Do you believe this?: fines, fines, fines...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m finding this difficult to believe–from George Will (slightly reformatted):

“Pagedale (Missouri) residents are subject to fines
–if they walk on the left side of a crosswalk;
–if they have a hedge more than three feet high, a weed more than seven inches high or any dead vegetation on their property;
–or if they park a car at night more than 500 feet from a street lamp or other source of illumination;
–or if windows facing a street do not have drapes or blinds that are “neatly hung, in a presentable appearance, properly maintained and in a state of good repair”;
–or if their houses have unpainted foundations or chipped or aging layers of paint (even on gutters);
–or if there are cracks in their driveways;
–or if on a national holiday–the only time a barbecue may be conducted in a front yard–more than two people are gathered at the grill or there are alcoholic beverages visible within 150 feet of the grill.”

2

A megalomaniacal Mayor obsessed with the superficiality of neighbourhoods.

3

The complaint (PDF) filed in court cites each of the ordinances starting on page 5. The crosswalk one was the most shocking to me, and it checks out:

This doesn’t exactly sound like a bustling metropolis, so I’m sure it’s always practicable.

4

Big deal, only a handful of them are capital crimes.

5

I’m pleased to see conservatives like George Will and the Institute for Justice sticking up for substantive due process and defending the citizens of this town from an oppressive fine system.

6

One of my friends lives in a community with what I consider to be an overbearing HOA full of nit-picky rules. One of our other friends took it upon himself to write some additional “rules” to add to neighborhood perfections.

For example: All ceiling fans visible from the street shall turn in a clockwise direction as viewed from below and all fans within any given house shall be on at the same time turning at the same speed. To me, this is as ridiculous as some of their requirements. But I don’t live there, so it’s not my problem.

And yeah, I know HOAs are different from towns, but petty tyrants can exist at all levels and try to impose their view upon all and sundry. Then again, anyone paying attention to the current presidential campaigning can see that.

7

Why wouldn’t they? The issue of property rights is one of the cornerstones of conservatism.

Colorado Springs, a very conservative city, leans so far towards property rights that the city won’t demolish houses that should be demolished.

8

Villages and small towns can be maniacal when it comes to collecting revenue from fines (which pay the salaries of useless public officials), and fighting these abuses doesn’t have to have anything to do with general political orientation.

It took state legislative action in Ohio to put a stop to New Rome police ticketing everything in sight, and apparently it will take more of the same to stop the village of Brice.

9

I think excessive ticketing is also what upset so many of the people of Fergeson MO, as much as the guy the police killed.

10

And that’s my point. You don’t see a lot of George Will types standing up for the people being oppressed by the Ferguson government.

11

While I’m not familiar with Pagedale, St. Louis County has a million people in something like 90 municipalities, many of them small in area and population. Most of it is metropolis.

12

I used to live in St. Louis.

Pagedale is right near Ferguson. Very similar demographically. A tiny hamlet of 1940s suburbia that’s totally indistinguishable from the next townlet 5 streets over.

And with the same issues of a too-big government in a too-small tax base, long time all-white city employees, and a rapidly blackening population replacing an ever-more-elderly white working class population.

I leave as an exercise for the reader determining where the line is between “legitimate civic measures to prevent urban decay” and “laws to harass the undesirables in hopes of driving them off.”

13

I have an idea

I won’t steal from you to pay for things I want if you don’t steal from me to pay for things I want.

Or more specifically I won’t advocate you be forced to hand over your hard earned money to fund what I want if you don’t advocate that i be forced to hand over my hard earned money to fund the things that you want.

Most people would agree to this, it’s a no brainer right? Not really

If you vote, does not matter the party, you are putting people in power to use the mechanism of taxation to demand money from me and a 100 million other people to pay for the agenda whatever that might be. And we all know what happens to people who don’t pay their taxes. Caged, foreclosed, and wiped out bank accounts.
You know that, you know that by voting you are advocating forced funding for an agenda whether you agree with it or not.
Normally these agenda’s are destructive and immoral.

Democrat or republican does not matter, just a different flavor of what destructive and immoral agendas are at the fore front. Normally this is a war on something it seems lately. Why must we call everything a war?
You may be reading this and thinking WTF is this guy talking about? This thread is about fines! Maybe so but just read on.
What i think is immoral and destructive you may think is perfectly fine and that’s o.k, we all have different situations and opinions. Clearly these fines are taken by force in some manner to pay for what tax dollars can not pay for. If I can not afford something it does not give me the right to send my gang out and rob you to pay for the things that I may need, or don’t need for that matter.

So back to the original proposition
I won’t rob from you if you don’t rob from me, you can’t honestly accept that deal if you vote because essentially you are voting someone in to rule and decide what is best for you and me. In order to pay for the things that are best for you and me they must take our money to fund these things no matter how immoral or destructive. And that is all politics is, putting someone in charge to force citizens to hand over money for their agenda that normally does not benefit you in anyway.

