Re: Censorship is becoming ridiculous

On 01/13/2021 02:25 PM, Wolf K wrote:
> On 2021-01-13 14:56, Ken Springer wrote:
>> On 1/13/21 12:10 PM, The Real Bev wrote:
<more attributions eliminated>
>>>>> I think of it as "a liberal application of government
>>>>> power".
>>>
>>> 1.  I can't have a fence higher than 4 feet in front of my
>>> house. Moreover, some percentage of it has to be see-through.
>
> That's so's the police can't bge mabushed when you call them. Makes
> snse tyo me.

No.  It's because it makes it look like people need to live behind some 
sort of safety wall.  NEED.  The 'transparency' rule is recent, but the 
4-foot rule has been around forever.  To the best of my knowledge, 
nobody ever voted on this.  Zoning departments get to make it up for 
themselves.

>>> 2.  Forcing a company to jump through hoops defending the EEO
>>> suit brought by an employee claiming discrimination instead of
>>> incompetence and refusal to work the hours the job required.
>
> If an employer wants to fire someone for incompetence, etc, they
> better have a paper trail to prove their point. Me, I'd be majorly
> pissed off if my boss could fire me on a whim. I don't think my boss
> has more rights than me, you see. And if that means that some people
> game the system, well, that's how it works. Any system can be gamed
> (see not about the Constitution below).

Specifically, the girl spent hours talking on the company phone (when 
people and businesses had to PAY for long distance by the minute) to her 
family.  She also didn't want to come to work early because of the 
traffic.  Her duties SPECIFICALLY required her to process certain 
information when it came in.  The fucking SPACECRAFT was sending it. 
It's not like you could say 'Wait a couple of hours... '  She was let go 
because she wasn't doing her job, not because she was black.  It took me 
three full-time weeks to assemble the data needed to prove it wasn't 
discrimination.   We laid the stupid cow off so she could get 
unemployment insurance rather than firing her for cause which would have 
prohibited it, at least for a significant amount of time -- and she 
complained about that too.  The EEO lady actually apologized.

I'm against racial discrimination.  This wasn't it.

>>> 3.  Building the useless and outrageously expensive California
>>> "bullet train" with tax money.
>
> Useless to whom?

Pretty much everybody.  They started building it in the middle, joining 
two farming communities who clearly did NOT need 200MPH transportation 
between them.  Gross overspending, defective construction, and something 
that certainly won't be needed for a long time -- perhaps when the state 
is rich again.

> Besides (and this not a tangential comment), private business is too
> risk-averse to invest its money in the visionary projects that
> change our lives for the better.

That's like saying that better public transportation if Los Angeles 
County will make life better for everyone.  The fact that a quarter- to 
1-mile walk at both ends of a trip carrying a shitload of groceries is 
NOT a doable situation is completely ignored.

> No private company financed the
> space program. No private company financed the internet. Now that
> both have become money-makers, private business is willing to take
> the risk, well after the "unnecessary and outrageously expensive"
> groundwork has been paid for with tax dollars. (BTW, way back when, I
> wrote a major history paper on the development the railroads in North
> America. Often touted as a triumph of private investment, North
> America railroads were built with massive government subsidies. In
> general, governments have subsidised transportation as far back as we
> have history.)

Indeed, but different things are needed at different times.  The only 
people who need a bullet train from Los Angeles (or maybe San Diego) to 
San Francisco are people who already fly the same route.  Screw 'em, 
they can afford to fly.

>>> 4.  Disallowing the use of unused but previously-affixed postage
>>> stamps -- you know, cutting off the unused stamps on the
>>> business-reply envelope and gluing them to mail YOU want to send.
>>> This is forbidden.
>
> Soak them off. That's what I do.

Illegal.  They're defined as 'used' when they're stuck to something even 
if they haven't been canceled.

> If you mean the pre-printed stuff (box with numbers, bar codes,
> etc), those aren't stamps. The envelopes are not "pre-paid". The
> business is charged postage only and if and when the envelope/card
> goes through the mail (done automagically by the franking machines
> that cancel stuck-on stamps).

No, real pre-purchased stamps.  Steamed or cut, both are illegal.  The 
USPS (which USED to be an actual government function and worked better, 
amazingly enough) sold the stamps but won't let them be used for their 
intended purpose -- POSTAGE.

