By Alex Cherup

Mouthing Off Editor

“Officer, I am graduating college soon.”

I thought it would get me out of a ticket, considering my very modest cleavage.

On April 23, 2008, I was given a traffic violation ticket.

It wasn’t serious enough for the serious news to cover.

Interestingly, if the ticket had been given to Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, it would have been the news obsession of the week.

Apparently, Mouthing Off Editor two semesters running doesn’t make an individual important enough to have one’s driving habits newsworthy.

It also shows an egotistical desire of mine — to be so famous that someone would care about a cop pulling me over  or to be so famous that a magazine would want to photograph the cellulite on my legs, and people would want to guess who the aforementioned cellulite belonged to.

Nonetheless, I was given a ticket. The court date is in a month and I am already composing a argumentative treatise detailing the concerns and worries a mind with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy has regarding the legal system.

I’ll give you a summary — cops are pigs.

But, of course, there is much more. I will also offer a personalized complaint about the complete structure of the entire legal system.

Bluntly, the traffic violation system is biased against the poor college student.

As a philosophy graduate, I pay to study with the experts in the world in the subject of morality, make a traffic error and get dealt a $100-plus traffic ticket, which, in turn, destroys my world.

Let me put this into perspective — I would have to Mouth Off at least five times as much a month to pay off this hefty fine. Even to the experienced Mouthing Off-er, this is a lot of Mouthing Off.

A billionaire rich man, however, who commits the same traffic sin, can merely throw this “change” at the cop and continue speeding on down the road past the stop sign and into the construction worker.

To the billionaire, it is just a “speeding toll,” a “stop-sign toll” and a “injure-a-construction-worker toll.”

There are already signs that put a price tag on the construction worker’s life.

I wonder if there is a discount if you hit them in bulk.

Needless to say, to the rich, the fines are more like a toll — a sort of perverted free market system where anything goes  if the dough is put out.

I have even heard that during the holiday season some park in handicap spaces for the proximity when parking at “Oakland University is bad” and pay the fine, as if it is a “parking charge.”

If you have enough money, you can be above the law.

You can even shoot someone in the face (read: Cheney).

With enough money, the punishment turns into merely a price.

As a college student, however, I do not have this luxury.

The punishment is not equivalent — my life is altered while Halliburton’s CEO is parked closest to the door.

I can’t afford to speed.

I can’t afford to run stop signs.

I can’t afford to injure construction workers.

Why can’t the punishment be equally inconvenient for all social classes?

The violation is the same; but the reprimand is varied.

Perhaps, rather than a monetary fine, we could explore other techniques.

For instance, a certain amount of community service — there is no way to buy one’s way out of a program of this nature.

Five miles over the limit — rake Mrs. Wilson’s leaves.

Jaywalking — walk for a cause.

Shoot someone in the face — become vice president.

At least the punishment will be a bit more consistent.

Of course, the “important rich” will complain that their time is much more valuable than someone who reads Plato and edits the crap you are reading. This procedure would discriminate against these individuals, the rich peanut gallery yells.

Naturally, this is already discriminating against me or any other non-wealthy position.

Essentially, a world with no dishwashers is a world with dirty dishes.

A world without rich CEOs is a world without blatant economic inequality within the same corporation — and a world of clean dishes.

So, there you have it.

The gist of what I plan to tell the Troy City judge.

Either that, or “I’m sorry, thought it was a yellow light.”