Even if you do not agree with me at least be honest and say it out loud. I advocate for** you to be forced to pay for things that you feel are immoral**l. If you vote under the illusion that you have a choice and it’s your civic duty that’s what you are saying each time you vote. So just say it as you vote and be honest.

This comment is not about anyone other than you, the one reading this not the OP in particular. Last time you got a citation for a victim less crime, ordinance violation or code violation. By voting you advocated someone to take money from you for that politician to pay for something.
On any election day I shake my head when I see the lines at the churches and schools. People still are not awake to what voting actually means because they have been conditioned to think other wise with slogans like “YOU DECIDE” and ROCK the VOTE".
Does not matter what proposition is being voted on, does not matter. Somewhere in the prop is wording that gives them permission to rob you in other ways. Missourians remember Prop B? When the politicians did not get the outcome they wanted what happened?

Now maybe all that was a little mean so let me shift gears to something nicer to say.

I don’t think that just because you vote (if you vote) that you are a mean nasty person. I don’t think that’s why you do it and I believe you are trying to do what you think is right and that your vote matters. (Like George Carlin said, “If your vote really mattered they wouldn’t let you do it.”)
I believe most people have been tricked by political ritual and legislation that voting is good and righteous and makes it moral to take from citizens to fund what’s best in their interest.
It’s dangerous to be right when government is wrong (Plato)

My friend got a $150 fine for a license plate light being out. When he fought it in court it was reduced to a littering fine. Judge told him he had to pay something.
My friend chose to spend the night in a cage. This is what I mean by force to fill an agenda whether it be new street lights, library or a new shiny high tech police cruiser to pull you over for that blown light bulb to light that $88 license plate that you paid to put on your heavily taxed vehicle that has to have a $15 inspection sticker . And it’s still not enough.

I encourage everyone to read through the codes and ordnance in their particular city. You should not be surprised by all the violations that can be broken by design to fleece money from you. After all we vote for it.

I believe people like you are good people and are capable of owning your own life as you please. We don’t need tyranny and oppressive governments controlling our lives through fear, taxation, fines and straight up thuggery. Every time I see someone pulled over I sarcastically say to myself, “thank GOD the are keeping us safe”

14

[QUOTE=LynnM;18934672

"Pagedale (Missouri) residents are subject to fines

–or if on a national holiday–the only time a barbecue may be conducted in a front yard–more than two people are gathered at the grill or there are alcoholic beverages visible within 150 feet of the grill."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will121215.php3[/QUOTE]

“Joe! Joe! Get away from the grill! Ma and I are already here and we can’t move too fast anymore.” :eek:

15

This is all in St. Louis County, right? In the aftermath of the Ferguson uprising, it came to light that the whole county, or at least that region of the county, is dotted with numerous micro-municipalities that are all behaving like this. There were numerous lengthy articles throughout the national media.

Here’s one lengthy one, for example: How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty, Radley Balko, Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2014.

Those communities were all engaged in outright highway robbery with their patterns of traffic tickets, capricious fines, fines on the fines, courts inaccessible in various ways – all for revenue gathering. It developed into such a scandal that, as George Will writes in the OP’s link:

Thus the turn to ticketing everything else in sight (other than traffic stuff) to replace all that lost revenue. This, in addition to this mayor’s apparent obsession with maintaining an unblemished facade of superficial eye candy in the town.

16

Yep. All micro-municipalities in that part of St. Louis County. Pagedale is as typical as they come. It may have some delusions of nicer-than-thou vs. its neighbors. More old ladies with white doilies on the backs of their parlor chairs, etc. Working class, but genteel working class, not *Bubba’s got a shotgun and a dawg *working class.

To the degree there is any solution to the post-Ferguson mess, IMO it would have been for the state legislature to forcibly disestablish all the micro-towns and subsume all services and ordinances under the county’s existing systems. There are large areas of populated unincorporated county that work very well this way and have for years.

Three political factors stood / stand in the way.

  1. The rapidly blackening or already majority black areas don’t want their governance moved to the lilly-white areas where the county seat is. They (rightly IMO) believe this will result in absolute political powerlessness for them and total neglect administratively and service-wise. Better the devil they know and may be able to influence or displace.

  2. The white areas of the county, working class straight up through the idle rich, want nothing to do with the black areas. They’re convinced they’ll be forced to pay extra to maintain and/or rehabilitate them. They’d rather look the other way and let whatever happens, happen. Out of sight is out of mind.

  3. The legislature is dominated by the representatives of the rural, white, reactionary counties. But the state demographics are shifting inexorably towards greater St. Louis and greater Kansas City dominating instead. They fear setting any precedents about the state shoving stuff down a county’s throat for fear they won’t much like what happens to them when the urban/suburban areas control the legislature starting in a few years.
    I moved to St. Louis in the 1990s from the West coast. It is truly astonishing to someone from more enlightened areas just how much simple “My race is good through and through. Their race is evil to the core” drives the social and political dynamic in Missouri. On both sides. And there are only two races: black and white. There are no other flavors, period. I honestly thought I’d teleported to 1940s Alabama or something.

It has gotten very little better since then. It’s enough to drive a thinking person to despair.