Robert Biel, 57, of Brevard County, Florida, is going to spend the next year in prison. He must have done something pretty bad, right? Beat someone up, maybe? Steal a car? 
Er… shoplift a six pack?
No, something far worse – in the eyes of our protectors in government:
He kept a bunch of old cars in his yard.
His yard. Not someone else’s. His – you know, the land he gets to pay endless rent to the government for as a condition of the perpetuation of the fiction that he’s the owner. Except of course, he’s not – and this business about sending him to the clink for a year proves it.
Biel stores old cars on his land, picking parts to earn money. The county commissars will not have it. First came the harassing letters. Then came the harassing fines. Next came the harassing men with guns – who took Biel to jail for “noncompliance.” He was released, but only on condition that he “clean up” his (cough) yard. When he failed to do so, he was sentenced to a year at Hotel Graybar for “violating probation.” A felony. (See here for the full new story.)
“It’s my stuff on my own property,” Biel argued.
Well, he’s just been educated about who is the real owner of “his” (cough) property.
What Biel enjoyed the privilege of paying annual rent to the government for is squatter’s rights. He – and you, and I – may occupy a house or use a piece of property under certain conditions – conditions subject to being changed at whim of the landlord, the true owner, the government. We have every right to object – so long as we ultimately comply. If the government says you may not keep an old car – or just a car that’s not currently registered – on (cough) your property, then you’d better comply, or else. The “or else” being an escalator of coercion that begins with the little love notes received by Biel, followed in time by men in costumes with guns who will make sure you do comply, even if it means killing you to make it so. Which is what will happen if you have the audacity to resist – to actually defend (cough) your property. 
It’s important to note that no one – not even the government – accused Biel of actually harming anyone. You know, of having committed a crime. Well, at least not a crime in the old sense of the term, when “crime” necessarily entailed “victim.” Biel victimized no one. In fact, he helped people – by finding and selling car parts DIY mechanics needed to keep their cars running. But of course, you must have government permission to do that – and of course, pay the necessary tribute.
Biel did neither.
So off to the hoosegow he goes – and in all likelihood, back on the streets will go a real criminal, in order to make room for the made-up kind. American jails and prisons are full to overflowing with non-violent, non-criminals – people who harmed no one but transgressed some arbitrary edict. Since there’s not enough space for all, the revolving door of justice swings rapidly – early releasing a Golden Horde of violent thugs, so that pot smokers and guys like Biel, who annoyed the local Aesthetics Police, can get a bed.
This makes sense – from the government’s perspective. A real criminal is a liability – to the government. He creates no wealth that can be confiscated and costs money to house and is a physical threat to the camp guards (whoops, “corrections officers”). But someone like Biel is profitable. He has assets to confiscate – and he (probably) is not physically violent – not being a real criminal.
This is key to understanding the apparently odd excessive attention the government and its enforcers give to penny ante “offenses” committed by people such as Biel. But it is excessive precisely because of the profit motive – from speeding tickets all the way up to the soon-to-be-here huge fines for failing to pay tribute to an HMO, as per ObamaCare. The government doesn’t give a damn about real criminals because real criminals don’t have anything to take away. That they create actual victims and cause real harm is a matter of complete indifference to the government. Remember: Members of the Inner Party have little to fear from real criminals. They are protected by multiple layers of security – provided at our expense. Murder, assault, rape, burglary – abstractions merely. Realities for you and I – but we are the Outer Party. So different standards apply.
The criminals – the real ones – are the proles, of course. And the proles do not matter at all. They have nothing to lose – other than their physical freedom.
But Biel – and you and I – have several others things to lose first, before we lose our physical freedom. Which is why government is so inordinately interested in us, so zealous and unrelenting in its prosecutions of us.
You can jump a counter at a 7-11 with a baseball bat, beat the crap out of the clerk and pilfer the register – and end up doing less hard time than a guy like Biel, who dared to keep a bunch of old cars at his place. Not an exaggeration. It happens with depressing regularity. Watch the news; read a few stories about the latest home invasion/killing. Nine times out of ten, the criminals will be parolees. Let loose after having finished a small portion of their pled-down sentence.
To make room for a guy like Robert Biel. 
Throw it in the Woods?
Wow! Around here, half of the count would be in prison. Is this a Southern thing? No, a land owner was recently sent to prison here in Southern Oregon for digging a pond and refusing to stop collecting surface water.
We don’t own anything, what with property taxes, personal property taxes, and nuisance laws.
You can outright own a million dollar piece of property and the government can take it away for a $1.00 in back taxes, and when they come to remove, shoot you dead for refusing to leave your property.
And so it goes. . . . . . . . . . .
Yes I’ve always wondered how you can ‘own your own home/land’ and yet no one equates property taxes to rent. It is rent. It doesn’t matter what it’s being used for or how that use is a benefit to other ‘property owners’ or if a gaggle of people get together and decide that you must pay it and because they have a fancy badge emblazoned with a logo containing a silver or gold gradient with an eagle (or swastika. Or an eagle with a swastika. Or an eagle, a swastika and a warning that piracy is not a victimless crime that I have to sit and read every damn time I try to watch a DVD) on it they’re somehow qualified to pilfer funds from us via taxation and pass it off as ‘taxes’ instead of what it should be called: Rent.
If you don’t pay your rent, what happens? You lose your housing.
If you don’t pay your property taxes, what happens?
This is why I A) Don’t watch a whole lot of TV to begin with and B) Don’t watch hoarders. Watching them threaten ‘home owners’ with jail time and fines is too much to bear. It’s sick that the State makes such an egregious argument that I am forced to defend people that live in trash and squalor. That definitely says something about our society.
I’ve always referred to the municipality to which one pays his PROPERTY taxes as the LANDLORD of last resort…even if you can burn the mortgage, fail to pay this ‘rent’ and that municipality will gladly seize your property! In fact, there are outfits that specialize in finding these delinquent parcels, as in some cases, rather than initiate foreclosure proceeds on properties with back taxes, they’re offered up to anyone who is willing to pay the back taxes, they are then given the deed and then go through the process to evict whoever is occupying the property! Save the bureaucrats the bother of doing the ‘dirty work’, as they can’t personally profit from the exceeds of the sale anyway!
hey , In the State next to mine, they were using state helicopters to target home owners and those who had the temerity to put water tanks from their down piping in, of course people put them in to save on the rainwater wasting into the system, so of course most people were and are encouraged to do just that , but if you put in a 2000 gallon tank without local government approval and the government local by law inspector finds out, well you get a hefty fine in the mail and an order to pull it down.
so much for being eco friendly ! can’t do that without the Orwellian types with small undersize ………well , you know what I mean, they LIKE playing God……even happens in large rural areas, they send helicopters in to check for people breaking the law…….now where is that damm rifle ???
Re Eric’s “..Soon they’ll impose a tax on every breath we take, too…” What form would such a tax take? I guess a fee/tax levied on you just because you exist. Also, it’d have to be a fee or tax you can’t opt out of like car insurance or income tax (by not driving or earning). A tax that is basically confiscatory?
Well, I submit such a one has been recently enacted that’s about ready to kick in. And it’s the single most frightening thing I’ve seen out of any US gubmint in my memory. I believe opening this tax door is more important to the Progressive Real Agenda than the actual provision of any services. Such doors, once opened, don’t get closed…they just get opened wider and wider until there’s nothing left to loot.
they pulled that crap in my town, my dad was also a junk collecter
they sent nice letters for about a year, he refused, i would clean some things up for him to make the place look a little better, and haul stuff off. than he passed away and i continued to make the mortgage to stay on. about a month after he passed they sent me a registered letter stating that i had 30 days to do a total clean up, it was not in teribla shape by than, a fridge next to the side of the house near the woods that could barley be seen from the road and some building material next to a barn covered by a tarp for remodeling the barn in the spring. if i did not clean up those items in thirty days they would imose a fine of $50.00 per day for thirty days, then it would double for another 30 days, and then that would double for another 30 days, than at 90 days they would take me to jail and clean it them selves and charge me their fee for being so kind, this was in january last year so i had no choice but to take time off work and remodel the outsied of the barn in freezing cold weather. i do appreciate the high rent i have to pay them now that the place looks so much better they went up 500 on the tax, i love you uncle sam thanks. i stil have the registered letter with the amounts and fees on it for proof
Sickening.
It amazes me that more people don’t lose it and go off like Michael Douglas in Falling Down. Remember that one?
Yep, I’ve been looking for a copy to show my daughter.
GREAT movie! The libtards FEAR a pissed-off white boy!
Let’s not go overboard here. The problem where I live is zoneing in the rural areas. True I don’t want anyones rights trampled on. He could have gotten a permit and put a fence up. I can’t go around certain areas where I live and not see washing machines and old lawnmowers in the front yard not to mention the Houshold garbage laying around.When yuppies move into a farm community they always try to make the community over into the place where they couldn’t wait to leave(The City).They can’t stand the city, but when they move to the country they try to change the country into a little more city so they feel at home.
This is exactly the dynamic –
Right now, in my rural county, there is a big battle under way over whether to enact zoning (we have none now). Guess who wants it? The Yankees (in spirit and in fact) who have come here to escape the suffocating suburbs – but now want to recreate what they left behind here.
Likely the same expat “NewYawkers” who left the “Big Apple” to get away from the noise, crowds, and crime…then bitcb about “can’t find a decent delicatessen” or “tbe locals are a bunch of dumb Hicks”.
A vote for Ron Paul is the only way to get the Federal
Government end excessive regulation out of our lives. And, guess what? Ron Paul is getting too few votes. Ron Paul for 2012!
RP’s mere presence on the stage has done tremendous good – by drawing attention to ideas that haven’t been discussed in the mainstream for decades. The nature and role of the Fed is a case in point. How many ordinary Americans had any knowledge of the Fed’ origins, or the nature of money, before say 1995? Virtually none. Today, millions do. And growing.
RP won’t get the nomination, let alone win the election – but he has achieved something much more valuable. He has awakened the country – or at least the Remnant, the portion that’s still open to liberty.
And that’s a hell of a thing!
This story and the comments caused me to think about two articles discussing the book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.
On average everyone commits three felonies a day without even knowing it.
Which means if someone were to try and avoid doing those things which results in arrest it would be in vain. YMMV?
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts274.html
LOL…only 3?
Ya’ll ain’t trying….
While I sympathize with the basic freedom principle here, you said there was “no victim” in the Biel case. Anyone who has to pass by and look at the ugly junkyard is a victim. I don’t want my aesthetic senses attacked by garbage scattered across the landscape. I suppose you don’t like anti-littering laws either? Should people should be free to toss their garbage out the car window onto the highway. Who does it bother? It bothers the rest of us who have to look at it. Whether or not it is on private property doesn’t matter to the fact that most people do not want to look at garbage. Property owners who want to store garbage/junk on their own property should put up a fence so that my eyeballs are not attacked by the ugliness, as I pass by! :-).
Ah yes, there oughta be a law. How very Cloverian of you to compare trash dumping on public lands with keeping deteriorating old cars on private lands. Apples to oranges, my friend.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I’d rather you deal with looking at something that “offends your asthetic senses” than I deal with aggression against private property rights.
You poor poor victim, you. Victimized by rusting metal.
C’mon, Patrick.. a “victim” because your “aesthetic senses” have been offended? What if I don’t like the looks of the big fat ass of my neighbor’s wife? That offends my “aesthetic senses” too. How about the car you drive? Maybe it’s ugly. Maybe I don’t like how it looks, either. Does that make me a victim – and entitle me to threaten you with violence?
I hope you were just kidding!
PS: Littering – throwing trash on someone else’s property – is not the same thing as storing your cars (or whatever) on your property.
Patrick: I live in a neighborhood wherein the residents must drive their trash to a community dumpster. Years ago our dumpster was unmanned, and some of the people were careless about getting their trash into the dumpster instead of all around it. Unpackaged trash — cartons, diapers, paper goods, plastic bottles, newspapers, just ugly crap. It built up and was a perpetual eyesore.
I hated looking at it. Every time I went there it bugged me more. One day I bought a pack of big plastic trash bags and a pair of gloves, and I spent the whole day policing the area. I got every bit, even embedded soda caps. I didn’t do it for anybody else, I did it because *I* didn’t like having to look at it. I didn’t call anybody or write letters to the newspaper or go around whining about “there oughtta be a law” or anything else. It was my problem and I took care of it.
If litter tossed onto the roadside bugs you, then keep some bags in your car, pull over, and pick it up. Then it won’t bother you anymore. Amazing concept, huh?
Incidentally, we have since gotten a manned dumpster setup (unrelated to what I did, I’m sure). Now everything is pristine at all times. There are also eleventeen rules for what we can dump and how it is to be packaged and maximum size of the items that can be put in the dumpsters, etc etc etc.
This bugs me a hell of a lot more than the litter used to.
What’s wrong with garbage scattered across the landscape?!
I myself feel a great swelling chest full of pride at putting a perfectly-executed arcing spiral on a full Big Gulp headed for a speed limit sign!
Patric wrote, “Anyone who has to pass by and look at the ugly junkyard is a victim.”
That was funny.
Anyone who has to pass by and look at the ugly cookie cutter houses built to last less than a lifetime, with perfectly manicured lawns, has a case too? After-all, a Lot of People’s aesthetic senses are offended by such buildings and a waste of perfectly good garden space.
