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Live Stupid, Die
Radley Balko is threatening to detail stupid-ass legislation from coast to coast, starting with New Hampshire.
brian423|1.13.06 @ 12:58PM|#
Is it too late to pick a state other than New Hampshire for the Free State Project?
|1.13.06 @ 1:06PM|#
2006 New Hampshire worst case senerio:
An underage babysitter is an hour late to work due to a change in
day-light savings time. Therefore jumps into her toy boat and
speeds to work. As she passes a cop, the pumpkin in the back of the
boat falls out... so she is caught: Speeding in a toyboat,
littering the state fruit, to a illegal job. A background check
pulls up that she is also wanted for running an internet hunting
business.
Well, at least the state can't sell her into slavery in
Massachusetts.
Ed|1.13.06 @ 1:10PM|#
Yeah, these things are always good for a laugh, but exposing them has absolutely no effect on their propagation. We chuckle and point and deride the silly legislators and wake up the next day to find out it's now illegal to park a red truck in our own driveways.
DaveInBigD|1.13.06 @ 1:14PM|#
I assume that the FSP is why Balko started with New Hampshire. Does point up what an uphill battle it is.
|1.13.06 @ 1:25PM|#
Most of these bills seem dumb, indeed. But what about this
one:
"Rep. Clifford Newton of Rochester wants judges to be able to
suspend your driver's license if you get caught littering and fail
to pay the fine."
Here�s
the text of the bill, plus fiscal analysis. Among other things,
the bill would have a convicted litterer's license suspended for up
to ten days if he doesn't pay his fine. To get his license back,
he'd apparently have to pay a license-renewal fee.
Is this really all that ridiculous? What's wrong with imposing a
ten-day license suspension on a litterer who can't or won't pay his
fine? Especially since the alternatives seem to be (a) ignoring the
failure to pay the fine, in which case those who *did* pay their
fines would look like saps, or (b) locking up the non-fine-payer,
or garnishing his wages.
By the way, look at the titles of some of the other bills
introduced by Clifford Newton. He looks almost like a
libertarian:
"relating to eminent domain. Providing that property can only be
taken for public benefit other than increased tax revenues."
"reducing the rate of the timber tax."
"reducing the rate of the communications services tax."
"requiring school boards to disclose the financial costs of
contracts to the voters."
Yeah, what a dumb-ass!
|1.13.06 @ 1:31PM|#
I like Balko, but some of these are silly on Balko's part. Take the "pumpkin as state fruit" one. Just about every state has a state fruit (tree, bird, amphibian, rock, etc.). It's not like it costs the taxpayers anything. So what? The "daylight savings" one: Sure, it's a little goofy, but we already have laws about daylight saving in most places. Indiana's even more messed up than that. So what?
|1.13.06 @ 1:49PM|#
None of the "legislation" cited by Balko is legislation. These are all bills that either have been introduced or that may be introduced. Why not expose existing legislation that restricts, e.g., my right to operate a slaughterhouse or a half-way house for convicted murderers in your neighborhood? It's my property, after all, not yours. Live free or die, damn it! Live free or die!
Rich Ard|1.13.06 @ 1:59PM|#
Pedant point: legislation can refer to either the sausage or the grinding process.
Paul Sand|1.13.06 @ 2:07PM|#
My personal favorite, not mentioned by Radley: straight ahead on
red!
(http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2006/HB1145.html)
Vroom! Live Free or Dieeeeee!
|1.13.06 @ 2:41PM|#
But at least they kept their heads and wouldn't allow a left turn at a red light.
|1.13.06 @ 2:48PM|#
Damnit! Where's my post?
Anyway, the link for the story I meant to refer to is:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=97994&ran=82523
|1.13.06 @ 2:52PM|#
Vroom! Live Free or Dieeeeee!
(Chuckle.) Someone last night was telling me that some of these
fancier new cars can record the words of people driving them. (I
have never heard of this technology and didn't get the details, but
anyway...)
He said that in most states, the last words of people who got into
accidents was, "Oh, Shit!" But in WV, AL and WY, the last words
were usually, "Hey, watch this!"
|1.13.06 @ 3:06PM|#
It's not like it costs the taxpayers anything.
Just the cost of having crap go through the process. Given most of
this will just go away or morph into something it was never
intended to be, I'm not sure I see the point.
"There Oughtta Be a Law" that allows for the dope slapping of
politicians when they come up with something stupid or to address
their personal pet peeve. Sorry Reps Field and Cady, you will just
have to wait like everyone else [whack!] Sorry Guvna' you'll have
to stop and pay the toll too [whack!] (and here is another for
taking my money for tokens and then declaring the tokens void and
non-refundable [whack! with an ez-pass])
|1.13.06 @ 3:27PM|#
I've decided that the real problem with government in the U.S.
is that it works.
