5 ms·

A few examples, In Fort Collins CO the gov't owns 100% of parking. So if you have a parking violation that you haven't payed you are essentially blackballed fr

A few examples, In Fort Collins CO the gov't owns 100% of parking. So if you have a parking violation that you haven't payed you are essentially blackballed from parking in the entire city. It's a government monopoly. And there are big brother parking enforcement trucks driving around that do mass readings of license plates with cameras and print tickets on the spot. My home: St Tammany parish LA, has the highest number of prisoners in the state, in a state that has the highest imprisonments in the country, in a country that has the highest imprisonments in the world. My home is the king of imprisonments. A commission was done years ago to determine how many LAWS are here are in the U.S. and they gave up! Google 'how many LAWS are there in the U.S....Meanwhile ignorance of the law is no excuse for citizens. Police everywhere are getting actual military gear. The ACLU has a whole section of their website on militarization of police. Student loans are by federal law unable to be bankrupted out of. (One of the very few loan types like this). And one of the main reasons college tuitions are so inflated compared to the CPI... is the easy availability of student loan money. It's a self re-enforcing problem caused by the government. The company I'm working for is gov't funded and is millions of dollars in the hole and years behind schedule on a project and still the money printer go brrrr. Property taxes are causing people who have lived in their house for generations to lose their house. Zoning controls peoples homes to the minutest detail. You can lose your house for not 'fitting the neighborhood character'... character that was established before ZONING existed to enforce it. Our law enforcement agencies are: the CIA, FBI, NSA, TSA, DEA, ATF, state police,county police, metro police, city police, etc. Just a few examples. The gov't is way out of control in this country in my opinion but we're boiling the frog so people don't notice the problems and gradual restriction of their freedoms. The govt also has the appearance of being 'for the people' because we vote for it.. meanwhile lobbying and private interest funding of politicians has increased massively after citizens united... and gerrymandering is so commonplace that politicians basically draw their own districts.

selimthegrim 5y ago
I might be staying in Bush for a while so I hope I don't run into the fascist Slidell police on the way (who one time made an acquaintance of mine jump up and down on a glass beer bottle on the side of the road until it broke just to torment her and threatened to charge her with theft for having a Waffle House menu in the back of her car even though she worked there as a waitress) Also heard some stories about Livingston PSO but can't repeat them online.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  I was paying a ticket once and I asked the St Tammany sheriff's office where my money for the ticket was going and they told me it was going back to the sheriff's office. So all of the money Saint Tammany parish police makes from tickets goes directly back into their police coffers. Not into the Arts, or road repair or anything. This creates a perverse incentive for them to write more tickets to to make more money. Good luck to you. If you're white and don't dress alternatively or like a skateboarder you'll probably have less problems.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    I'm Pakistani. But I'm just swarthy enough so people don't squint too hard. I'm more worried about the crappy condition of my car and how fascist they are about brake tags.
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      On the upside Bush is beautiful and very enjoyable rural while not being too far from Nola or Hammond. I would drive around New Orleans for years and never get hit for brake tags or anything but if I went across to St Tammany for literally a weekend I would get slammed. Hopefully you can get that taken care of. Small Town cops don't have anything else to do but traffic law.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
A lot of those issues you cited are a reflection of the citizenry. Many of the laws passed, including student load non-dischargeability, come from officials elected by the citizenry.
- musingsole 5y ago
  A law passed at any given time has at most something like 30% of the citizens' voices behind it (by virtue of voting participation). But cycle after cycle, who is in that 30% changes as people enter or exit the voting community. We don't make a habit of revisiting a law to vote on it again very often and when we do, it's often decades later. All that's to say that any given law was decided by a fraction of the population some time ago -> meaning it's a continuously decreasing fraction of population that was represented in this or that law. This realization is why I have very little buy-in into any modern governance. Either I get an equal vote on all existing rules the moment I become a citizen or your government is just tyranny by another name.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  You mean the two-party system where citizens can pick from TWO candidates selected by the DNC/RNC because the candidate toes the line and doesn't spook the big money interests... and no other candidate can compete? And then once they're in office they can gerrymander their districts and essentially secure their position forever. Is it really the citizen's fault? My favorite part about your comment is how optimistic you are that a citizens vote actually matters.

selimthegrim 5y ago

I might be staying in Bush for a while so I hope I don't run into the fascist Slidell police on the way (who one time made an acquaintance of mine jump up and down on a glass beer bottle on the side of the road until it broke just to torment her and threatened to charge her with theft for having a Waffle House menu in the back of her car even though she worked there as a waitress) Also heard some stories about Livingston PSO but can't repeat them online.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
I was paying a ticket once and I asked the St Tammany sheriff's office where my money for the ticket was going and they told me it was going back to the sheriff's office. So all of the money Saint Tammany parish police makes from tickets goes directly back into their police coffers. Not into the Arts, or road repair or anything. This creates a perverse incentive for them to write more tickets to to make more money. Good luck to you. If you're white and don't dress alternatively or like a skateboarder you'll probably have less problems.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I'm Pakistani. But I'm just swarthy enough so people don't squint too hard. I'm more worried about the crappy condition of my car and how fascist they are about brake tags.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    On the upside Bush is beautiful and very enjoyable rural while not being too far from Nola or Hammond. I would drive around New Orleans for years and never get hit for brake tags or anything but if I went across to St Tammany for literally a weekend I would get slammed. Hopefully you can get that taken care of. Small Town cops don't have anything else to do but traffic law.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

A lot of those issues you cited are a reflection of the citizenry. Many of the laws passed, including student load non-dischargeability, come from officials elected by the citizenry.

musingsole 5y ago
A law passed at any given time has at most something like 30% of the citizens' voices behind it (by virtue of voting participation). But cycle after cycle, who is in that 30% changes as people enter or exit the voting community. We don't make a habit of revisiting a law to vote on it again very often and when we do, it's often decades later. All that's to say that any given law was decided by a fraction of the population some time ago -> meaning it's a continuously decreasing fraction of population that was represented in this or that law. This realization is why I have very little buy-in into any modern governance. Either I get an equal vote on all existing rules the moment I become a citizen or your government is just tyranny by another name.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
You mean the two-party system where citizens can pick from TWO candidates selected by the DNC/RNC because the candidate toes the line and doesn't spook the big money interests... and no other candidate can compete? And then once they're in office they can gerrymander their districts and essentially secure their position forever. Is it really the citizen's fault? My favorite part about your comment is how optimistic you are that a citizens vote actually matters.