Ticky-tacky houses all over the place, put a giant fence around them all! Oh wait, a lot of People’s aesthetic senses are offended by fences too.
I think People like Patric are not at all familiar with the tragedy of the commons, or unwilling to think:
The Commons: What Tragedy?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston57.1.html
Probably should stay out of my neighborhood then, Patrick…
You wouldn’t like it here…
Patrick – littering is unauthorized disposal of garbage on either the public right-of-way or property, or someone’s PRIVATE property. Either way, not only due to the unsightliness, but also sanitation, that’s a definite TORT.
What a man does, especially in the back woods of a Central Florida county, is entirely subjective. They don’t like him accumulating a gaggle of old iron, period. No mention of it being a visible eyesore; in fact, from the picture, it would appear that it’s not readily visible from the road or adjoining properties. Is there a groundwater contamination issue from leaking fluids from the junk cars? No? Then what, pray tell, other than your elitist notions of how OTHER people should use their property, has this man done?
Don’t feed the trolls
I got into with some joker on Huffpost the other day over something similar. Some guy got arested and fined for not mowing the lawn on a house he had been evicted from. Holy cr@p on a cracker. People were actually defending the police.
Because I defended the guy who didn’t mow his lawn this joker said I lacked pride of ownership, blah blah blah etc etc. LOL I rent my house from the State, but at least the bank doesn’t have their hands on it or anything else I own for that matter. That’s pride of ownership to me. If you don’t like the way my lawn looks don’t look at it. Part of my property comes up next to the township hall and every stinking year before the elections they come and tell me to mow it.
The State lovers come and put their signs on my property without asking and don’t take them down. They let their dogs run wild on my property as well. Oh well they make good targets, the signs not the dogs. I might get some goats, that should take care of the signs the dogs and the lawn.
Yup –
The thing that gets e down is not the government so much as my “fellow Americans” who love it so, their faces buried deep in its man tits, huffing the sweaty essence.
@ eric…sure you weren’t a bit north of your “fellow american’s” true target?
So there’s this local multi-millionaire in my county who makes a sport out of exposing the hypocrisy and stupidity of state and local land-use ordinances. His latest caper is to foil the wetlands designation.
It went like this, in brief. He wanted to develop part of property that was in a low-lying area, next to a “natural” pond and swampy space. To me it always looked like a borrow pit that the state made to build I-10 which runs right next to the property, but whatever. They told the millionaire that he couldn’t be permitted to develop the swamp, but he found a loophole. It turns out that in Florida you can develop wetlands that have been degraded by cattle and other livestock. So what did he do? Why, he got into the cattle business, of course, and proceeded to degrade the land. But not just any cattle. He took it one step further and imported a herd of water buffalo from SE Asia. As the name implies, these things love the water so not only did they “degrade” the ground around the swamp but they also degraded the pond itself with all their swimming and cavorting. So after a few years of the water-buffalo treatment, the place looked like a big pond full of coffee with cream and the so the state had to permit his development plans. Now as I drive by I can see that his development, whatever it is, is well underway and he successfully thumb his nose at the authorities and got what he wanted in the end.
And incidentally, this same dude runs a big antique car museum on the same property. Maybe ya’ll have heard of it. Never seen it myself:
http://www.tacm.com/carmuseum/theantiques.htm
Good story I got a chuckle about the water baffalo.
Still it’s a shame that he had to go to that length.
Yes, it;s a FREE COUNTRY as long as you DO WHAT YOU’RE TOLD.
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cue the music.
We need more Americans willing to standup like Wallace – unfortunately, so many of them are either terrified of “Longshanks” – or are on his payroll and so function as Longshank’s appendages.
Whenever I see anything about the codes inspectors and the codes violations, I recall that the Bind, Torture, Kill Serial Killer in Wichita Kansas was in codes enforcement. I think that says it all.
Hi Gwen,
I wish I’d remembered BTK for purposes of illustration – the perfect literal archetype of a “code enforcer” (cop type).
I bought a bumpersticker to show solidarity for a great new cause: SHTF – Safe, Healthy, Together, and Fair.
Monday morning, safety day, we get up a half hour early for work and fight for safety by driving at least 20 mph under the posted limit, and take twice as long to go through each intersection.
Tuesday morning, healthy day, we always stop for breakfast at the healthiest and do-gooderest places. We ask lots of questions and are a real stickler for everything, exercising our consumer rights to the max. After work, we stop at the free clinics and ask for help stopping our unhealthy lifestyles.
Wednesday, together day, we find time to investigate all the public-minded bureaucracies and non-profits that restrict freedom for our own good. We really want to learn, and spend time face to face with a public servant. We apply, and encourage everyone to apply for everything that is due them. If denied, we file complaints.
Thursday, fair day, we demand that everything be exactly equal. We file lots of complaints and grievances on anyone in the government who owns property. We watch them like papparazzi on TMZ to make sure everything they do is fair.
We focus on one city and neighborhood where possible, we are deeply committed to SHT & F in our lifetime. We sell shirts, bumperstickers, so if we target you, you should join us and support us, you know you cant beat us.
Four days a week, every week, is not that much time for a good cause.
Im sure I missed out on lots of the details, Im not that smart in modern social situations, but I am eager to learn. I am a noble SHTF warrior, whatever that ends up being.
I have a small anecdote to share.
We had neighbors move in to our culdesac a year or two ago. They would let their dog roam outside and take a dump wherever it felt like it. Needless to say, we had some real nice turd bundles coming from this dog. One day my father collected some of the poop and threw it onto their driveway! I think they actually ran over it with their car too! They stopped letting their dog out and moved away as well, assholes.
Moral of the story is sometimes you have to take action instead of complaining to a higher power.
At least he didn’t put it in a paper bag on their porch, light it, and ring the doorbell. LOL
Rooney,
I am not trying to denigrate your beliefs – you are entitled to them. However, your concept of God is not what the Bible teaches. God’s justice (not ‘revenge’) is the furthest thing from ‘arbitrary.’
Also, none of what stilo said implied that they support the institution of theocratic civil governance. In fact, I very much doubt that they do.
Ray
Point taken….in this instance anyway.
After all…I won’t denigrate your opinion about god’s justice either.
It is called zoning rules. He is obviously in violation of zoning where his property is. Really stupid mistake. Get a property where the zoning laws do not apply. Normally this is in the country somewhere.
There is one trick that zoning doesn’t expect. If his ownership of the property is older than the rule, he might be grandfathered in. They cannot enforce the rule if that is the case.
Trick two. If the zoning is indiscriminately enforced it has violated the rules governing zoning. The law is thrown off the books by the courts.
Trick three. Get the community to grant an exception to the zoning law called a variance.
Normally laws like this are bureaucratic. Fines are the normal punishment for violations.
You want to get rid of them, unelect these people at the next election. Put people in that will remove the restrictive laws.
Do not feed them. Vote down any mill levies that are proposed until you starve them out.
Well, here’s the issue with that:
Probably, the guy lived there before there was any zoning. Then some Clovers moved in and got zoning ordinances passed. Now the guy who wasn’t bothering anyone is suddenly in the crosshairs because the new arrivals don’t like what’s next door.
Happens all over.
I live in a very rural area and – for now – we can do what we like with our property (well, sort of). I worked hard to be able to live here, to be a landowner. It’s entirely possible that down the road, some Clovers will move in and then demand that I (and others who are already here) accommodate them rather than the other way around.
And as Brent pointed out, zoning laws are often very arbitrary. Loud kids, for instance. That’s ok. But a couple old cars that make no noise? A “zoning violation.”
The best story I have heard on old versus new residents was a brand new subdivision which was built within sight of a hog farm. After a short period of time, the new neighbors started complaining about the smell. They even sued to get the farm closed down. The wise old judge told them that the farm was there first, and if they didn’t like it, they could move.
It is very unfortunate that this type of ruling is the exception rather than the rule.
This is why we bought up as much land as we could afford to – and will buy more when we can. The more you have, the more insulated you are from… them. And when they become intolerable, the one upside is the land has usually gone up in value, so you can cash in and split for greener pastures. Next stop, Idaho!
Usually the fact that the hog farm was there first, and the developer knowingly built the subdivision, and the homeowners knowingly bought (they might have a claim against the builder and/or the selling agent, for failure to disclosure in WRITING), then yes, tough luck!
The only trouble is, likely that land is still zoned agricultural and isn’t that much of a “tax farm”, whereas the housing subdivision is. So what will the local politicians, who are in the pocket of real estate developers, do? If they don’t succeed in a zoning change or use restriction (which the hog farm owner must be vigilant for, else after a certain period of time w/o a challenge they’re permanent), then they do things like sic the Health Department on the farmer, or even Animal Control, with false allegations of cruelty to the herd. There are numerous stories of abuses like this. It’s a wonder more beleaguered property owners like this guy don’t “Go Postal” and shoot up a County Commissioner’s meeting!
I am an architect practicing in Chicago and its suburbs. It’s no exaggeration when Eric argues that government is the true owner of all land and buildings. Those who think that they are the owners are, in typical fascist fashion, merely regulated caretakers who, in addition to paying exorbitant tribute to the government in the form of property taxes, must also pay for the permission and then wait months to receive it in order to make any changes to “their” property.
Only about 50% of my work has anything to do with documenting a project so that it can be properly priced and built. The superfluous other 50% is all about putting down information demanded by government’s drawing reviewers and to which no one else pays any attention.
Contact with Chicago’s departments of build and zoning cannot be characterized as anything other than entering Kafka’s world. As ponderous as it is, the building code can somehow be grasped by mere humans. Zoning is another matter. It seems always open to some nuanced interpretation that humans in the outer circle consistently manage to get wrong.
Then there are the landscape, energy conservation, historic district and accessibility ordinances which must be complied with.
We are forced to use only the amount of energy which our enlightened technocrats deem necessary for our needs. It’s illegal for property owners to spend their own money heating, cooling and lighting their buildings in a manner regarded as inefficient by the energy Nazis.
Even Kafka would lack the perverted imagination to caricature the totalitarian accessibility laws. I was once required to make toilet rooms in the basement of a public facility accessible even though there were accessible toilets at the ground level and the code did not require any means for someone in a wheelchair to reach the basement! Another time I had to put an accessible toilet room in an automatic car wash in which the customers never left their cars and the one employee could not carry out his duties if he was in a wheelchair. At great expense to themselves, property “owners” have been forced by the Feds at gunpoint to make every nook and cranny of America accessible to people in wheelchairs, yet one hardly ever sees anyone in a wheelchair anywhere except in nursing homes. But then maybe our prescient public servants knew something that we mundanes didn’t. With all the Empire’s wars and more to come, we’ll be seeing an army of wheelchair bound combat vets flooding the land!
I once had the misfortune of sitting through the slide presentation of a fatuous historic home district bureaucrat bloviating about why his commission is turning down a homeowner’s proposed house addition. The addition’s siding, he accused, was out of character with the existing historic home and with the rest of the neighborhood. As far as I could see, old age was the only thing that the homes in that neighborhood had in common. This was in Oak Park, Illinois, the town that the great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, put on the map with his many great buildings. It then occurred to me that if Wright was practicing today, he would be prohibited from building anywhere in Oak Park because his creative designs would, of course, not conform with the rest of the mediocre heap.
Although we don’t really own what we regard as our property, in Chicago
Property “owners” are actually the unwitting owners of city property! That’s right, the city’s landscape ordinance not only mandates all kinds of landscaping on private “property”, it also requires property “owners” to landscape at their own expense and to maintain in perpetuity the city’s existing concrete sidewalk bordering the street. During that construction period, the hapless property “owner” must post a city approved landscape drawing at the construction site with instructions for members of the public to report him to the authorities if they suspect that the approved drawing is not being adhered to. “If you see something, say something,” was Chicago’s motto years before it caught on at the airports.
These are a few of the things which I have seen from my little perch. Combining my observations with those of millions of others forced into painful contact with government at all levels cannot but compel us to conclude that America is now a full blown police state, and the clovers hardly notice.
The following is a link on the City of Chicago’s official web site to a list of its 30,000+ unionized employees, their jobs and their astonishing annual wages. That this page is still proudly up speaks loudly of the utter contempt that the bossy political class has for the rest of us struggling to pay the taxes for their crappy “services.”
http://data.cityofchicago.org/Administration-Finance/Current-Employee-Names-Salaries-and-Position-Title/xzkq-xp2w
What madness.
My wife works for an international construction company with operations all over the US and in I think four countries. She always says they flatly refuse to take projects in New York, New Orleans, and Chicago. Now I understand why. Sounds near impossible to finish with any profit. I dont know how you do it.
We need more people like Mr. Beal. Problem is, people, from the start, are not taught *how* to think. They are not taught to question, to ask why, to ask who benefits from taxes, rules and regulations.
For example, most people look on car, dog and gun registration as part of natural law. “Of course you have to,” they say, just as they would say “of course you’ll fall to the ground” if you jump out of a second storey window. They just cannot imagine not registering cars, dogs and guns. Why, there would be chaos and nobody would be safe.
But *why???* Nobody will tell me. They act as though I were naive. No. Maybe I am naive in certain areas, but not this one. *They* are naive when it comes to human rights.
They need *real* education…to learn how to *think,* question authority, and *disobey!* Enough thinking people can turn the system around!!! See my website for an essay on education!