It works so well, and we are so well-governed, that there's nothing
left for "lawmakers" to do! As citizens, we don't really get the
chance to say, "OK, you can stop now! We have enough laws!
Really!"
Can we try crying "uncle"?
The Wine Commonsewer|1.13.06 @ 4:03PM|#
Actually, the littering law would be much too lenient. Tossing a bagful of used Mickie Dees wrappers out the window at a stop light, dumping dead washers and mattresses by the roadside, & grafitti all should carry the death penalty.
|1.13.06 @ 4:11PM|#
Hey, does anybody know the bill number of the "slavery" legislation. I am having trouble finding it.
|1.13.06 @ 4:35PM|#
Eddy - If voting on a state fruit keeps the legislators from doing any worse damage, then I for one say it's money well spent!
|1.13.06 @ 4:36PM|#
for some reason, i agree, littering is one of those crimes that
drives me friggin crazy.
if one more burning cigarette flies toward my windshield at 70
mph...aarrrggh!!
look, i don't push for your right to smoke to be banned, you can do
me the favor of keeping your damned butts in your car! that's why
there's an ashtray.
Ed|1.13.06 @ 4:44PM|#
I hereby concur with downstater and would like to see a law that snips off one stinky finger per offense. Zero tolerance! Filthy addicted litterpiggies!
Lazlo|1.13.06 @ 4:48PM|#
Someone last night was telling me that some of these fancier
new cars can record the words of people driving them. (I have never
heard of this technology and didn't get the details, but
anyway...)
They're probably talking about GM's OnStar. The FBI has used it (or
a similar system - GM denies it was theirs) to
monitor passenger conversations in a vehicle.
|1.13.06 @ 5:32PM|#
"Hey, does anybody know the bill number of the 'slavery'
legislation. I am having trouble finding it."
Yeah, I typed "slave," "slavery," "enslavement," and "enslave" into
the NH
legislature�s search engine, and I got zip.
In the Massachusetts legislature, my various slavery-related
searches yielded only one result:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/ht01/ht01779.htm
This is a bill for a study commission on the effects of slavery in
Massachusetts.
"In selecting the members of the commission the emphasis shall be
on persons who are especially qualified to serve on said commission
by virtue of their experience as descendants of slaves, their
education or training or experience, particularly in the field of
African-American studies."
|1.13.06 @ 5:33PM|#
In one of the few posts to my shortlived '96 blog, the ardofficial news, I reported that the No New Laws party had taken over congress. Their first order of business was to start reviewing existing laws for overturning. To bad hardly anybody was online to read it back then, I could have had carpet humping man adorning my side-panel by now. If someone steals my ardofficial idea, I'll know it was you, Rich.
|1.13.06 @ 5:51PM|#
My personal favorite, not mentioned by Radley: straight
ahead on red!
(http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2006/HB1145.html)
Vroom! Live Free or Dieeeeee!
Oh my God, my dream law... I can't believe it's finally seen the
light of day... How many hours of our lives have we wasted, sitting
at some stupid red light, with nobody coming, yet being presumed
too stupid to know when it's safe or not safe to go.
The Wine Commonsewer|1.13.06 @ 6:14PM|#
DE, spoken like a true libertarian. Good Job Man.
Ed & Downstater, agreed. I live in a small community with few
ways to get out onto the main road. We have some asselonian that
empties his ash tray at the stop sign at the highway every fargin
day. Even my smoker friends have noticed and commented on the
mess.
|1.13.06 @ 6:15PM|#
Dead E. When I used to drive to work at 5:30 I would run the same red light by the shopping mall every morning. Until I wrote a letter to the traffic light people. They changed the bogus light, which had obviously been programmed by the mall developer.
The Wine Commonsewer|1.13.06 @ 6:18PM|#
Plus, in our neck of the woods, or lack thereof, fire is a constant danger, particularly in the fall. Don't throw yer got dam butts out the window.
|1.13.06 @ 7:17PM|#
Introduced by Rep. Mitchel B Denham, Jr on January 3, 2006,
to exempt from sales and use tax straw, wood shavings, and sawdust
used in agricultural or equine pursuits.
What is up with horses ? California sales tax forms has a similar
exemption, but its for race horses only, not just any horse of
course.
|1.13.06 @ 9:57PM|#
[A HREF=http://www.reason.com]REASON[/A]
In the above example I have changed the angeled brackets to [ and ]
so it can be read and not interpreted. I would grateful for any
info on what I am doing wrong.
|1.13.06 @ 9:58PM|#
the link needs to be enclosed in quotes.
