They tell you from a very young age in what passes for schools is "be a good citizen, obey all the laws". In it's greedy quest for more money (or what they claim is money) needlessly extorted from you, it WANTS you to break the law by having yours or anyone else's meter on the street to expire. This is what happens when a municipality makes it illegal to feed someone else's parking meter.
That way they collect more dough from the citizens in fines (by breaking the law) than from simply paying a quarter to park there. Nice scam, eh? My personal belief is that there is a special level of hell reserved solely for those sadistic inventors who created devices and processes manufactured solely for contributing to our mutual enslavement. Among those creations would be the Denver Boot, all Government software, urine drug tests, microchips to be embedded in human beings, and the dastardly parking meter.
Imagine that, a local government run by crooks that prefers that you be a crook too so they can make more dough off you.
Earlier this morning I called the clerk's office of the city I live in and was put on hold for several minutes while the woman who answered the phone presumably asked around her office to find out what she should have already known...Whether it is illegal in the city of Evansville, Indiana to put money in other people's parking meters.
After listening to about four minutes of mind numbing, taxpayer funded Muzak on my phone she returned with the answer of "no, it is not illegal". I was instantly pleased but a few seconds later wondered if she was lying to me. She is of course, an employee of Government and as we all know, they may lie to us freely yet we are prohibited more often than not, from lying to them.
I came to the further realization that there would be no penalty attached to her perfidy if she was just having me on. I would be the one to suffer and she would presumably still be able to sleep at night, not knowing that she had contributed to the entrapment and possible short term incarceration of a kind, thoughtful, jolly, long haired libertarian gentleman on a "mercy mission" to save his fellow city dwellers a few bucks in meter fines.
The only way to know for sure is to bring a bag of quarters downtown and try out an experiment for myself.
If they fibbed to me, I'm hopeful that they'll accept small change for bail.
As for public employees lying, it goes with the territory. It's government's nature, they just can't seem to help themselves.
In Liberty,
Dan Steward
©2008 Dan Steward, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Dan Steward only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Dan Steward is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-07-29 11:29:17
Nice article. Liked the tone and the basic message. I would be careful, though, when you impune local government. It is far better than federal government, and one should decry the lack of participation by locals in local government over the percieved improprieties of the local government.
"Imagine that, a local government run by crooks that prefers that you be a crook too so they can make more dough off you".
If your local government is run by crooks, then start a campaign to rid your government of crooks. If your local government is too oppressive, ditto.
Local government is the only goernment you can actually hold the levers of power yourself. It is the best kind of government. IF you use it wisely.
Posted By: Dan Steward
Date: 2008-07-29 17:58:00
Local gov't is truly better than federal gov't. You are absolutely right. With that in mind it can also be said that Fidel Castro is better than Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot. With Liberty, Dan Steward