Alice Lillie, your comment reminded me of this image for some reason: http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/422713_10100857799400602_68130487_51337980_223022291_n.jpg
Hi Eric. Been reading your column for sometime now, via the Lew Rockwell site. You’re an excellent read! There were several times I had planned to comment, but, today was different. This is the first time I can remember where your column on Rockwell had a “read he rest…” at the bottom. Glad I continued through, and discovered your site and the comments from fellow Virginians.
Like some who have written, I live in Herndon. Lived in commie central, Reston, for 23 years, on Golf Course Drive. Work is the only thing that keeps me here. I would love to live in your neck of the woods, Eric. A good friend of mine moved to Floyd back in the late 90’s, for the same reasons as all of you. Wish I’d done the same.
Again, thanks for your columns, and good health to all on this site. I will, indeed, return on occasion, following future columns.
Couple of Saudis drop about $500,000 on some chicks and each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxQGUBGcQ4&feature=player_detailpage
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. -Thoreau
No Power that is repugnant to the Principles underpinning the NONAMENDABLE July 1776 Action of the Second Continental Congress has or will ever have Lawful Authority.
Lawful and Legal are not synonyms. There is an ethical element in Lawful that is often criminally absent in Legal.
Voting has usually proven to be a waste of time. With support from LAWFUL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS in every JUDICIAL DISTRICT in the United States, Grand and Petit jurors and Sui Juris Filings hold the the Key to fixing America. The repair must begin by ruthlessly enforcing the Bill of Rights and the Principles supporting same.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? –Juvenal
As long as the rule of juris doctors, career office holders – along with career office holders who ARE juris doctors – continues to be the unlawful reality, Constitutional American Liberty will continue in its present Death Spiral.
Do WE still hold these Truths…?
Do we know enough and have the courage to claim them?
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –), author of AMERICA’S FORSAKEN PROMISE (Forty-eight pages of careful research and dedicated Critical Thinking. A one hour large print read and a great reference. Twenty years in the making. Available on Lightscribe CD or DVD for the price of postage and handling. Complimentary postage paid copy to fellow Mechanic/Technician Eric Peters.)
This is indeed a problem that has been growing with every collective bargain made by local police unions and their political operatives elected by WE THE PEOPLE if we ever expect to change this we need to direct our efforts on a local level starting with the judge who signed the order to seize this mans property and then to those who requested it …. they are all obviously oblivious of basic rights to private property provided by our embattled constitutuion and in addition heavy fines to be leveled on all participants of this tyrannical act…
Won’t work…collectivist problems are not solved by collectivist solutions.
The thugs don’t seem to be getting the message that free citizens will not tolerate being told how to run their own lives. It is up to them (the thugs) to determine what form of communication will be required for the message to be heard and respected.
Chris sez, “I’ve been reading this sight for a while, and I thought I might chime in with a list of, shall we say, observations.”
Chris, great list, much food for thought. I especially like these items:
26: Never tell people what you’re going to do. Do it and THEN tell them about it.
33: Freedom is the ability to tell anyone, anywhere, at any time, “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me.”
59: “Boss Was A Dick” is a perfectly legitimate reason for quitting a job.
75: Steel doesn’t boast of being steel; steel simply is.
80: I have a heartbeat and a conscience, and that’s all the carry permit I need.
Gotta disagree about the cereal, though. The secret is to eat it really fast. 😮
Gail,
Glad you like The List!
Yeah, I know about the cereal thing. Just a personal preference.
I’ve been wondering about something for a while, being the philosophically honest guy I am. Why is it considered taboo to be nakedly mercenary regarding your job? If you do a good, or even a superior job, why is it so important that you buy into the company’s propaganda? Or that you can’t tell the interviewer that you heard this company pays better than your last job?
We all openly say we work to have money, but somehow, you can’t be that honest with the boss.
One last thing, for you guy with carry permits. If you want to make a small point, try this. Is you ever get pulled over while armed and the cop asks if you have a license to carry, press you index and middle fingers to you neck like you’re taking a pulse and say, “Yup, still valid!”
Chris –
I asked myself this question at the beginning of my working career. I noticed that job performance seemed to matter far less than being a “team player” and occupying a given space for a specified period of time. If, say, you were very efficient and able to do your job in six vs. eight hours, you were effectively punished – since you couldn’t leave early (or come late) even though it had no bearing on what you actually did. This is one reason why I got into journalism. Much more freedom (at least, when I got into it). Most editors didn’t give a flip when you came and went or how you spent your time – so long as you met your deadline and your copy was solid. That’s it. You could literally sleep at your desk, or come in three hours late. No one gave a damn. All that mattered was – did you finish your story? Is it ready to be sent to the copy desk? Period. I got in just in time, before the whole business turned to shit. I was able to make the Great Leap, too – going full-time freelance, which is almost as great as winning the lottery. I work more than most 9-5 people, but I work when I want to work – and can not work when I don’t feel like it. If I want to blow off a day to go for a hike, I can. So long as I get the damn story finished when it needs to be finished!
Thompson was right. Writing is a hard dollar. But it’s worth the price!
Eric,
Yeah. I’m sketchy on the whole “team player” concept. It seems to have as it’s aim the reduction of autonomous individuals to the status of cogs in the machine, who have no value or status beyond what they contribute to the group.
I’m an individual dammit a human being, not a fuel pump.
It seems to me that RESULTS are the only legitimate yardstick by which to measure an operation. After all, why are we engaged in an activity if not to achieve an end? Are we just here to spin our wheels?
There’s a corollary to this idea: Ever have anyone tell you, “I don’t care, just get it done!”
And ten minutes later, come sprinting up to you in a panic screaming, “OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“You said just get it done.”
Okay, exaggeration, but I think you get my point.
All widget makers are easily replaceable! Stop complaining and “just get it done!” ha
“It seems to me that RESULTS are the only legitimate yardstick by which to measure an operation.”
It depends on the operation. Often the only yardstick is making your immediate superior look good.
The bigger and more depersonalized the company, the truer this tends to be. There’s a limit to how gung ho any single cog can be 24/7 about the end goal of a megacorporation of thousands.
When I worked in that environment, I always did my job as though I owned the company, figuring that would be the best and most ethical way to advance. Unfortunately, what it bought me was a strong impetus on the part of my bosses to keep me right where I was.
Stupid me, huh?
You too I see… When I worked at mega-corp the people who knew what they were doing were glass-ceilinged at rank 8. Those who didn’t would become 9, then 10 and so on provided they played the political game correctly. People who did the work did not get promoted beyond 8. Ever. If the people who knew what they were doing were leads and managers who would do the work?
Eric you’re gonna send me right into rant mode..
One of my biggest beefs with the corporate world is ‘team players’ and being punished for efficiency. But there is one thing worse than doing 8 hours work in 4. Doing 16 hours work in 8!
Interesting thing in the Gatto interview that was on LRC recently. The ivy league schools don’t want team players. Interesting eh? It’s only us serfs that are supposed to be team players.
Did you ever see the famous quote by sportswriter Red Smith? (Or Red Foley, I forget which):
Writing is the easiest thing in the world. All you do is wind a clean sheet of paper in the typewriter and type out words, one after the other, until beads of blood stand out on your forehead.
Eric sez, “Doesn’t the cadence of it remind you of Lennie from Of Mice and Men?”
I remember about the rabbits, George.
clark county washington has some crazy rules on what one can/cannot do on one’s property. In the northeast part, VERY rural and remote, a family, there for generations, fell on hard times farming, the Dad took to scrapping cars. Plenty of room, he had a rollback flatbed truck, and bought hulks, hauling them home. Property big enough, and a huge old barn, no one could see a thing from off the property. One day a county wonk sachets up the driveway, introduces himself, and states the folks will have to desist on the hulk hauling, there was a complaint. The ONLY possible source was a new neighbor, a wealthy doctor had just built himself a fine house not far from this family’s section. County chap could not divulge any info, of course (what ever happened to the right of confronting one’s accusers?) SO.. Dad looked at older son, said real loud “ya know, we’ve got ta keep feedin th’ famly, now, an them TAXES keep goin higher an higher. What, ya think two hunnert fifty head a hawgs’d make enuff ta feed the lot of us an pay the gubmint? Son says I reckin so. Pop looks at the county goon and says “you go an tell that thar doctor man that ifn’t we cain’t work the scrap cars any more, we’ll haffta take back ta farmin, an we reckin it’ll take upwards a two hunnert fifty head a hawgs ta make a go on it. so, he gets ta decide fer us’ns… hits either the cars keep a comin through, er we go and git ourselfs a passel a pigs ta raise. This hyear land IS a farm, ya know”. County man took his leave and never came back They are still hauilng hulks. The doctor no longer calls in any conplaints. Justice has been served.
Great story – outstanding!
I see some of the same possibilities lining up here in Floyd County. Also mostly very rural, but there is an element that wants to turn this into McCountry – a tourist trap. Hey, let’s go look at the “authentic” country people and hear “authentic” country music… in the new taxpayer-funded town center, with its nice stone outdoor amphitheater, etc. This kind of thing has helped to bring in some rich Yankees of the type such as the doctor in your story. They build the same absurd 5,000 sq. ft. houses you find in McLean, Va. – just outside DC. And of course, they want to turn this country into a replica of McLean – right down to the zoning laws and recycling laws and all the rest of it. It’s the one blessing of the ’08 bust that this process has slowed down. But if it ticks up, we’ll have to pick up and split for greener pastures. I’ve done my time with Clovers. Next time, we’ll get 200 acres in Idaho or Wyoming and that ought to do the trick.
I wonder if it isn’t worth it for the “natives” (or long-time residents) of rural counties such as yours (and mine, for that matter) to make Yankee Clovers feel as uncomfortable and unwelcome as possible?
Of course that’s probably an impractical idea for the simple reason that those in positions of “authoritah” in such counties see nothing but $$$$ (and opportunities to accrue more “authoritah”) with the influx of large numbers of such people. This means that they’d probably go out of there way to accommodate the invaders, usually at the expense of long-time residents of natives of many generations.
A few years back I took my Buick T-Type off the road,leaving it at my Mothers house.The car had sat for a while so I went to start it up and found a bee’s nest under the hood.I left the hood up while I decided what to do.I think it was about 6 hours later that the super clover next door complained to my mother about it being an eyesore.The car was in beautiful condition and was the only car that wasn’t driven daily in the driveway.I just couldn’t believe what an asshole this guy was ,but he is far from the only one..
Been there…
I have a theory, too:
Methinks such assholes are that way because of the powerlessness they feel. We live in a society that micromanages almost every aspect of our lives; it’s especially acute for the thoroughly conditioned Clover, who probably works in a “diverse” setting in a cube farm someplace, sits in traffic for two hours a day, comes home to his underwater McHome in the ‘burbs…. his wife that got fat and hates him… his kids who ignore him… so when he spied your car he saw opportunity – a chance to make his authoritay felt.
It’s small man syndrome writ large.
Eric,
I think there’s another social mechanism at work here. Just as it is somehow noble to be poor, being an “activist” is considered a good thing. Supposedly, change is to be desired, but change into what?
That’s not in reference to any specific thing, but rather a rule of thumb question.
What if the existing system works pretty well, even though it’s not perfect? That’s what America was in the past. No, not everyone is going to be happy, bu then again, see my Rule #54:
Human society is an illusion because each one of us has a different idea of what the world should be like, and the best we can hope for is that we don’t slaughter each other en masse over something TRIVIAL.
Personally, I hate activists. With a passion. They’ve turned our beloved nation into a hideous monster that is going to require rifles or FTL spacecraft to escape.
And regarding that RX-7, the Chevy LS-swap is so good that even the JDM-is-God crowd considers that engine preferable to Mazda’s hot little piston-turbine cross. With 400 hp and right-now throttle response, it’s one of the few engine swaps that actually INCREASES the car’s reliability.
Did you guys read this: How To Gum Up Any Institution
http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1108.html
I’m trying to think how it would apply here, or with seatbelts, etc… I’m a bit tired to make a comment about it tonight though.
I keep thinking about when I drive around town at 30 m.p.h. without my seatbelt, and when I see a cop, my wallet reaches up and squeezes my stomach. Does that mean I’m a wimp?
Ten years ago (20?) I did this too, and eventually gave in after a number of fines and court dates over just that. It seemed like 99% of everybody else did too. Maybe not wearing a seatbelt doesn’t do anything except make me poorer and causes my better half to get after me? I don’t know.
I do know – that when I didn’t see any cops – the feeling of driving without a seatbelt was delicious.
If you do choose to gum things up, just remember what happens to bush lawyers/barrack room lawyers/sea lawyers: the powers that be choose their time and their grounds, and then get them on something else that is apparently unrelated.
P.M. Lawrence, Wrote, “and then get them on something else that is apparently unrelated.”
They’re going to that anyways. Might as well be for something worthwhile?
The difference is, you become the focus of all that instead of it being spread around and only hitting you every now and then. That’s why the tactic only works when it is being done on a large scale by a lot of people, so the other side can’t focus retaliation and wipe you out. In turn, that makes it hard to get the tactic started unless (as in the Gulag example in the linked example) that average level is already high enough that (as you suggest) there is little to lose. What I was bringing out was that, usually, you do have something to lose by starting this tactic. Note that, in the end, the Gulag forces did gather themselves together and deport the ringleader.
