Here’s the truth as I see it.

Now I know a lot of people read this thing because every time I go off on a rant I get a lot of hate mail, most of which involves my mom and sex. So with that in mind, I’m going to tell everyone what’s up and how my reality means more than yours.

First of all, life isn’t fair. This is a good thing. Just ask anyone who’s ever cheated on a test or beaten the crap out of a six-year-old for five bucks.

So let’s just admit it now and be done with it.

Another cool thing is truth. If you’ve ever gone on a date or just had to put up with someone you don’t like, you learn real quick that most people don’t have a clue what the “t” word means or how to relate it to their own issues.

Case in point: just a few weeks ago, I accused John Jose of saying, “there are too many competing ideas on campus.” That was false.

He actually said the complete opposite – he said something along the lines of “there can never be too many competing ideas on campus.” I thought that with all his voting groups out of the Senate and telling various faculty members to shut up he would have used words to back up his actions – but he’s a swell politician, so instead we get garbage.

He did fly off the handle on George Hensen, though. I kind of liked that, because when I see H-Dawg’s name in the paper I can predict, with stunning Miss Cleo clarity, exactly what’s on the menu. Not that he’s wrong.

Truth – back on the subject. The other day I was driving downtown and I saw a Toyota Sequoia run a red light. Not six seconds later, a Dallas Police Squad car pulls up right next to me and I get all hopped up because hey, something bad is about to happen to someone else, which is awesome. But guess what? No siren.

Instead, the cop just rolls on down to the next road and hangs a right. Some jerk just ran a red light and nobody cares because downtown, they only stop criminals.

Now, let’s get into what it means to be a criminal. Criminals are child molesters, murderers, rapists and people who don’t pay their parking meters.

Seriously, there could be a stray baboon dropping kids with a deer rifle, but the police won’t show up unless he double parks his Vespa. Police do not care about safety, they care about power.

That goes double for Highland Park. Back when I started at SMU, I could hit the gas on my Mercedes and hit sixty or seventy before I swerved in at Bishop Boulevard. Two years ago, they added traffic lights on Normandy. Just yesterday, I noticed the lights have a camera on them.

Last year some little twerp drank too much and took out the fender on my beautiful German love affair. That same wreck caused a few brake problems and essentially murdered my car and almost took me out in the process.

Never drive a car when you think the breaks might give out because they will, and unless you have the kind of reckless disregard for personal safety that I enjoy, you’ll die.

On a related note, next time you’re driving at 30 to 40 miles an hour, tilt the wheel a little to the left and activate the handbreak 100 percent. It’s pretty sweet.

At any rate, I got hit by a drunken idiot, but because they don’t have cameras on Mockingbird and US-75, my insurance premium goes up a few hundred dollars.

This is the same intersection where I had a homeless man literally climb through my window and assault me thinking I had a camera, which I didn’t.

Now let’s pretend the cops cared about safety. They’d have cameras at major intersections where dangerous situations can occur, where people get hurt and accountability matters.

Nope. Instead, they pick the unnecessary lights that are only there to stop drag-racing and make people late for class and deck them out with infra-red laser beam detection and satellite-powered vehicle triangulation systems .

God forbid I decide not to stop on my way to class and wait four minutes while no traffic whatsoever has a chance to move through the intersection.

They put the camera there because people run the red light. But the thing is, it’s not a dangerous light to run. It could just as easily have been a stop sign and everyone would be happy.

But the Highland Park police need to be elsewhere arresting people who don’t drive a Mercedes and stopping me because they can tell from 400 meters away that my registration isn’t up to date.

Imagine if you put these guys downtown, where the cops are busy stopping fights and going into crackhouses and managing South Dallas – easily the roughest ghetto within a thousand miles.

NWA was right; the police have some issues to iron out. Eazy-E was right; some members of our overseeing community would prefer that we just follow the rules.

Cops are good when they stop crimes, but when they play the role of meter-maid safety-plus babysitter, I start itching for a gat and a flag to burn.

I see the writing on the wall. “But Austin,” you say, “they have a tough job, and someone has to keep us safe.”

That’s crap. That’s the sheltered mindless sheep talk that gets you a decent job and a house and two kids who grow up to be doctors and investment bankers.

That’s the kind of thing Archibald Jenkins told his buddies back in 1769 when they started complaining about the English. Now his buddy Barnaby Applesnitch took his advice and went back to sewing shoe-soles and supporting the troops, but Thomas Jefferson started causing problems and Benjamin “B-Franks” Franklin went to France.

Then the war started, and people kept telling George Washington to just go out and engage the enemy. But he told them to shut up and avoided direct battles, continuing a doctrine of simply not being where he was expected. Everyone told him that he should be king. He ended up with a farm and some kids.

Britney Spears listened. She went out and just did her best to make everyone happy. Poor thing.