[A HREF="http://www.reason.com"]REASON[/A]
|1.13.06 @ 10:01PM|#
I find it sort of annoying that this is the only site I visit that requires the regular HTML tag for links. Every other site lets you just use something like [url]address[/url]
Paul Sand|1.14.06 @ 9:02AM|#
The text of the proposed New Hampshire anti-slavery legislation
(actually anti-"peonage") is here.
From the Boston Globe: "Rep. Jordan Ulery of Hudson [NH] is
sponsoring a bill to make slavery a state crime. He is concerned
about human trafficking and illegal immigrants being forced to work
under duress."
|1.14.06 @ 5:35PM|#
Paul Sand,
Thank you for the link!
The law is against peonage, which is related to slavery but not
identical with it. The press ought to be more precise.
|1.15.06 @ 1:13AM|#
Linguist:
Yeah I was surprised that Virginia's odious anti-IVF law didn't
make Hit & Run on it's own. On the local news affiliate, I saw
the Republican pile-of-shit who dreampt it up this bill tell a
female reporter how "children have the right to know their fathers"
and that overruled the "selfish" desires of unnmarried women (or,
to be honest, lesbians) to reproduce on their own.
From Linguist's linked article:
On the off chance that Marshall is truly targeting single
motherhood, not just homosexuality, he should introduce a bill
outlawing divorce, and a companion piece mandating IUDs for all
females over 12.
Banning divorce is something I wouldn't put past the family values
fascists, but I doubt they'd approve of IUDs. Afterall we're all
supposed to abstaine from sex until the church (with the state's
approval) sanctifies our perpetual, monogamous, hetrosexual
marriages.
|1.15.06 @ 1:38AM|#
"Is this really all that ridiculous? What's wrong with imposing
a ten-day license suspension on a litterer who can't or won't pay
his fine?"
Because what the hell does littering have to do with one's ability
to operate an automobile safely? Don't you see the slippery slope
here? Jailing him would actually be far more appropriate than
suspending his license.
What this is about, is the government has far more success using
its leverage in handing out driver's licenses to obtain payment of
fines than it does by hiring collection agencies. Of course the
only reason government should be allowed to hand out licenses in
the first place is to try and control the safety of its citizens on
public roads. When government suspends licenses on matters
completely unrelated to that basic issue, they've quite obviously
crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed. I driver with a spotless
driving record who passes all the tests required by law, has a
_right_ to operate a motor vehicle in this country. Taking it away
because he's a litterer (or in the future: a petty criminal, gun
owner, deadbeat dad, smoker in non-smoking areas, illegal
downloader of music, swearer in public, porn star, etc.) is an
obvious abuse of power, even if it's a relatively tiny one.
|1.15.06 @ 11:53AM|#
"I driver with a spotless driving record who passes all the
tests required by law, has a _right_ to operate a motor vehicle in
this country.
I think, maybe, that libertarians see "rights" whenever it involves
something they WANT to do. I am pretty sure rights should be
reserved for more important issues than driving, like voting, free
speech, privacy, association and the like. I think that driving is
a privilege you earn by showing ability and responsibility.
Littering out your window might be good enough to show that you've
only got half that equation mastered. Hence, you lose your
privilege.
Rights and privileges. Not the same thing. But then again, I also
think it is my right to run a house of poenage next door to your
house that makes toxic chemicals as long as I own the land on which
the activity occurs. Or wait, it that a privilege that my neighbors
allow me when they agree to share the community space with me?
|1.15.06 @ 2:31PM|#
I think most libertarians understand the distinction between rights and privileges particularly well. It's kind of the foundation of libertarianism. That being said, asserting a right to drive is ridiculous. Asserting a right to drive given the means (vehicle, gasoline, etc.) and a publicly funded roadway seems perfectly legitimate to me. If govenment can steal your money to build a road for the public good, then you have a right to use that road...seems pretty straightforward to me.
|1.15.06 @ 7:30PM|#
"I think most libertarians understand the distinction between
rights and privileges particularly well. It's kind of the
foundation of libertarianism."
Ahhh, if only that were apparent by the discussions on Hit&Run.
It seems like it should be true. I have just read too many posts
about how such and such a minor change in some law is an example of
rights being infringed by the oppressive majority. As if the
community working through the democratic process is somehow an out
of control power grab of some type.
Many list things like their right to run a business free of
government regulation (even if that regulation is aimed at assuring
the right of the consumer to be free from dangerous practices),the
right to produce toxic substances on their own property despite the
fact that those substances will not be contained to their property
(either temporally or spatially). The right to subject others to
tobacco smoke in places of business even though the community has
decided that behavior is an unfair burden on workers that restricts
their right to pursue a reasonable standard of living.