I think he would say being allowed to leave 24-7 political detention for the UK was a win.
UK total private wealth 11 trillion
UK individual wealth $183,000
Russia total private wealth 6 trillion
Russia indivual wealth $39,000
Although in most ways, a Russian man has a great deal more freedom than a Fabian Socialist Brit enjoys. There is a lot of off the grid wealth in the Russian Republic.
Googling Vladimir Bukovsky, I found out that that was indeed where he was deported, so it was a win-win thing – he gained, and so did the authorities, who not only got rid of him but also got Luis Corvalán in exchange.
But that’s not the way to bet. He got lucky; often, contrary to western usage, Soviet deportation didn’t mean out of the country but into internal exile (which would probably have been an improvement in those days, though it was effectively a death sentence in Stalin’s time). So the point stands – you are at risk if you start using these tactics, unless you are already in a bad way anyway and/or you can start on a large scale.
@ Clark…
I too, sometimes have to choose to break an arbitrary law just to feel a little less caged. I relish that feeling.
Its actually been going on so long, that the ‘real’ criminal released to make room for today’s non-criminal might also be one with no victim, spared greater injustice by the revolving-door aspect of the system.
I am starting to think that my idea of building a house in Antarctica might not be that crazy. No government, no property tax, no building codes, no bullshit.
The idea of ownership is an illusion in the U.S.. One can spend years saving money to buy land, and even after getting title to it, you have to pay a year tax for the right to stay on you own land. Yes, people will give you the nonsense that, ” its goes for the roads,” or “it helps pay for the schools,” but that is a bunch of crap.
They tax your right to work, the land you live on, the food you buy, the energy you use, they even tax you when you die. Is there any difference between a slave and you? They say you are free to go where you want and do what you want, but they will demand that you pay for the right to do so. How are you any different than a SLAVE!
Antarctica here I come!
The difference is that overt slavery was more honest!
A field slave knew he was a slave; the typical American chafes at the notion. He thinks he is “free.”
But what is the defining essence of being slave? It is non-ownership of one’s literal body. Who then owns our bodies? Are we free to do with our bodies as we wish? Or are we threatened with violence for using our bodies in ways that are not “allowed” by the government? Do we own the fruit of the labor of our bodies (and our minds)?
Modern slavery is ingenious because the slave imagines himself free, even as he writes that check to the IRS, even as he feels the cuffs snap onto his wrists for consuming an “illegal” substance or doing some other forbidden thing.
Does it really matter to the slave whether the overlord is a literal massa – a guy who lives in a big white house… or a system of massas, with its headquarters at the White House?
What is really astonishing is the violent negative reactions of showing people the bonds of our slavery/serfdom.
Eric,
Nice comment. As regards ‘ownership’ it seems to be coming to’if you can’t carry in on your person, we’ll tax it and you don’t own it’. I suggested to my wife the other day that it would be reasonable to just get a decent small motorhome and give up the fixed house as perhaps there would be no property taxes. (she gave me that look like I had two heads).
(Of course they’ll probably make all public roads toll roads before too long anyway).
Even on the deed to a paid for piece of property the description of the holder is “tenant”
Great book on liberty/property by the way, “Forbidden Property” by Grant Sterling. He demonstrates how we’ve lost it all including ourselves by how little we pay attention to what government (ie.’rulers’) are really doing. Easy to find on Amazon. Great read.
I’m disengaging from it all as fast as I can.
Hi Neil,
It’s not a bad idea – I’ve read about people who’ve done it.
If I were 20 I am pretty sure I’d just split. Leave the USSA and try someplace else, maybe remote Argentina. Someplace. But we’re fairly stuck now – so I’ll stand my ground as best I can and do what I can with what I’ve got. Maybe it’ll turn out ok. I hope so!
American private wealth dropped 26% during 2008. The restrictions on how you can use your wealth must be astronomical.
US 57 Trillion total
184000 per individual
Japan 35 Trillion total
275000 per individual
Germany 18 Trillion total
220000 per individual
France 16 Trillion total
260000 per individual
Australia 9 Trillion
381000 per individual
Switzerland 4 Trillion
648000 per individual
These countries have infinitely more tangible freedom than Americans, besides more money.
Best of all, they just live their lifes their own ways, not with the zombie eyed, sloganistic, robotic movement affectations you see in a crowd of Americans much of the time.
Sorry bud,
Australia ain’t no place of freedom…..I can attest to that !, by the way here, you can buy land ( mortgage) and then IF you are lucky after 30 years have it paid off , but remember this you can own the first 3 meters that your home sits on , but IF the State finds, gas, coal, gold, iron ore or any others valuable commodity under that 3 meters, then the Government has the right to take your property from you and not pay you a cent !.
Under the land titles act , they can do that, and as for owning a piece of land , well here we pay local government land rates, sure they are much cheaper in the rural areas , but still must be paid all the same, if you refuse to pay them for a few years, then guess what ? again the local council will send you a eviction notice and take you to court to pay for the land rates in arrears and then confiscate the land from you.
So much for owning the land then eh ? even when its paid for lock stock and barrel .
Just like here!
It’s incredible that so many people still believe in the fiction of ownership. It may be the biggest con going.
Most don’t realize it, but prior the “great” FDR, land was held by alodial (sp) title. There was no such thing as real estate taxes.
Eric,
Does that mean we can start singing spirituals? Because I’ve got some great ones, GUARANTEED to offend all the right people!
Hold fire until the moment arrives!
While not about cars, here is a similar story about property rights: the Michigan DNR are threatening to take certain breeds of hogs from farmers without compensation. Some farmers can have their hogs exempt based on a photo of the hog. A photo? Really? Geeze.
From what I understand, the photos will likely be used later to determine which farms need to have follow up inspections to be sure they do not have outlaw hogs.
Talk about expanding bureaucracy and limitless administrative law.
Found the link via SurvivalBlog:
Swarms of Officers
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/michigan-dnr-going-hog-wild.htm?utm_source=FTCLDF+Digest+2012-03-13+March+blast&utm_campaign=Digest+2012-03-15&utm_medium=email
I think Eric beat me to it a while back, but I’ll echo him:
Those people are going to have to learn the “Three S’s”:
Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up
The backyard will soon be subject to drone protection. Soon after that, rocket patrolmen on jet packs.
April DC public meeting on Low Powered Surveillance Equip.(drones)
http://www.cryptome.org/2012/03/faa031312-2.htm
Sooner than you think. They don’t just use them at the border.
There are several police departments who have their own drones.
Who was it that coined the phrase: “tyranny of the masses”.?
I’ve been reading this sight for a while, and I thought I might chime in with a list of, shall we say, observations.
Enjoy
The Rules
1: The world would be a better place if there weren’t so many people trying to make it a better place.
2: The only thing worse than a person who uses a stereotype is a person who justifies one.
3: The most insidious aspect of a bad idea is that there’s always a good reason to implement it.
4: Companies have the right to ask only two questions of any job applicant: “Can you do the job?” and “Will you do the job for what we’re willing to pay?”
5: There are three groups of people who have no respect for the law: Criminals, politicians, and the police.
6: Unions and government are refuges for those who would be unemployable in a free market.
7: There is no surer sign of incompetence than slavish adherence to policy and procedure.
8: Engineer the requirement for precision out of the system.
9: Any place with enough people to require identification cards and credit histories is a dystopia.
10: Fashion is the opposite of beauty.
11: Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not everyone is entitled to a say.
12: The fastest way to sabotage the common good is to focus on it.
13: Rap music is proof that the only one keeping the black man down is the black man himself.
14: Safety is a matter of perspective; Sure, I’m up on the roof without a fall harness, but no one’s shooting at me.
15: My actual right to speak freely trumps your mythical right to not be offended.
16: Either enforce the law or remove it from the legal code; keeping statutes on the books merely for the purpose of having something to charge the guy with is chickenshit of the highest order.
17: There is nothing in the world more tiresome than a Tough Guy.
18: Racists are far less objectionable than racialists because at least to a racist, only some things are about race.
19: I NEVER put milk on cereal. That’s like eating a swamp.
20: If you, as the boss, want me to be passionate about my work, then you don’t get to decide when the argument’s over.
21: The most expensive thing in the world is a privilege.
22: If quality’s on the label, it ain’t in the product.
23: There are two types of corruption: An individual manipulating an otherwise healthy and functional system to enrich himself personally, and an individual knowingly and willingly acting as the enforcer of an unjust system.
24: Words have meaning.
25: Sometimes, violence IS the answer and some people DO have it coming.
26: Never tell people what you’re going to do. Do it and THEN tell them about it.
27: Democracy doesn’t work, the law is an ass and The People is a great beast.
28: The three favorite phrases of totalitarians are “The law is the law,” “I’m just doing my job” and “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
29: There has only ever been one crime in all of human history, regardless of society, time period or cultural values: Getting Caught.
30: Just because the guy’s an asshole doesn’t mean he’s guilty of anything.
31: The philosophical foundation of law and order in a free society is the doctrine of No Harm No Foul – If a man isn’t physically harming anyone or stealing or physically damaging anything, he can do whatever he wants.
32: Prohibition is like a welfare queen – It doesn’t work, it produces nothing but criminals and politicians are afraid to speak against it for fear of being called names.
33: Freedom is the ability to tell anyone, anywhere, at any time, “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me.”
34: Anyone who invokes The Children or Safety as justification for their new law is admitting that they’re resorting to emotional manipulation because they can’t make a rational argument for their totalitarian intent.
35: The cry of the innocent man is, “I didn’t do anything,” while the cry of the guilty man is, “You can’t prove anything.”
36: I can no more “owe” taxes to the state than I can “owe” tribute to the Mafia and yes, they ARE pretty much the same thing.
37: The more someone tells you how “professional” and “respectful” they are, the more likely it is that they spend their time screaming at people and acting like Tough Guys.
38: Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish something because you aren’t an Expert or a Professional, or because you don’t have a degree or certifications or licenses or permits.
39: Doing Great Things and making the rest of the world look bad in the process is the very definition of America.
40: There is no such thing as overpriced or underpriced. Things are worth what you pay for them or sell them for.
41: Your child doesn’t have Autism, he has Lousy Parents.
42: ADD and ADHD are what children, particularly boys, have when they won’t sit still and their parents and teachers don’t want to be bothered dealing with them.
43: The only thing modern Americans hate more than a loser is a winner.
44: Only if the law is unjust is it “not cheating unless you get caught.”
45: Traction and stability control systems should always default to OFF.
46: “IF” is the largest word in the English language.
47: Sometimes it’s more important to know what NOT to do.
48: The law should be completely unconcerned with fairness and entirely preoccupied with justice.
49: The most difficult part of any project is WANTING to do it.
50: Health care can never be free because SOMEONE always has to pay for it and it’s not a right because SOMEONE other than the recipient must provide it.
51: When someone from the inner city calls himself an Entrepreneur, a Producer or an Independent Businessman, it means he’s a Pimp, a Pornographer or a Drug Dealer.
52: I like science fiction, anime, cars and guns, but I’m a FAN of none of these things.
53: Everything in moderation, lest you induce the dreaded Hype Backlash.
53: There’s nothing on God’s green earth that’s so important that it needs to be done at six in the morning.
54: Human society is an illusion because each one of us has a different idea of what the world should be like, and the best we can hope for is that we don’t slaughter each other en masse over something TRIVIAL.
55: Liberty outweighs lives.
56: We do not defer to Experts.
57: If someone’s not your relative or your friend, then they only want your money, or for you to be a foot soldier in the march to their paradise, or both.
58: You can get away with a shaved head and a Tim McGraw beard if you’re black. If you’re white, you look like you’re about to be arraigned on a count of domestic violence.
59: “Boss Was A Dick” is a perfectly legitimate reason for quitting a job.
60: Education and training aren’t the same thing. The purpose of education is to make someone an autonomous individual, while training is intended to make someone a cog in the machine.
61: If food is questionable, then it’s better to throw it out than throw it up.
62: Yes I think that’s funny. I guess that means I’m a horrible person.
63: If you ever want proof that man is a sinful being, just contemplate the fact that you’ll go farther as a Charming Villain than as an Abrasive Hero.
63: All have ego and many have power, but few have authority.
64: There’s no philosophical difference between “Here we go Steelers, here we go!” and “She’s a witch! Burn ‘er!”
65: You always pay full price for something, but maybe not in initial purchase price.
66: As far as driving is concerned, speed doesn’t kill – inattentiveness and lack of skill do. The first gets you into trouble and the second keeps you there.
67: Most of the bad laws in America right now have their origin in a simple three-word phrase: “Our Precious Children.”
68: Don’t tell me not to do something if you aren’t prepared to offer an alternative that at least partially suits both our purposes.
69: Just how much loyalty and dedication do you think $11 an hour buys?
70: Companies apply the same enthusiasm to recruiting that they normally reserve for cleaning the bathroom.
71: A law is unjust if it exists outside the boundaries of No Harm No Foul.
72: Apes, stoners and midgets are inherently hilarious.
73: Regardless of their degree or profession, the real full-time job of most Hispanic people is Being Hispanic.
74: No amount of activism will bring your dead child back.
75: Steel doesn’t boast of being steel; steel simply is.
76: The state seems to serve two purposes: Harassing the citizenry in a thousand picayune ways and then slaughtering them en masse for being bad cattle.
77: Cynicism isn’t the same as intelligence.
