The voice on the other end churned, belched and churned anew, underscoring its owner’s dubious position on somebody’s lousy idea of a food chain. A collections agent had come to call, triumphal in his having tracked me down and insistent that I was the central figure in some kind of fraud scheme — nobody in the history of the universe, after all, has mistakenly closed a checking account with an item floatin’ around out there. I was Jack the Ripper, Bruno Hauptmann and Chuckie Manson all in one, and The Lone Ranger would now intercede in the spirit of truth, justice and what’s left of The American Way. Except for one thing: Tonto’s homie got a little frisky after our first conversation, which featured his gruff reminder about the matter. Not long after I’d agreed with his contention, he proceeded to contact a third party and was prepared to question her about garnishment proceedings — all in violation of Sections 804 and 805 of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (note also that a quick Google search revealed he was calling from a “suspicious” number). Turns out he’s only permitted to get hold of other persons in order to establish a debtor’s whereabouts; anything else is a violation of civil rights and unfairly drags disinterested parties into the fray. I was exceedingly polite to this guy’s superior as I explained my side of the story. And to his credit, he returned my kindness every step of the way. “I’ll order [Tonto’s homie] to cease and desist,” he said sweetly, helping me map out liberal payment arrangements and conveying his secondhand apologies to the third party. All was shiny and new in Collection Land as The Lone Ranger was unmasked for what he was. The United States government, of all institutions, had for once saved the day. Now that that touch of unpleasantness is consigned to history, there’s time to reflect on the heart of the matter, namely how it materialized in the first place. Easy, you say. Westlin should’ve been on top of the whole thing from day one, because his name is on the bill. Right you are, pally. I offer no excuses for inadvertently behaving otherwise, and thanks for playing. But here’s the point: This agent had blatantly run roughshod over both me and the situation, as if his conduct routinely ran afoul of the law. Surely, he must have known something of the Practices Act, as did his supervisor; it dates all the way to 1978 and is the nation’s central legal safeguard against abusive reporting procedures. In fact, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he did know what he was doing is illegal. That leaves us — you and me — responsible for his actions amid our ignorance of the law. In this instance, “ignorance” means something far more portentous than lack of information. It goes to the choices we make about the insidious factors in our lives, the relatively small encounters that, if heeded, add up to big victories for the democracy we know and share. Ignore them, and you ignore everything in their paths, including the civil rights we’ve slowly relinquished over a generation and more. Violation of due process; violation of equal protection; violation of state sovereignty; violation of natural human rights: Such transgressions are the order of the day in the early 20th century. States can’t sue if the feds break their laws. Deregulation has co-opted bona fide legal clout onto bodies and agencies those laws were meant to govern. Everybody from Shakespeare to deTocqueville to Hunter Thompson has said it in one way or another: In a democracy, people pretty much get the government they deserve. If that’s true (and I firmly believe it is), then we’ve led ourselves to the dark side of our democracy amid our indolence. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of folks. I truly wish Tonto’s main man the best in his endeavors (once he rechannels them), and I’m grateful that his supe sought to intervene in my behalf. The latter’s action showed me that at least one small corner of the nation adheres to the checks-and-balances concept through which we supposedly police ourselves. And hey — we made it so I have an extra several weeks to make his client whole. That never hurts, especially if you’re a budget-conscious working stiff like me. But if this agent can nearly get away with something through a simple misguided attempt at it, what’s to prevent a similar effort by somebody with far more lethal clout? We’re all supposedly equal under the law, after all. One man’s collections agent may one day become another’s totalitarian legislator, and we’d never know the difference. — Martin Jones Westlin is editor of Downtown News, a sister publication of The Peninsula Beacon.