http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/08/city_of_cleveland_to_use_high-.html
straight out of 1984…
the trash bin will track how many times you recycle…if you don’t recycle as much as the state wants you too, a uniformed agent will dig through your trash to see if you are throwing away recycleables.
If you are…you will be punished by big brother.
when the government cannot run their monopoly properly, the solution is to punish you more.
This is insanity.
Who has $100 in Cleveland?
The solution for the individualist is simple. The chips in the carts can simply mysteriously “break”. A chip that can’t report to Big Brother can’t rat you out. A high-powered electromagnet used for erasing electronic media should do quite nicely, as will a mini-sledge. Civil disobedience in mass numbers can collapse the bureaucracy if we all just do our small part.
Wow, this is truely stupid and expensive. But they are saving the planet.
^^ Oh no: Blackadder strikes again!
Everyone in Cleveland, OH had better be recycling. Meanwhile, don’t try to go into the coffin making business in Louisiana.
THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Clayton -
“We’re trying to make sure Cleveland stays clean and residents are properly informed on how these things should be set out,” he said. “By issuing these tickets, it’s helping us change the attitude or perception on how things should be set out.”
…
“Everybody knows the ones who blatantly disregards the law,” Keane said. “Those are the people we should hit with a $100 ticket.”
Statutes and ordinances are not laws except in the colloquial sense. Here’s an excerpt from an article on law that I’m currently writing:
Why do parents choose the rules they do? Most people imitate the parenting style of their parents to one degree or another. Else, they sometimes purpose not to imitate their parents to one degree or another. Most parents will look at how their peers raise their children to imitate or criticize them. Whatever the source from which parents draw the inspiration for the rules which they impose within the house, the rules which are imposed reflect the aesthetic judgment of the parents regarding what constitutes proper behavior and a proper household. But aesthetic judgments do not distinguish between persons and inanimate objects. It is one thing to look in the mirror and decide what hairstyle you will wear. It is another thing for me to look at you and decide what hairstyle you will wear. I would be acting no differently than when I look at my pet poodle and decide what hairstyle it will have, or look at my lawn and decide how it will be landscaped. Leaving aside the value-laden problem of whether it is moral or immoral for me to impose a haircut on you irrespective of your choice in the matter, we can come to the value-free conclusion that it is morally equivalent to imposing a hairstyle on a dog or deciding how the grass will be mowed.
… imposition of aesthetic judgment is not law. In fact, it is the absence of law. That statutes or dictates are called “law” – even by experts in the profession of law who ought to know better – is evidence of a widely held confusion of imposed aesthetic judgment with law.
Let us imagine for a moment what it must be like to be a dictator or king who has a solid grip on political power and has essentially unlimited power over his subjects. What does such a man want? That is, what satisfies his appetites? What sufferings does he wish to have relieved? What grieves him? Most importantly, how do the public policies which he imposes upon society reflect his innate human drives – to which he is certainly subject as much as any man – to seek pleasure and avoid pain?
I can see no other motive in the actions of the most infamous dictators of the 20th century – Hitler, Stalin and Mao – than the imposition of their aesthetic judgment on society. To use a common phrase, they were attempting to remake society “the way it oughtta be.” Like any ruler, they used their power to enrich themselves and their associates and to destroy and deprive their enemies. But these dictators of the 20th century are notable for the energy of their action in the pursuit of goals which in no obvious way could satisfy their appetites, appease their supporters or harm their enemies. Hitler’s project to exterminate the Jewish population within the Third Reich is an excellent example of this. How did Hitler materially benefit from this project? How did it buy loyalty from his minions or hurt his political or foreign enemies? I can see no other reason than that Hitler desired to live in and rule over a Judenfrei society. What other motive could Hitler have had than that, in his judgment, a society free of Jews was more aesthetically pleasing to live in and rule over? In this respect, the extermination of Jews motivated by anti-semitism was no different than the Salem witch hunts motivated by anti-occult sentiment. In the view of many people in that place at that time, a society free of witches was more desirable and aesthetically pleasing to live in than a society in which witches exist.
This is the germ of collectivism. When a whole society is made the object of aesthetic evaluation, the individuals within society are reduced to lawn ornaments. If it is not immoral to apply aesthetic judgments to human society through the use or threat of violence, then it is no more evil to herd Jews into the gas chamber than it is to kill the weeds in the lawn. It is no more immoral to forcibly relocate the Armenian population than it is to move the lawn ornaments from the west side to the east side of the grounds.
One of the most common apologetics for the maintenance of the moral and legal double-standard which comprises the State, given by those who support it, is their belief that the overwhelming power of the State can be wielded to remake society to suit their collectivist, aesthetic judgment of “the way it oughtta be.” Typically, it is assumed without further introspection that the satisfaction of the social engineer’s aesthetic (for example, an equal distribution of wealth) will not only make him happier but will make all or almost all individuals in society happier, as well. In fact, all left-wing social policies with which I am acquainted have this pseudo-humanist rationalization in common: it is morally justified to impose my vision of “the way it oughtta be” onto others, even through the threat and use of violence, because it will make not only myself happier but all others, as well. As I have noted, the threat and use of force employed by the State to satisfy the competing aesthetics of the special interests which apply to the State reduces the individual in society to the moral equivalent of an inanimate object. This may not be the intention of those who support social engineering through the auspices of the State but the result is as inevitable as it is predictable.
Clayton -