78: Frontiers equal freedom.
79: Never apologize; It sets a bad precedent.
80: I have a heartbeat and a conscience, and that’s all the carry permit I need.
81: Do not EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER begin a statement with the words, “I’m Sorry, but…” EVER!
82: Addiction is a choice, not an illness.
83: Man is at his best when he is on his own.
84: When the company hits the skids, loyalty only flows upward.
85: Sensitivity’s not a good thing; just ask the man with a toothache.
86: What is Safe? How do you define Safe?
87: Don’t be competitive. Be superior. Then you don’t have to be competitive.
88: To say a woman is hot is to call her a skank.
89: Your child’s death is a tragedy until you use it as an excuse for social crusading, at which point it becomes a retroactive Serves You Right.
90: Liberalism, Fascism, Socialism and Communism are just different degrees of the same idea.
91: Treat Doing The Right Thing as a bomb: light the fuse and let the chunks fall where they may.
91: Law and Order are not worth any price.
Chris: Though I don’t agree with everything you said, I thought many of your observations were right on.
“41: Your child doesn’t have Autism, he has Lousy Parents.”
Regarding Autism, the more I learn about autism, the more convinced I become that most cases of what is diagnosed as autism today are in reality a stress induced atypical dissociative disorder, as a result of psychological conditioning in a society increasingly brainwashed by the psychotherapy cult controlling it. Brainwashing passed on from generation to generation by people who don’t realize they are brainwashed. Most in our society are increasingly becoming mindless puppets oblivious to the strings controlling us (a far cry from the “rugged individualist” of years past).
Leland,
Thanks for your feedback.
While I believe that Autism is a real condition, I have a special disdain for it as, as you allude to, a Cult Object, because I believe it serves as a ready excuse for a lot of poor parenting. I’m in my mid-thirties and have come to the conclusion that’s it’s probably a damned good thing that human beings don’t have to be worthy of raising children before they’re allowed to procreate, or mankind would’ve gone extinct millenia ago.
So much of what is written off as the unchangeable behavior of a supposedly psychologically-damaged child could be corrected by the back of mom or dad’s hand at the right time.
My standard for disease is this: Can you will it away? I’m prone to depression myself. Not suicidal, but ruin-your-whole-day Eeyore-type bullshit. I’ll never buy the line that Experts try to sell me that I need medication and counseling because I know I can stop being depressed instantly. I just start drawing on writing and in minutes, I’m not depressed anymore.
Because I can will depression away, it’s not a disease. Epilepsy is a disease. Cancer is a disease. Autism is not a disease. Kids, or at least their parents, have full control over their children.
You hear these parents say, “Oh, I can’t control little Billy when he gets like that!” Really? You’re larger, smarter, stronger and faster than little Billy, and you’re supposed to love him. Don’t tell me you can’t control him.
Sorry for the rant. The whole Autism thing just bugs the hell out of me.
I think autism is a catch all for a variety of things. Some of the things I believe to be involved are as follows:
Chemical and biological damage caused by modern “medicine”. The large number of vaccines is an uncontrolled medical experiment on children. The more I learn about how vaccines are produced and how they work the risk/reward for anyone let alone children is suspect. Certainly not worth it in the present volumes. Some things are probably worth the risk many are not.
Environment and food. Kids are not exposed to enough good old fashioned dirt and the food is often a chemical industrial product that could have unknown effects on children (and adults). Again this is an uncontrolled experiment. The establishment, like the with the vaccines, simply denies it. They haven’t done any of the scientific background work but we are supposed to just trust them. Blindly. Because they are ‘experts’ and ‘authorities’.
Conditioning and other forms of mental/emotional shaping. This is the damage done largely by the schools. The schools are far worse today than in the past. Given what the schools do and are designed to do, mental and emotional damage is a given. How it manifests in some children is going to be different than some others. Of course the system denies this viewing children (and adults) as fungible human resources.
And then of course as you mention, parenting and upbringing.
Autism as a disease should be restricted to the damage done by the government medicine, food, and schools. However like many other things a dis-service is done to the truly suffering by greatly expanding the definition.
As to depression, for some people it is not so easy, but we are agreed that chemicals are not the answer. However the medical cartel which we are subjected to is based upon chemical treatment. I believe the source of much depression to be the artificial (structurally speaking, not that we build stuff) society in which we live. It’s inhuman and is going to cause problems in people. My cure for depression is not going to work for a week. After about a 4 days not experiencing the corporate world I start to feel much better.
BrentP,
Yeah, I agree.
Have you noticed that Autism isn’t one specific thing, but rather a nebulous “position” somewhere on a vast, poorly-defined spectrum of possible conditions, that it manifests itself differently in each person, and that only an Expert can properly diagnose it?
I’m not chambering a SCAM round to fire at the drug-and-knives community, but if it walks like a duck…
I really do enjoy these discussions of all that’s wrong with the world, but I think what might be a good thing is to try to focus on something more upbeat.
So I’m going to try a topic shift.
Why is cross-manufacturer engine-chassis swapping considered a bad thing in the car guy universe? I’ve had this great idea for years about converting a 2003 Grand Am GT to rear-wheel drive and stuffing a Nissan RB26 and 5-speed into it…
Yeah, I like the way that car looks.
Put down the pitchfork.
Hey Chris,
Nothing wrong with it at all – Frankenstein cars are cool!
I have a friend down the road who has an older RX7 into which he has slipped a complete last generation Corvette suspension and (up front) a worked Ford small block V-8!
The thing looks stock, other than the larger-than-factory wheels/tires… but could just be a set of aftermarket rims, common enough. No one would guess it’s a whole Corvette IRS in there!
Much less the 302 HO up front….
It’s just a brand loyalty thing. Plus stuff just doesn’t want to line up right from other makes.
When you stay within the same manufacturer a lot of stuff just works because of the nature of product engineering to reuse as much as possible.
I recently stumbled onto a forum thread about some guy who was putting a Ford 32V V8 from an SN95 mustang cobra into a late 60s torino. There were all kinds of of little things that just fit.
I’ve experienced the same thing when in a pinch I’ve had to use parts from fords decades apart in manufacture. Just little things, nothing major, but little things can end up being a lot of work in a major swap.
When undertaking a major swap all those little things. Bits of linkage, electrical plugs, and so are going to become problems that need solving. Not impossible but simply more challenging and time consuming. Requiring more research, etc and so on just to get things working right.
Sometimes the mismatch IS the fun. Try dropping a Mercedes OM617 5-banger diesel into a Toytoa SR5 pickup. It WILL fit, and there’s even an aftermarket (obviously) bracket adapter, but you have to pair it up with a Borg-Warner 5-speed, which in turn you’ll have to get a Benz driveshaft and have a shop weld it to the Toyota truck shaft. The advantage of this Frankensteinian contraption? A decent diesel, since none of the few 22R-based diesels are left!
On autism:
Amen – to both what you and Brent wrote.
Our society is so unnatural, the natural reaction of a child to it (especially a sensitive child) might be to retreat into himself as a defense mechanism. Note especially, the hyper-structured, over-organized, conformity demanding, completely scripted experience that childhood is becoming… and not merely childhood. Even toddlers are barraged with “activities” that are arguably unnatural and detrimental to normal development. My own belief is that a child needs peace and quiet, time to assimilate all this new information – that chaos is profoundly destructive.
I think we may be peoducing “hot house” human beings. That is to say human beings raised in an environment that is so perfect and controlled that the people subjected to it are as fragile and useless as rare orchids. The constant insistance on keeping your kids safe from everything comes to mind.
My own theory is that kids need dirt…
I’m not saying to throw the kids into the woods for a few years and see who makes it. But the constant from-the-cradle control that I see just can’t be good for the kids creativity and initiative.
Simpatico!
My generation (Gen X) is probably the last generation that grew up in the pre-“safety” era. I remember during the summers, being told by my parents to “go outside and do something” – and come back for supper. No over-the-top supervision; no helmets. Just use your imagination and have some fun. Did someone occasionally get hurt? Sure. That’s life. You learn from it. Insulating kids from everything (trying to) and conveying to them that the world is an “unsafe” place is a shitty mind-fuck to impose on them, sez me.
I can see this evidenced in today’s adolescents compared to myself, then myself compared to the generations that came before.
My dad does commercial property maintenance and landscaping. He used to hire the neighborhood kids from time to time just to give them a taste of the working world. In almost every case, these kids flat out cannot handle being taken out from in front of the XBox and made to do manual labor. Many don’t make it past lunch time, let alone come back the next day. It damn near kills them.
I’ll turn 30 this year; out of shape and could stand to lose probably 30 pounds, but I’ll get out and spend Saturday and Sunday in the yard on a regular basis. But it really kicks my butt. I grew up in the city and other than a couple weekends a month at my dad’s cabin cutting wood and riding three-wheelers lived the typical city-boy existence. I’ve worked since I was 16 but it was always retail. Didn’t play sports in high schol. Never did too much that was real strenuous.
A couple months ago I had my aunt come over and help me dig some rhododenrons out of my yard that she wanted to transplant at her cabin. She ended up bringing my grandfather, which I wasn’t too happy about because he’s been having heart trouble. Anyways we get the rhodys out of the ground, wrap the root balls, and drag them over to the pickup truck. Came time to lift them up into the bed so we positioned them and got on each side ready to lift, 1, 2, 3….he lifted the damned thing straight up out of my hands! It had to weigh 150 pounds.
This is a man who was born during and grew up in the immediate aftermath of the Depression and WWII. They grew much of their own food. They worked at jobs when they were eleven years old that today would get CPS called on their parents and OSHA on their employers. I took it slow thinking I was going to have to support the weight he couldn’t handle and almost ended up on my face.
He’s 75 years old and I feel like I have to keep up with him in the yard! It makes me feel like half a man, but he’s conditioned to it in a way that I never was. Most of the rest of my generation is the same way. We don’t know how to do anything. I just replaced the cartridges in my kitchen faucet and it was a personal victory for me. It took a Phillips screwdriver and a 5/8″ wrench, that’s all.
And the younger kids are even worse. Maybe it’s just the kids I know; there aren’t a lot of dads in the lives of the young people in my area. That’s a big part of why I don’t know how to do anything. But it’s going to be different for my boy. Now I’m motivated to learn all of these things so I can teach him.
New water pump and oil pan and valve cover gaskets going in the Ranger next weekend! Would do it this weekend but it’s snowing in mid-March in Seattle. Hopefully that stops the leak. I hear the rear main seal in that 3.0L motor is notorious for leaking, hope its not that….
Part of this is the spread of suburban-inanity… I’ve noticed a big difference where we live now vs. where we used to live. Here – rural SW Va. – the kids still do stuff; manual work, fixing things – it’s part of the culture and the country life. But where we used to live, it was entirely different. Xboxes and sail fawns. Very little interest in doing – much interest in watching and talking.
I’m convinced this is one of the synergistic factors accounting for the decline of American individualism. People who learn to rely on others for almost everything become passive in outlook. Many come to fear – and even actively dislike – people who aren’t passive. The end result, regardless, is the now-typical modern American: A “team player” who supinely does as he’s told, whose passions are all second-hand and vicarious. Celebrity obsession; sports worship. Lots of TeeVee. When something breaks – call someone. Write a check. Go back to watching TeeVee. Return. Repeat cycle.
@rooney:
Amen sir! Despite living deep inside Houston, we’re subjecting our kids to as much dirt, sun, and open air as possible. Today I was mowing the lawn and changing the oil in my car, while my six-year-old daughter rode her bicycle up and down the street. Without a helmet! OMG! The Horror!
She’s fine. The boy–nine months old–sat in a pile of mulch, organic fertilizer (seed meal, kelp, etc), and good old dirt. Had the time of his short life! Shoveled that stuff around, got some mulch in his mouth (spat that RIGHT out), and he’s sleeping peacefully in the next room.
Both of them hardly ever get sick, and when they do it’s minor. They’re not vaccinated. I simply make sure they get enough sunshine, or enough supplemental vitamin D, plenty of free-range organic chicken and organic veggies, and ample sleep.
They won’t suffer the fussy goddamned neurotic little allergies, asthmas, and constant, chronic illnesses that their over-coddled classmates get–and they get them, I’m convinced, because their poor immune systems have been hammered by the adjuvants in the endless series of hysterical vaccines they’re given, the poison in their foods, and the slatherings of sunscreen they’re given for the walk between the car and the classroom.
Spot on, Eric. The rigidly structured, controlling, coercive, conformist child-raising practices of today are the natural result of the last several generations of adults adopting the “it’s all about ME” attitude. Children have become “breeding trophies,” to be brought into the world, then ignored by self-absorbed, self-centered “parents” who can’t be bothered with raising their offspring. I’m only surprised that more kids haven’t become criminal psychopaths as a result of all of this institutional neglect and abuse.
92)98 0/0 of all statistics are bull shit
93) An exert ceases to be an expert when you ask him a question that he doesn’t have an answer to.
94) when you’re in a room full of people,and you don’t know who the patsy is,the patsy is YOU!
This man’s a hero, a true patriot. The only thing I can take refuge in knowing is that actually it is not the FEDs who own it, but God owns it all and some day sooner or later He’s going to come back and find out who’s been a good steward of what is not theirs. (a parable) And then he will slay those wicked servants who acted presumptuously.