The point is that many seem to assert a right to do what they want
without taking in to consideration the rights of others in the
community to be free from their inconsiderate, dangerous, or
uncivil behavior. I think the lines are more difficult to draw than
that and that the processes we have in this country are designed to
help draw those fuzzy lines. When libertarians go ballistic and
claim rights that have not been traditionally defined, they need to
come up with better justification for claiming that right than I
typically see on Hit and Run. The "you can't tell me what to do" or
"you are just trying to control me because you are a prig"
arguments are made far too often. Doesn't do much to move the
dialogue towards a compromise solution that balances the rights of
the community at large with the rights of the individual. A bias in
favor of the community is assumed by many non-libertarians. It is
up to the libertarians to give reasons for why the bias should be
tilted towards the individual.
|1.15.06 @ 8:54PM|#
I'm glad MainstreamMan has shown such enthsiasm about supporting
my position, but in fact my reasoning is somewhat narrower than
his.
If someone's convicted of littering, he is fined -- which infringes
on his right to property, but this isn't automatically wrong in
principle. *Soneone* has to pay for the cleanup of the litter, and
if the litterer doesn't pay, then innocent taxpayers might end up
stuck with the cleanup bill.
If the fine is legitimate, then it is also legitimate to punish
someone who doesn't pay the fine. In other words, if a litterer
compounds the offense by failing to pay his fine, what should
happen? Should he go to prison? This would restrict his right to
drive just as surely as suspending his license. But prison seems a
bit harsh. A 10-day license suspension, plus a fee for a license
renewal, seems more proportinate.
|1.15.06 @ 11:46PM|#
I find it sort of annoying that this is the only site I
visit that requires the regular HTML tag for links. Every other
site lets you just use something like
[url]address[/url]
AND MUTHA' EFFIN' HOW!
|1.16.06 @ 9:20AM|#
A bill Balko writes about, which I support, illustrates the
limits of human stupidity. Currently (at least in New Hampshire)
there is "Internet hunting," where "hunters link their computers to
remotely controlled guns. The �ranch� then attracts deer or other
wildlife to the area and, for a fee, hunters can shoot them by
clicking a mouse." Omitted in the discussion is whether or not the
victimized animal is then emailed to the hunter.
Somehow, it seems to me that a good video game would do just as
well. Another thought was that maybe the technology could be
applied by terrorists or political assassins. Hmmm. . . Can you see
in now? �The Mafia Goes Hi-Tech!� I�m going to make it part of my
�We need more guns� political campaign in support of the NRA.
|1.16.06 @ 9:40AM|#
Ed & Downstater - While I do not like anyone to empty an
ashtray in the street I find those upset over an occasional
cigerette butt flying out the window amusing.
Our local nannies have decided that a cig butt is worthy of a $500
fine for littering and community service hours.
Yet daily I see the concrete trucks pulling out from their fill
station dripping wet cement all over the road along with nice big
rocks. How much are they being fined and how much community service
do they have to perform? I mean hell I never had a cig butt take
out my $600 windshield but these trucks have certainly accounted
for many busted car windows and chipped paint. Add to this the real
safety issue of their littering rocks at a busy intersection that
pile up creating gravel slicks at the very spot we are supposed to
stop cars traveling 50 mph. Trying to go from concrete to loose
gravel and braking is not safe. Maybe thats why there are weekly
pile ups at this corner. Then again maybe its the cigarette
butts.
Shall I go on about 18 wheeler re-treads flying off at 70+ mph and
smashing car bodies and windshields? Or the wrecks caused when
people panic seeing a large whip of hardened rubber and steel
flying at them?
So glad those cig butts are off the street. I feel safer driving
now. Add to that no more roids in baseball and fuck whats left to
worry about.
Ask your doctor if its right for you!
|1.16.06 @ 11:23AM|#
Balko wasn't complaining about the $500 fine provided for in the
bill. Maybe the proposed fine is too high, but Balko's complaint
was about the license suspension for non-payment. Whatever the fine
for convicted litterers may be, there should be *some* consequences
for not paying the fine.
What are the alternatives? Putting the non-payer in prison? If
keeping the guy off the road for a couple weeks is excessive, then
a couple weeks' imprisonment would be excessive, too, because if
you're in prison, you're *ipso facto* not on the road (unless
you're in one of those road-crew chain gangs).
Put the guy on probation? Well, I suppose probation officers could
deal with non-finepayers during their copious free time in between
monitoring thieves and rapists.
Have the sheriff seize the guy's property and auction it off to pay
the fine? Garnish the guy's wages? Those options seem kinda
excessive as well.
Some temporary inconvenience, enough to provide an incentive for
timely fine-paying, seems like a good idea to me. There may be
better ideas, but this is not in the same category as minimum ages
for baby-sitters.
|1.17.06 @ 3:19PM|#
I find it sort of annoying that so many of the other sites I visit dumb down HTML so that people don't have to go to the trouble of learning the tiniest little thing about how the web works. Thanks, Reason, for not assuming we're all idiots!
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