>>> 5.  The fact that people (mostly women) who braid hair for a
>>> living need to be licensed by the State.  Lots more license
>>> requirements like that.
>
> Anyone who touches my body for any reason, even one I agree to,
> better be competent. I presume that a licence means they've passed a
> test, and so certifies at least minimal competence.

Cosmetology license.  Give permanents, straighten or dye hair, do 
face-stuff.  Perhaps you even have to get a cosmetology diploma which is 
NOT cheap or quick.  To braid hair for money.  Kids do it to each other 
for free.

> BTW, why should lawyers be licensed? Or doctors? Or teachers? Or cab
> drivers (I won't ever use Uber, precisely because Uber drivers don't
> have to prove they're competent, unlike cab drivers).

Perhaps you need to look at the harm an incompetent practitioner can 
cause.  If you've ever asked people for recommendations you know that 
some people shouldn't even be allowed to have an opinion, much less 
share it.  Liking doctors because they're 'nice', for instance.  I don't 
want 'nice', I want House -- but I'm pretty sure I don't have him.

>> Welcome to the liberal point of view.

If 'liberal' means ':eave me the fuck alone unless I'm actually hurting 
somebody' then yeah.

> Nah, just self-protective pragmatics. If you want take risks I don't
> want to take, that's your privilege. Just don't sue anybody if you
> lose.

I'm not against licensing activities that actually DEMAND competence -- 
like driving.  Driving tests should be a lot harder, and the penalty for 
failure should be something like flogging, or at least being pelted with 
garbage.  And the tests shouldn't be stupid.  Non-drinkers don't need to 
know the % of blood alcohol allowed to NOT get a ticket or be jailed and 
I think I've missed that question twice.  In fact. I think a case could 
be made for making possession of a breathalizer illegal -- "I'm still 
under the limit, give me one more for the road..." is not something I 
want to encourage.

>> Patrick Henry said "The Constitution is not a document to restrain
>> the people. It is an instrument for the people to restrain the
>> government."
>
> That's an aspirational claim, expressing a sentiment I share. But I'm
> a little more aware of practical politics than Patrick Henry was.
> And maybe more cynical.

Unfortunately, the more people, the more chances of them bumping 
together to the detriment of both.  The more people, the more rules are 
needed.  What I disapprove of are rules for the benefit of the 
government itself.

> A Constitution is only as strong as the people who implement it.
> More importantly, the written words aren't the whole thing. It's how
> it's understood that matters. Hence the rules and traditions. A
> politician determined to get his own way can often find a way to
> manipulate the rules without violating the letter of the law.

Always, not often.  They horse-trade.

>> That's not what you are seeing in the US these days.
>>
>>>> Frankly, I have no idea any more what you USians mean by
>>>> "liberal" and "liberalism." And please don't quote or refer to
>>>> 18th century texts. Language changes. What matters is not how
>>>> someone defined their concept(s) back then (however instructive
>>>> their writings may be), but how people use words now. And just
>>>> as importantly, how they believe those words apply to their and
>>>> other people's decisions and actions.
>>>>
>>>> And apart from "Something I don't like" or "Something I Like",
>>>> I see no common meaning(s) in the way the terms are used.
>>>>
>>>> So, kindly tell me what you mean.
>>>>
>>>> With actual, concrete examples of.

See above.

>>> The more I think of that I personally know about, the more
>>> pissed-off I get :-(
>
> Sartre said "Hell is other people." Substitute "government" for
> "hell", and you see why democratic governance will always piss you
> off. In my gloomier moments, I think being pissed off is the natural
> state of the citizen of a democracy. The government will always do
> things that annoy you, because someone else wants them done.

Perfectly legitimate things can annoy me.  Why must I stop at a 4-way 
stop in the middle of the night when I can see a mile in all directions 
and I KNOW I'm the only one on the road?  Why must smart people obey 
rules that were designed to keep stupid people from hurting themselves?

> But the alternatives, as Churchill once famously said, are worse.
>
> The desire for political perfection is a yearning for a final
> solution, one that will fix all political, social, and economic
> problems once and for all. You know who thought he knew what the
> Final Solution was. My parents' generation bled and died to defeat
> him.

There is no solution.  As population increases so do restrictions. 
Sucks, but there it is.  There's actually an upside to wars and plagues...

-- 
Cheers, Bev
    "The primary purpose of any government entity
     is to employ the unemployable."