@ Stilo…
I won’t denigrate anyone’s personal faith or their right to share it with people who want to listen. My problem is the concept of Godly revenge against arbitrarily “bad” people and the rewarding of the arbitrarily “good”.
I don’t see much benefit to trading to trading an oligarchy for a theocracy.
I think it’s called “tyranny”!
Ham radio operators go through this all the time. It’s become an unnecessary challenge to get on the air with a “stealth” antenna.
http://www.eham.net/articles/26775
Been through that as a radio operator, live near an airport, really adds to the hassle factor, not only from the county, but from the FAA & FCC. Then I got a big 8′ satellite dish back in the 80’s, I live deep in the woods, so no one sees mine and there is no HOA in my subdivision, but the city folk who live in the newer subdivisions with all of those CC&R’s with the HOA, got hassled all the time. FCC did finally defend our right to have a big dish, but it was a bloody battle for the big dish market and the smaller dish won the war because of their smaller visual footprint.
This unfortunate fellow is guilty of nothing more than making a dollar from which the government was not able to remove 40 cents. That’s what this is all about.
Contrary to what Clover believes, this has nothing to do with property values and everything to do with the star-spangled Cosa Nostra not getting its tribute, excuse me, I meant tax revenues.
In my state a private individual can sell up to four cars a year. That individual must of course pay tax on each and every one of those cars, but once you cross the magic number of five, you become a dealer and need to pony up $750 for the license and must bleed $250 annually to retain the privilege. You also suddenly need commercial zoning, exterior signage, and eight hours of state-approved training.
I know Clover, I know, it’s all in the name of safety. Because nobody was ever screwed over by a dealer who pays state licensing and is zoned commercially and properly signed and educated by the state. In practice though this kind of law is designed to prevent a guy from making a few bucks on the side buying up wrecked and serially-neglected cars and breathing life back into them.
The big winners are the large dealers who can afford to hurdle the barriers of entry that they likely lobbied the state for in the first place. Such a familiar story.
Wrecked car? Nah… need a license to buy them from the insurance yards these days. At least in the state I live in. No auto repair license, not even allowed in to place a bid/offer.
Safety and laziness and illusion. The clover-american doesn’t want to check out the car he is buying so he wants the illusion of safety from the government. It’s not like licensed dealers haven’t sold cars washed through three states to hide damage and shoddy repairs or anything….
Can’t even buy a wrecked car without state approval? Good lord I didn’t think it was that bad…
In Va., it’s a local “it depends” issue. Where we used to live, there were “ordinances” (and HOAs) that disallowed one from parking an unregistered car on one’s property – even under cover and even (in some case) in one’s own garage. It’s among the many reasons why we no longer live there. If I wanted to, I could park 50 cars in my field – and shoot them from time t time with one of my guns, too. It’s much better here in The Sticks!
We have a Property Owners Association and it’s kind of like a HOA. Very similar rules/regulations, and I live in the middle of nowhere too!
Man, that sucks! A big part of being far off the grid is being away from that shitz.
We don’t have any of that here – and neighbors are almost a non-issue because of the space between houses. I do wish we could pick up our house and put it square in the middle of our 16 acres; instead, it’s sort of off to the right so we have one neighbor – but she’s a nice old lady and anyhow, one day I hope we can snatch up that three acres to add to our spread. Then we’ll have a decent little fief here!
I believe it is still ok to do private party, just not from an insurance yard where the good stuff would be in most cases.
There’s another way I think and that is to buy in another state and not register the car until it is fixed or just don’t tell the SoS it is a wrecked car. I’ve seen out of state yard auctioning off wrecked Boss 302s and GT500s online.
I have found every insurance yard in this state requires an auto repair license to bid on the cars. I doubt the insurance companies are turning down cash just for giggles. Maybe it’s a lawyer thing but ultimately one way or another it goes back to ‘the law’.
A friend of mine bought a car from a dealer who did not tell him it had been a flood damaged vehicle. He took it out one very cold afternoon, and, going around a corner, the steering rack literally “froze” solid (due to the water inside the rubber? covering) and he went over the edge and met his maker. He bought the car because he felt the state “regulated” dealers to make sure that everything they sold was safe. Yeah, right.
Terrible.
And proves the point.
Has licensing eliminated scuzzy (or just incompetent) contractors? Quack doctors? Etc?
Of course not. But it has given the clovers a false sense of security – and imposed needless costs on everyone else for their sake.
I guess he should have bought a CarFax report (if the dealership didn’t provide him with one as part of the sale). AFAIK, these have a very high, if not perfect, reliability rate. At least I haven’t yet been burned by one.
Cash, trade, and barter….wonderful concepts….
“the star-spangled Cosa Nostra”
Terrific!
Reminds me of a buddy of mine in Northern Virginia (the People’s Republic of Fairfax County). He was in the tree business for over 25 years. Although he kept his truck, chipper, and stumper in the back yard, no neighbors had ever complained. Then some guy from a few blocks away was cited for some violation and got upset, so he went through the entire neighborhood and reported all “violations” to the county Gestapo. The county would not even listen to my friend. It didn’t matter that all of his neighbors were perfectly happy. He had to close down his totally harmless business, because it didn’t comply with the diktats of the commissars. Oh yeah, private property really does still exist in the USSA. That’s United Soviet States of America, for all Clovers who might read this.
So it is Mike in Spotsylvania, Virginia. I live in Front Royal, and work in Centreville.
Hello, fellow Virginian. I like Front Royal, and Centreville was pretty neat until it fell within the orbit of DC. Kinda suspect now. lol
I live in Spotsy County and work for a private company in Crystal City. Luckily, I telecommute most days.
I’m not sure my friend’s business would have survived here in Spotsy either under the circumstances. Almost makes me want to cry, until it pisses me off enough to snarl instead.
I’m lucky enough to telecommute on Fridays each week and even more when the weather is bad, or I have things to do. I work right across from Lifetime Fitness gym, so I walk there at lunch. I love that place! Anyhow, I swore back in 1996 when my dad got stationed at Quantico I’d never come back up to Northern Virginia, but I did. Got my degree down at ODU and couldn’t find jack shit that paid enough. Here I sit on a mountain in Front Royal pondering things..
Gentlemen,
A coincidence.
I live in Herndon (formerly Centreville 6 months ago) and commute to Vienna.
Dom, do you live on Blue Mountain near Linden? Or possibly on the mountain where the Cherokee Ski Resort used to be located?
Another!
I grew up in Vienna; went to Oakton High. Lived in Sterling before I got married; now we’re out in SW Va., about 40 miles from Roanoke up in the mountains, two miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Similar to Dom’s layout – only farther from the blast radius. But he has water nearby (above ground) while we don’t being on top of the ridgeline. But there’s plenty underneath our feet!
I’m on Blue Mountain. My house is located right on the very edge of state maintained roads. 50 yards of my main road is not state maintained. So in the winter we line up with snow blowers/atvs/pickup trucks/shovels and make things happen. I love it here. Sometimes on the weekends I’ll count the cars that go by in a day. Usually I get up to a five count, but never more than 10!
Dom, I really considered moving to the western part of the Communist-wealth when I moved away from Tidewater. If I’d been persistent, an opening would have probably come up in the power company. But I kept on going clear out to Missour-uh (The Outlaw Josie Wales, a dear friend from Poplar Bluff and the legend of the James brothers may have had more than a little do with that). Now that I’ve seen so many of my fellow Virginians write so poignantly in near perfect harmony with many of my beliefs, I’m reconsidering my decision…somewhat.
Out here we have already passed the castle doctrine into law, we can buy as many handguns as we want each month and are allowed to carry them in our glove compartments or consoles with no CCP. Do you ever wonder why the initials for Concealed Carry Permit come so close to CCCP (for all you kids, that’s USSR in Russian Cyrillic). I have seen where Virginia may be doing away with the one- gun-a-month club soon; good riddance. Unfortunately, the wages in the Kansas City area are about as high (cost of living to income ratio) as you will get in my line of work. I’d have to get a really sweet offer to bring me back east. Besides which, there’s still this little matter of the ubiquitous Va. State Police. I have never forgotten being pulled over for “driving too good”. If that happened to me now, the outcome might be less than desirable.
Virginia isn’t too bad. I can hop on Rt. 50 and shoot off into the mountains of West Virginia on my motorcycle. I didn’t know this for a long time, but there are some freaking awesome road all through the mountains out there. I’d bet some of the best on the east coast. Virginia Beach isn’t bad either. The cops actually did a lot of good (amazing I know) down there cleaning out the riffraff that once infested it.
Another point of intersection, dom. I was stationed at Quantico in 1975-76 for OCS and The Basic School, and then again in 1984-85 for Amphibious Warfare School. Funny that on the 2 days a week that I commute to Crystal City, the train passes right through my company area from OCS. My old barracks is gone, but the drill field and the obstacle course are still there in all their glory.
Now that I realize what the Marine Corps is really all about (see Smedley Butler’s “War Is a Racket”), I don’t feel that great about having been a part of it. Can’t change the past though.
Warm greetings to all fellow Virginians. And Boothe, your decision doesn’t seem to be a bad one. As long as you’re happy where you are. btw, the only contact I’ve had with the VA State Police was a polite one, where I was going into a Chipotle and held the door for a trooper who was coming out. He nodded and said, “Thank you, sir”. I almost fainted. lol
I think that’s five of us now…!
Ahh… These posts make me wax nostalgic.
I was born in Mt. Airy (before it became the hideously repugnant faux Mayberry) and used to do the springtime dance up and down the Parkway. I was on my brand new CL-450. It was the only other brand new vehicle I’ve ever owned other than my current Sporty. I’m not sure what the fact that the only two brand new vehicles I’ve ever owned in my life have been motorcycles says about me. I’d sure love to cruise on the Parkway again though.
I’ve even toyed with the idea of moving back east once I’m a true empty nester. It would good to be closer to family.
Even here in my little southern Colorado town the spectre of cloverism is trying to raise it’s ugly head. I’m starting to detect whiffs of collectivist stench. It might take a while to migrate out in the county where I am but I really don’t care for that particular fragrance. And I have a pasture right across the road…HAH.
If I came back east, I suppose I could hide in a holler somewhere. I’ve gotten pretty good at the whole “grey man” ethos.
It sucks that it’s getting to the point in this country that you have to search for places that will let you be free.(More or less-;p)
Regarding the poor guy in Florida…
It seems to me that the petty tyrants who seem to feel so safe behind their costumed enforcers might want to consider the consequences of dealing with a person with nothing left to lose.
Just say’in……
Bet this get’s me on the “list”…
I don’t live in VA but I spent many summers there during grad school and I can tell you that me loves the Shenandoah Valley and the river that flows thru it. So many days I spend day dreaming about fishing the river for smallmouth. Gotta get back up there for a float some day.
I’m enduring Lorton VA now. I have lived in Fredericksburg and Colonial Beach before that.
I hope in a few years my employment and family situation will change so that I can escape. For the time being I have to tough it out. I get out to the country whenever I can though.
Lorton… yup, memories!
We lucked out. My situation – self-employed – and the timing (before the real estate market flushed itself) made it possible for us to flee NoVa and settle out here. If we’d stayed in Sterling, we’d be stuck now, too. I hope you’re not stuck for too long…
I lived in Centreville, PSDRNoVA, for nearly four years until moving to rural Southeastern Arizona six years ago. I could see where it was probably once a decent area to live in, but I wouldn’t go back there now if you pointed a loaded shotgun at my head.
Frederick County, here.
If Dom and I climbed to the top of a nearby mountain, we could probably wave to each other. 😮
That’s infuriating – but not unfamiliar.
I have a similar story. It’s not quite as bad because a person’s livelihood wasn’t destroyed. Just his hobby.
In our old neighborhood, there was a nice older guy who lived in a house up the block. He was a widower and lived by himself. This guy really liked old F100 trucks from the late 1960s. He kept three or four of them, some running some not. He had a high fence all around his yard; the trucks were kept in the backyard and impossible to see unless you climbed the fence or were invited by him to come see them in the backyard.
Everything was fine for years. Then some frau – a local busybody who spent her days driving around the neighborhood looking for HOA violations – found out about the trucks and reported them to the HOA. They descended on the quiet, friendly old guy who loved his trucks and threatened him with large fines and worse to come if he did not get the “unregistered vehicles” removed.
I felt so bad for the guy I wanted to kick something.
I suggest the frau that could not mind her own business. It is a shame when you can not MYOB, especially about something that is not harming anyone.
EVERYONE has some dirt on them, you might have to look a little harder, but the FRAU certainly would have… I remember a busy-body some years ago who was the biggest gossip in the community, until someone started gossiping about her husband’s affairs, and then her affairs – it almost broke up the community in tears – laughing so hard…
I wish I had the resources for something like that. Moralizing busybodies are the worst; it’s no coincidence they’re so often uncovered for disgusting or hypocritical conduct of one kind or another…
Rick Scrotorum springs to mind.
Everything was fine for years. Then some frau – a local busybody who spent her days driving around the neighborhood looking for HOA violations – found out about the trucks and reported them to the HOA.
Die Schlampe you describe here wouldn’t live very long after doing something like this if Clovers weren’t the majority. But then again, of course, if Clovers weren’t the majority, neither HOAs nor municipal busybody ordinances would exist.
I remember when I was in court for another matter.
A land owner was given a $200+ fine for not mowing his lawn and allowing his grass to get too high.
