Seriously. Putting a boot on the wheel I can sort of see. It doesn’t make sense in the case of an non car related tax, but it makes the point without damage or danger.
But disabling the car once it’s in motion? That’s a danger to the occupants as well as others on the road. Even if the car stops harmlessly it may block traffic, maybe in the middle of a busy intersection or something.
They prove it by making them walk across the autobahn at rush hour. If they make it, obviously they weren’t blind.
Thinking about it, I suppose it could be argued that Britians TV tax makes more sense than in the US where PBS funding (what little it still gets from the government) comes from general tax revenue, which you pay into whether you have a TV or not (or ever watch PBS).
Kind of like the malware that locks your computer and you have to pay a ransom to get the unlock code.
Including the 5,000 people whose job is to rat out their neighbors for having a TV?
The British government employs the same ( in the old days with fairly fictional detector vans that could tell what channel one was watching and whether one had a TV even if off ) a Television Detection Unit. The BBC runs the Licensing Authority. They are paid to harass people who don’t pay and take them to court in the last event.
100s of people are jailed for not paying the fine imposed as a result of not paying the licence fee. It’s the most common cause of women in prison.
Socialistic Scotland doesn’t send people to jail; neighbouring Ireland does, for not having the RTE licence. Danmark has the most vigorous definition of what constitutes a TV including computers and some cell-phones.
However, America has a long tradition of good people willing to squeal on their neighbours for reward or for free, not to mention in the past local committees dedicated to ensuring one does the right thing, and the fact the US federal government spies on it’s citizens as a matter of course; more so than most countries, and certainly more than in Germany.
Correct.
It was the same setup when I was in Basel: no TV, no fee.
Wear the fox hat?
Update: Ireland, under the wise guidance of it’s esteemed Communications minister, Mr. Pat Rabbitte, is moving to a universal tax this year, unconnected to whether one has a television or not.
THE number of people jailed for not paying their television licence surged to 411 last year.
The figure represents a 34pc increase on 2012 when 272 people were jailed and continues a trend of year-on-year increases in those who have served time over the offence.
Some 183 offenders were jailed in 2011, while 152 were jailed in 2010 and 75 in 2009.
To illustrate this point they said that on February 28 2014 nine people or 0.22pc out of a total of 4,086 in the Irish prison system were in custody for non-payment of fines.*
Independent.ie
The oddest takeaway is that Ireland only has 4000 in prison… Britain has far higher rates of coercion, 50% more, although that’s only one fifth of the American rate.
Ireland = 82/100k ; Britain = 148/100k; USA = 743/100k
I have a first draft for a scene of my new prison movie:
*High security prison. Prison yard. A group of mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoners standing together. Bank robbers, mob enforcers, chainsaw killers. Tattoos all over their bodies and faces: swastikas, skulls, barbed wire.
All of a sudden: movement. A bespectacled, scrawny young man enters the prison yard. The mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoners stop talking. They look concerned.
Mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoner #1: “Who is that? What is he in for?”
Mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoner #2: “That’s Bill from Croydon. Hasn’t payed his license fee since 2009.”
Mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoner #3: “Oh my God!”
Mean looking, heavy set, muscled prisoner #4: “This is sick! What animal would do such a thing?”*
I thought it was a Cat Detector Van.
Yeah, seriously I don’t really get the “in motion” part. Why not just have the device let all the air out immediately and prevent the driver from putting more in? Presumably somebody has to come around and remove the locks once you pay up; why not just give them an air compressor so they can refill the tires too?
I presume they wish to inconvenience the person as much as they can.
Sounds like the worst thing Germany has ever done.
No, wait, they also made David Hasslehoff a successful singer.
The whole TV license fee pisses me off so much. I don’t own a TV, nor a radio, nor do I ever visit the websites of any German media outlets ever. And I live alone. It makes absolutely no sense to me. This is a country where your fucking health care premiums are based on income (as long as you’re in the state system), but they couldn’t figure out a more fair way to charge for TV? Can a German who understands the system please explain to me the logic behind this? Does the majority of the German population find this sensible?
Dear G-d.
Quick! Hide Eric.
Limbo cool, limbo fine
Ev’rybody gets a chance
Come on and move your body down
Do the limbo dance
Limbo cool, limbo fine
Ev’rybody gets a chance
Clap your hands it’s party time
Do the limbo dance