance, as it can be dangerous to the performers."

I leaned over to the hot gal sitting next to me and whispered, "I wonder how long it will take for folks to ignore that?" Sure enough, the lights dimmed, the performance began, and the dancers and singers were greeted with a virtual strobe light coming from the audience.

Ushers began walking up and down the aisles with largely lit signs reading "no flash photography"...to no avail. It's almost as if the sign invited more flashes. I leaned back for a few moments in my chair, and pondered the scene before me.

A simple request was made. A portion of the scofflaws present may have not understood why a blinding light flashing in the eyes of Tahitians twirling and throwing flaming sticks might be dangerous - but there are always stupid people out there, and there's not a whole lot we can do about that.

But for those who either heard the "flash photography can be dangerous to the performers" warning, or simply chose not to concern themselves with the safety (or the audience's enjoyment) of the show, I was compelled to ask myself: Is it so hard to follow the rules?

This is a question I often asked myself during the last 10 years of working for a lawmaker. For those who haven't worked in the business of lawmaking, it's hard for you to grasp the excruciating amount of work that goes into crafting a law that is designed to protect people from themselves, and the selfish acts of others.

Let's take, for example, the school zone speeding laws. Rather simple, I think: "slow down when children are present." That really shouldn't require a law. It's common sense and courtesy. But noooooo, too many people like to think of themselves as the exception to the rules (again, there are people out there who are simply stupid, but there's not much we can do about that). But, because there are so many self-declared "exceptional people" out there, we've got to write laws that define when a school zone begins, where it ends, how slow you must go in it, and during what periods of time and season this speed limit will be enforced. Then we've got to outline the proper ways of enforcing this law. How large the fine should be? Can cops use photo radar? If so, does a cop need to be present? Do the cops need to put out signs some distance ahead of the zone warning people of the photo radar? What if the person driving the car does not own the car? Who's liable for the ticket? Who's insurance gets dinged? Then there's the court system, tracking the fine, setting the bail, processing the paperwork. Then we have to raise taxes to pay for all of this enforcement.

All of this (and more) because people out there think they are the exception to common sense rules. And even with all of this, people speed through school zones.

Multiply this scenario thousands of times over, and you wonder why we have so many laws, and our government is so huge. For every law that has been written, there have been hundreds of cases of people willfully (and knowingly) violating common sense, and putting other people at risk in the process. (Again, I must repeat, there are stupid people out there who just don't know they are violating common sense. But for those who aren't really stupid....)

Just as the photographers in the night show were asked to: 1) not do something; and 2) given a legitimate reason not to do it. Nevertheless, they continued to fire off flashes.

And, at the end of the day, I wonder how many of those flash pictures actually turned out. In a large, dark arena, shooting from a distance with flash at a stage that is blazingly bright...I wonder if any of those shots really turned out. Or, if they could have simply spent $15 bucks, bought the DVD of the performance, and contributed to the student-performer's educations.

Morons.

The one up-shot of all the flashes was that they kept my food coma from overcoming me.