Long story short: A neighbor complained to the town (after complaining to the neighbor) and the town dragged the non-grass mower to court. Non-grass cutter was fined and promised to keep the grass short (or else face worse consequences).
May I never have to deal with the courts on BS matters again.
One of the reasons why we’re here and no longer there!
I got sick of dealing with leaf-shitter overflow from the front “yard” – which is a couple acres of grass with mature oaks spread around. So last year, I just decided to stop mowing that area and let it revert back to nature, my idea being that tall grass and so on would serve as an effective wind break and leaf-shitter catcher.
If I did that in Northern Va., I’d be in the clink already!
Eric,
I just remembered something you might like. I grew up in a nice suburb of a shall-remain-nameless city and the town had a major hard-on for property ordinances, one of which stated the the address number had to be clearly visible on the street side of the house.
During his rounds, one of the town’s rookie cops ticketed the police chief’s house by mistake for not having any numbers. Kid didn’t know it was the chief’s house.
Now, I went to school with the chief’s son (real asshole, by the way) and I had never met the chief, but by all accounts he was a stand up guy. So he say yup, the law’s the law, gotta put up house numbers.
He painted a 4×8 sheet of plywood bright white with brush-rolled numbers and nailed it to the front porch.
You could practically see it from space.
In the wake of that incident, the local council, in typical state fashion, came to the wrong conclusion. The passed and ordinance specifying size limits for house number signs.
But when even THE POLICE CHIEF thinks the law is full of shit…
Hilarious – and sad.
It’s stuff like this that helped push us to flee Northern Va. to relocate in the rural SW portion of the state. Now that we’ve been here for about eight years, we wish we’d gone even deeper into the hinterlands (and bought more land). We have 16 acres, with a 100-plus acre farm behind us and to the side. I wish we had 200 acres and our house in the center of it!
Hah.. here in MY county they’ve decided the weedpatch in MY backyard, 85% a tall, non-native and invasive apscies of grass, must NOT be mowed. tough… I’m highlyb allergic to the stuff, and have launched a campaign to kill it off. I’ve learnt that screeening it from sunlight for a month and a half KILLS it. All manner of things have been pressed into service to block the sunlight… old green carpet works best. Stacks of lumber, playing musical cars….. soon enough it will all be dead. They they can’t tell me not to mow it, cause it won’t exist to mow. When they wonder what happened to it, will, it IS non-native, isn’t it? Must not have been too well suited to this environment. so sad, too bad….. stupid people.
What amazes me is that so many local governments, my county included, are cutting necessary services due to tax shortfalls. We have lost half our cops, but goons still roam about looking for things to nick us over…… its not that there’s too little money coming in, its too much going out, for the wrong things. I’ll bet Mr. Biel costs the county many times any fines, fees, taxes they could have collected had they left him alone to scratch out his living. At least he was TRYING to make it, not just holding his hand out for the gubmint to fill. Now they be fillin his gullet, all right, and looking to tax othes to do so. Stupid people. Nice to know the way Broward County goons think. He ought to fun for county commissioner when he gets out. Pound some sense into the local county regs.
It sounds like what you need to deal with that grass is to set up a decent spread of ground cover plants. Those choke off other growth for their own advantage in just that way, by shading them (and some also drop leaf litter that poisons other plants). Unfortunately you may need to lay down dark plastic around them to help them get started, because that grass may already be using the same trick.
water it ith boiling water a couple of times,this will kill it don to the roots and is untraceable.
even better…salt the whole patch.
buy some rock salt and place it down. water it. weeds will die from the salinity in the soil.
Except then you won’t be able to grow ANYTHING there. Boiling water doesn’t leave lasting soil damage.
Holy smokes! “They” might be coming for me before too long! I have a bunch of motorized units on my property too! EXCEPT I pay the man money on shit I’ve already paid for. So, I guess that gets me off the hook. You’d think, but I still owe the man for the two state inspections that are missing on my two trucks, shit! I still pay property tax on my 1982 El Camino! If I don’t pay they will point a gun and me and kidnap me! The car is over 30 years old. I’ve paid in taxes on it more than I’ve paid for the entire car.
Tough. We need more money so you must give us more money. We do not want to hear any sob stories, just get the money to us.
The ironic thing is that I regularly see vehicles with over due inspection tags, sometimes several years over due. How they continue to drive is amazing to me. If I did that, I would probably be found out within a few days of missing registration and be sent to jail.
Gov’t is so inefficient that it can be frightening at times.
If you know and are able to avoid the safety stops I’m sure that eliminates 90% or your chances of getting caught. I don’t drive either one of those truck often. One maybe 200 miles a year, the other maybe 2,000.
“I still pay property tax on my 1982 El Camino!”
Dom, I think if you take it off the blocks, get the sleeping bag out of the back seat and build a campfire to cook on instead of roasting weenies on the valve covers, you can contest the property taxes.
The only way to escape is to disappear the car. And the only way I know to do this is to never title it in the first place. You buy it, have the old title signed over – but you never go to the DMV to get a new one in your name. This way, the bastards don’t know you have it. No need to register it or insure it, either. Of course, the downside is you can’t legally drive it. But if it’s a project car or an almost-never-used antique then this is the way to go. I am sick to death of constantly having to open my wallet to these bastards. Soon they’ll impose a tax on every breath we take, too.
Funny you should write this just now. I just now finished reading “How to Gum Up Any Institution” by Gary North, from today’s LRC mail. I’ll let you read it if you’re so inclined, but he talks about using the system’s own rules to dilute its power. It’s an interesting read!
To wit: What if everybody did as you recommend? That is, everyone who buys a car from a private party does not get a new title. Can you imagine?
What is the DMV gonna do? They have no club to hit the seller over the head with, to force him to I.D. the car’s buyer so they can go after the buyer. They could (and probably would) come up with one; when the car’s previous owner’s registration expires they could mail him a notice, “Renew or provide details on the buyer or your insurance will be cut off.” Then the seller says, fine, I’ll self insure on collision and play the odds that I don’t T-bone anybody, screw you.
Think the insurance companies would go along with that?
On the buyer’s end, the bureaucracy catches up with you and kvetches about no registration, and you implement one of the rules that Clark posted last night. You say, “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me.” Wh-wh-what???
Can you dig it? Thousands and thousands of cars on the road with no registration, no property taxes — all of the owners just disregarding the rules, self insuring. Just DRIVING THEIR CARS.
Wow!
Gail, that is PRECISELY what every one of us needs to do: lose the fear, refuse to comply, and laugh at The State while we’re doing it.
The Political Class is NOT going to hand us back our liberties; it’s too lucrative for them. If we want liberty, it’s up to us to take it back.
@Gail–
I read that Gary North “gumming up the works” article too, and it’s inspired me tremendously! I’m coming up with all kinds of nasty little tricks to play on them.
Yours is great; screw those mealy-mouthed little maggots at the DMV, it’s MY car and I’ll drive it when I want!
This story reminds me kinda about the homeowner whose house burned down while the city FD stood there watching it do so, all because the guy didn’t pay his $75 fee. If FD had been a private business they most likely would have accepted the cash he offered to pay on the spot to get them to put it out. Instead the city had to prove a point: no one who opts out will get fire protection, from anyone. So pay up, Mundanes, or else!
Should people follow natural law or Roman law, Clover? Do you even know the difference?
Are you kidding? Clover can barely construct a coherent sentence! Behold the latest gem:
“It is called a loss of property value to the neighbors if you have a nice home next door to a junk yard with a nice place for rats and mice and other varmints.”
Doesn’t the cadence of it remind you of Lennie from Of Mice and Men?
But, Eric, Clover must be brilliant. He managed to penetrate the epautos defensive perimeter and tossed a stink grenande.
Nah, not really. The guy watching the door sometimes let’s him through, so any new guests can see. I’m guilty! Every few days I let something through just to do it. Clover nails the site daily with many many posts. I’d estimate we use to let 1 out of every 20 posts through. Now we let 1 out of every 50. I do let him cut loose on clovercam though. After all that site was inspired by him!
Even with fine-mesh screens up, a couple of gnats always manage to get in the house….
I didn’t see Clover’s argument in the thread?
It does have to do with loss of property value. Somebody should have put up a fence. The same thing happened to me a few years ago and “the other guy” didn’t want to share the cost of a fence. Didn’t matter to him. I had my parts cars in a shed, he put all of his *right on the property line*. Mind you, he had 26 acres and could have put them anywhere, he was actually *trying* to piss me off.
There is such a thing as malicious assholery. It does happen.
I should mention that he had shed envy. He came over right after I put up my first wrecked 928 turbo and said “So! I see you’ve started your collection!” I thought it was a friendly gesture but he just got darker and darker after that. It’s been almost 30 years now and we don’t talk to each other anymore. He doesn’t even pick up the phone. That’s what Caller ID did for us 🙂
I don’t think stacking parts cars on your neighbor’s lot line is a good plan. I’m a car guy and I *still* wouldn’t do that to my neighbor. Come on folks, we have an obsession that isn’t even shred by our own kind to that extent.
“shared” not “shred”
Don’t sweat the typos – I can’t type, either – what matters is coherence of thought!
Should have read “924 turbo” not “928”.
At what point does this ‘what you do on your property and contained on your property has a negative effect on property values’ logic end?
Children are often loud and annoying to be close to. And noise is a very real thing that crosses over property lines unlike a parked car. Does a neighbor having children reduce another person’s property value? Sure. There are potential buyers who don’t want to live near children. Reducing the buying pool reduces the value.
These nebulous ‘it reduces my property value’ arguments are is just arbitrary things people don’t like and can socially get away with turning into laws.
We will never see the laws on children because socially it won’t work. Least not yet. Although some HOAs have done it. But old cars? In this consumer and looks driven society… certainly. But the old car doesn’t make noise or smells. It just sits there.
Then there is the need to kid proof one’s own property because the neighbor’s kids might wonder over and hurt themselves.
As to a neighbor intentionally trying to piss someone off? For something silent that just sits there on his side of the line it’s about letting it bother you. I’m not bothered by junk so doing something like that wouldn’t work on me so would an asshole neighbor bother? probably not.
Brent, as always, you just saved me some time!
We used to live under just such a regime in our old cul-de-sac neighborhood. Only worse, because in addition to having kids next door, these kids were enthusiastic players of cRap “music,” gnomesayin’? There would be, at all hours, the neighbor’s two teenage sons, plus at least a couple of their friends, standing around their cars, smoking cigs and playing dey moosik. Now, I knew these kids, and they were ok – but they looked like thugs. The cRap provided the necessary auditory accompaniment.
Well, bad enough that we had to live with it – but then, when we were trying to sell our house…
On at least one occasion, I actually saw a realtor with his clients turn into the cul-de-sac, then immediately turn back out – his clients having see “the boys” standing sulkily just feet away from our driveway and clearly wanting nothing to do with that.
But as you say, society reveres “the children” – so there’s no law against property value-killing teenage thugs. But some old car? Forget about it!
Malicious assholes do exist.
I try not to be a dick – just as you do. I would not park an old junker right on my property line, or build a huge statue of Ozymandias with glowing red eyes right in my front yard. Most people try to do the same.
As for the occasional malicious asshole:
As tempting as it is to think, “if only there were a law” (or worse, “there ought to be a law”) government is almost invariably worse than one malicious asshole. A single asshole, without the authority of the state behind him, can only do you so much harm. And you can retaliate in kind, or at least, defend yourself. But an asshole from the government, with the backing of the state behind him, can literally destroy you. If you defend yourself or resist in any way, you’re a criminal.
I’d rather deal with the malicious asshole on my own. It’s cheaper and usually more effective. Let me give you a real-world example (I’ve told this story here before):
We had a noise problem with the people who own the land opposite us. Mind, this is the country and we have 16 acres, they have seven or eight, so a lot of distance between houses. Despite this, their kid’s cRap music could be felt over here. Boom, Boom, Boom. You know the monotonous bass sound of this scheisse. Well, we tried the nice route – explaining we could hear it and maybe they didn’t realize and could they please turn it down? Didn’t work. What did work was me firing up my diesel tractor at 10 pm, driving it right to the edge of our property line, pointing the high beams at their place and turning the throttle to high .. and leaving the thing there to run all goddamn night if need be. Hitler speeches and polka music blaring from speakers would have been next. They stood down. The cRap stopped. We’ve been at peace ever since.
“What did work was me firing up my diesel tractor at 10 pm, driving it right to the edge of our property line, pointing the high beams at their place and turning the throttle to high .. and leaving the thing there to run all goddamn night if need be.”
🙂 Now that makes me happy!
I agree with you completely. Never involve the State in a personal dispute, your solution was, in my opinion, excellent. Always engage people respectfully if you have a dispute and try to resolve it without resorting to force of any kind. In my example, I was successful convincing my neighbors wife (who was a reasonable woman) to get him to move the cars but a year later she divorced him (for reasons best left to the reader’s imagination) and for a time he moved them back until a real estate agent engaged in selling my property had a sale go bad when her client’s 7 year old son drew attention to the cars.
The real solution is to not piss off your neighbor in the first place. I try to follow this rule and as a devout car guy, I encourage all my friends to do the same.
BTW –
If this happens to you, I’ve found a subtle blend of urine and hydrochloric acid (pool grade works fine) will not only take the paint off cars but also cut holes right through sheet metal.
Bummer. Now that you’ve written about it it’s a trick you can never use.
But thanks for sharing!
🙂
Uh, the former was a joke. Professional driver. Closed course. Do NOT attempt this at home.
sir,
that FD case in no way is the same as what happened here. that home owner had a full year to pay his $75 fee so that the FD would go beyond its normal limits and put out a fire. he refused to pay the fee, however, his neighbor paid the fee.
the FD did not accept his fee on the spot for good reason, and they shouldn’t have. that fee was the same thing as buying insurance. imagine if it were possible to not buy any insurance until right before an accident struck, even only seconds before? no one would buy it, and most would wait until they are in a fix to purchase it. it’d be like trving to buy health insurance after you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. only a fool would sell it to you.
Rick,
That is a straw-man argument. Health insurance companies don’t offer insurance after the fact because the risks of future payouts are too high, not because they are trying to uphold some principle. In contrast, gubmint is not only motivated to hold out service on principle but, most importantly, can afford to do so because they possess the power of taxation. Private companies do not have this power and so would never hold out. Instead, they would charge the homeowner a fee that is commensurate with the value of what remains of the burning home. The homeowner will have to pay more to save the burning home than he would have with a subscription, but he made his choice and will have to live with it. Alternatively, the private company could also take mercy upon the poor guy and put it out for free. There is no rule against freebies in the private world. But in the gubmint world, who knows? All is chaos.
Clover, this guy has a fair amount of land area: http://www.wesh.com/news/25598278/detail.html
I would guess that he’s lived there a long time before your kind moved into the area to complain.
How much land does this guy have?
No idea, but considering all the stuff they showed and the house isn’t even in the picture, I’d say it’s a lot more than the average suburban yard.
I think it was three acres…
Oh, Christ. It’s back.
Not anymore… flushing commencing!
In my county, despite the property taxes we pay, the one service we actually want – fire service – is manned by an all-volunteer squad!
In my experience that’s actually a good thing. The few times I’ve had to call fire and rescue in the past, the all-volunteer folks were on the scene within less than five minutes. The “professionals,” on the other hand, were about as speedy, efficient, and responsive as your average DMV clerk.
But, yes, I do agree that having to pay property taxes for “services” you do not receive is inexcusable – which, come to think of it, describes “property taxes” (or any other) no matter what the pretext for seizing them.
I’m volunteer Search and Rescue (we call it SAR). If you ever have the chance, take a look at the FEMA training and certification prospectus sometime, it’s scary in a hilarious kind of way. There are four “units” you have to pass, they’re all available online (100 through 400) and all they cover is command structure. There isn’t a single page devoted to searching for people or rescuing them.
I’ve passed unit 100 🙂 I’m SO proud! So is my dog (K9 SAR don’t you know). Sarcasm aside, it’s kind of sad. Theres an organization called NASAR (National Association for Search and Rescue) that really does put out useful stuff on how to save people’s lives. The Civil Air Patrol in the US is another good source. FEMA is absolutely useless; all they can manage is endless documentation on proper table manners in an emergency.
It costs thousands of dollars to fight a fire and private fire departments would not be able to afford to put out fires for free ($75) any more than public FD’s can. They would soon go bankrupt. In fact, private fire departments would be more likely NOT to put out the fire because they have to answer to investors, whereas government FD’s don’t have investors to answer to.
I disagree.
Insurance works fine on the same principle; that is, numerous people pay a small amount individually, so that there is a pool from which claims can be paid, some of which may be very large.
There are appx. 18,000 people in my rural county. Let’s say each pays an annual $100 fee for “fire insurance.” That’s an initial $1.8 million “budget” – a pile of money for a one-stoplight rural county. Over say five years, that increases to almost $10 million. A very large pile of money. That’s insufficient to deal with the handful of serious fires that occur? C’mon!
The best part is that if it’s private, there is moral hazard. That is, less chance that your money will be spent on bullshit such as an all-expenses paid “seminar” in Hawaii for the fire chief.
If they do that, and word gets out, people can withdraw their consent – by declining to pay.
With guuuuuvernment, you can’t do that. You have to pay. Even if you don’t want or need the “service.” Even if the service sucks. Even if it’s an out-and–out scam. They’ll send men with guns to your home if you don’t hand over the money.
I’ll take freedom – and responsibility – instead.
The point isn’t the price but the fact that the government refused out of spite. A private fire fighting company would simply have two price structures.
Structure A) subscription.
Structure B) as needed, per call.
A private fire fighting company would not sit there and do nothing while a house burned. It would have a price. The homeowner might not like the price but there would be one.
the FD did not refuse out of spite. he refused to pay until his oh sh_t moment.
would you sell fire insurance to a homeowner whose house was only an acre away from being consumed by a wildfire?!! hell no! or flood insurance to someone whose house was downstream from a dam that was about to break? no you would not. especially if it was your business.
that man’s county had no fire department, so to cover the expenses of having to go outside of its normal coverage, the FD asked for a $75 fee. only $75 and you get fire insurance? that’s a steal! how much did his house burning down cost him?
i pay over $1200 a year for auto insurance, yet i have yet to get in an accident since 1996. however, i know that if i get in an accident, liable or not, i do not have the millions it may cost me. so! i pay the monthly fee.
this is what responsible people do. that man, that husband, that father, failed to fulfill his duties as head of that household.
tough poo poo i say.
Fire fighting is a _SERVICE_ not insurance. Insurance would be something you have that would pay for firefighting and other costs incurred when something happens.
The automotive equal to firefighting would be towing. You can belong to an auto club and through that auto club you have someone who will tow your car when needed. Or you could call a tow service when something happens. The tow service isn’t going to say ‘tough sh_t you don’t belong to the auto club’. The auto club might, but odds are they’d sign you up right on the spot. But a tow service isn’t going to refuse your business because you didn’t take advantage of the group buy. It will just charge you more.
So the government firefighting service did act out of spite or simple bureaucratic procedure. In either case that is a luxury only government “services” can do. Private businesses offering services have equipment and overhead to pay for and would not have turned down business especially once they had already mobilized. Could I see them charging a considerable sum for on the spot service? Yep. But there would be a price for them to it. With government well… it’s more about showing people who is boss and punishing those that don’t go along with the herd.
So it’s all about the money?
If I sold insurance, yeah, I’d sell a policy to the guy next to a forest or in the path of an unstable dam. I’d just charge a premium. I’d figure that if I only sold insurance to a sure thing (from my standpoint) I wouldn’t be in business very long.
There is something obscene about firefighters standing by and watching someone’s home BURN, for God’s sake, because the guy exercised poor judgment. That’s just insane.
Brent’s right: There was a flavor of vengefulness going on there. All they had to do is quick ask the guy, do you agree to pay $75 if we fight the fire? Or the township could work out a monetary arrangement after the fact; whatever.
Would it change your opinion if, instead of a firefighting fee, it was a medical rescue fee, and the guy or his family member needed EMT response, but since he didn’t pay, the EMTs stood by and let the guy die? Why not? It’s the same thing, isn’t it?
In human affairs, it isn’t always just about money. Often it’s about mercy and common sense and just breaking the damn rules and following your gut and sorting out the details later.
So why did the firefighters even show up?
Gail, it’s not even the $75. It’s that they had no price at all where they would fight the fire. A private company would know that to go the additional step of fighting the fire after having mobilized say costs $2,000. So they charge the guy $3000.
The guy paying the $75 once his house is on fire is kind of absurd too. But he should be able to pay some increased, even absurdly increased rate to have the fire fought. A real service business would have that rate pre-calculated and ready to go.
@Brent: “The guy paying the $75 once his house is on fire is kind of absurd too.”
Even as I typed that, I thought, ‘that can’t be right …’
Point taken!
Forcing property owners to pay for firefighters is the worst kind of communism.
They are hyper-specialized for only one threat out of thousands.
They are always hand selected by inner party cronies.
They are over deployed.
They are over capitalized.
If you can see these over-priced costumed flamers for what they really are, your clover worldview will permanently disintegrate, and you can finally start to see something and know something.
Tor, that’s not fair or really even generally true. Fire fighters aren’t always over capitalized or over deployed. I live in an area of some 100,000 acres of mountainous forest land with a total of two fire houses within 15 miles. The truth is that is if a fire breaks out, they bring in airplanes not trucks, but it’s also true that in a real fire, there’s no help coming.
Why I pay for fire protection is beyond me since I’ll never receive it. I also don’t get a police or emergency medical response in less than an hour (seriously). I like Eric’s idea of privatizing those services, not because I’d get better service (although I might) but because I wouldn’t have to pay for service I don’t receive.
I’m a volunteer search and rescue guy and one of my best friends is a fire chief, so I’m not grinding an axe. It really is a problem in some areas.
Amen, PFC!
On cops:
In my also-rural county, if someone breaks into your place or comes at you, the cops are only about 20-30 minutes away. So, my personal security is my problem (and I do it for free). Yet I still have to help pay for the “services” provided by the local sheriff – which amount to running radar in town to catch the Yankees (and hassling the local, ahem, agriculturalists, who aren’t bothering me at all).
Thanks for the general refutation. Under a communist monopoly we never get the market demanded amount of services because of the lack of a price mechanism.
With only 17% of people in rural areas and 83% in urban areas, we are vastly overserved nationwide in fire services, this is a GENERALLY true statement.
There is NO NEED for brand new fire vehicles and a 24 hour onsite housing locations of urban firefighters. Especially when there are so many of these stationed every few miles.
Its counter intuitive to see that America serves as the motive force for COMMUNISM in the world, but its true.
US tobacco production
1950 2 billion lbs
1960 2 billion lbs
1970 1.7 billion lbs
1980 1.5 billion lbs
1990 1.5 billion lbs
2000 1 billion lbs
2010 0.8 billion lbs
China tobacco production
2010 5.4 billion lbs
America as a communist control perfection exercise, has lowered tobacco use from 40% to 20% in a few decades.
In June 2009, the federal government passed enough regulations and aggressive enforcement actions, that soon only big pharma type companies will grow tobacco, it will soon be as hard to produce as opium is today.
The entrenched planning and stopping of private production by the US is best explained as COMMUNISM. Whatever label you want to put on forced declining birth rate, forced declining rates of sexual activity, and MONOPOLY production structure of almost the entire economy is up to you.
COMMUNISM is the closest one I can see for the American world export regime of FIAT currency inflation, and STATE MONOPOLY of force.
Tell me if you know, what the 6 nations in the G8 richer than the US on a per person basis want America to produce and export to them.
Producing value for others never crosses the mind of COMMUNISTS.
I doubt any COMMUNIST MINDED American has any idea whatsoever.
A private fire department would have plenty of motivation to accept payment on the spot rather than refuse it, as happened in the case under discussion. The homeowner offered to pay them, and they refused and let his house burn.
A private company, having investors to answer to, would not turn down cash in hand.
While the act of putting someone in prison has everything to do with government power the government doesn’t so much get the power from the real-estate tax scam but the busy bodies who demand conformity. Through “democracy” those who run government can then play these well conditioned and conforming people to go after the non-conforming. Without the ‘permission’ of the government-schooled and appropriately conditioned and conforming masses it would be impossible to have the laws they use in the first place and even if they did there would just be countless more individuals to fight. But when there are just a few it’s easy.
Beyond being non-conforming those who haven’t sufficiently embraced the state and the collective. For instance, Mr. Biel doesn’t have the appearance of someone society at large is going to defend. Most people will look at that photo or see him and just be unsympathetic on that alone. Superficially. I don’t think we will ever see former General Colin Powell in prison or even arrested or even warned about the old Volvos he has been known to keep around. Powell is a much more likable character to an average someone with only superficial knowledge and Powell has lots of important friends.
In addition to being another instance of bullying whom those wielding government power can bully it is economic warfare. This man had found a way to make a living on his own capital outside the system of corporate serfdom.
I doubt it was much of a income but he was economically free. Being economically free seems to be all it takes to warrant an attack these days. Such small incomes were not even a concern to the state in ages past. Before it was our ‘option’ to opt out of the system but live at greatly reduced material wealth and comfort. Now it seems the state leaves nobody alone.
Or Will we ever see Colin Powell in prison for the My Lai Massacre in Name, or Henry Kissinger, who should be tried as a war criminal for mass murder. No, instead it is Robert Biel and others like him who get prosecuted and jailed.
If you naively think it won’t happen to you, you are wrong. It will happen to anyone – anyone! – that the state wants it to.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” Ayn Rand.
Hi Belle,
Yup!
There’s a great book on this very subject: Three Felonies Every Day (see here http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332083147&sr=8-1 )
Or The Chimp and Rummy for an act of premeditated mass murder – the invasion of Iraq – which has parallels in history (Hitler’s invasion of Poland) for which those responsible were hanged. But then, when Uncle does it, it’s different.
Odd coincidence, I was just thinking, I should buy an old VW that comes with an extra engine and all the parts to rebuild it and use it all as a spare parts source.
Problem is, I have nowhere to store it.
I was thinking, what if I just did it?
Now I know.
Hm, this is a part of a price fixing scheme too. Come to think of it, I’ve noticed similar actions around my area, junk yards with new fences required by the state and such.
If a Person cannot find replacement parts for older cars, what are they to do but buy something from a dealership or newer used car lot. Get those tax Dollars rolling in, support the industry.
An example of directed history in the making.