Trying to make a living.

[WileEcoyote]

Way it's going it will soon be illegal to breath without paying some kind of license fee.

There are hidden taxes to everything we do too. Those that own property generally don't have these kinds of "taxes". From minor to major matters poor folk get hit with all kinds of taxing matters.

Take your car (if you have one). If you don't own a private driveway and can't afford to rent a garage you will likely have to park your car on a public street. Where else you going to put it? That being so you must move your car regularly to avoid various citations. Things like street cleaning to so-called "quality of life crimes". If someone doesn't like your faded blue 1990 Chevy with the crumpled rear fender? They may call the cops and have it towed if your car stays in front of their property for more than 3 days.

Their "property" being devalued by your car. A car probably necessary for you to make a living with. If you have a job that is. Why is the homeowner bitching about your homely little Chevy? Keeps his own car in his driveway and wonders why you have to park near his house.

Answer: Not everyone owns a driveway...

In my neighborhood the population density is so high that there just aren't enough parking spaces for the cars belonging to those who live here. Over recent years landlords and "property" owners have built many illegal living space units. This has caused an increase in the car owning population. So many cars are here in fact that the streets get filled to the brim if you can't find parking before 3pm. Most of us in the service and other trades are still at work then. Again, if we have jobs that is. What this means is that you may have to park nearly a mile away from where you live in order to park your car at night. Fights erupt over parking spaces.

Ever work late at night and wake up late the next morning from exhaustion? Whoops you forgot about the street cleaning. Big ticket on your car because you were too tired to move it the night before.

Ever wonder why people have gotten shot OVER PARKING SPACES? Well now you know the reason.

Other "crimes":

Tax collections have gone down in municipalities throughout Amerika. Huge bureaucracies formerly well funded are going broke. All caused by sagging home sales taxes and formerly good earning property owners no longer able to pay their taxes. Not that the government isn't fighting back. Unsatisfied with war booty swag received through drug related arrests and convictions (illegal search and seizure) the authorities are now turning to law enforcement to become their newest collection agency.

Cops have always been in the collection agency business to some degree. However recent developments have turned your local cops into deputies of the "Sheriff of Nottingham".

For instance. We've long known that cops can demand proof of liability insurance from any driver at any time. Heck Cops can demand ID from anyone at anytime too. Or at least they try to and often do. If you are struggling to make ends meet you may have had to let your automobile insurance lapse. Was that your fault? No, stop blaming yourself.

The auto insurance agencies pushed through all the compulsory insurances laws and it has become a HUGE windfall for them. If you're in the service trades? You gotta drive. No two ways about it. So through insurance industry lobbying and perks to elected leaders your local governing body quickly learned that busting non insured drivers was a huge windfall.

If they put YOU out of business what do they care? They've already got your car now through illegal search, seizure and sale. Business is booming.




"High tech ghettos". A term coined by the late Edward Abbey. Ed was describing where the U.S.A was back then and he died 21 years ago!

Cops now have at their hands some intriguing technology. The infrared license plate scanner. Police can be eating doughnuts at the coffee shop and still get hits on all license plates in the parking lot or street. At about 30 grand each they have become the newest collection tool for municipal governments hungry for more "revenue". Revenue: Translation: "Blood".



Mayors, police chiefs, and other associated thugs will tell you how wonderful these cameras are. That they have caught car thieves, child abductors and various other criminals. And to a small extent i guess this is true. Overall though this is a BALD FACED LIE.

Infrared camera scanners are deployed mostly in or near government projects or areas where poor people and "quality of life crimes" can be expected to be found. Why?

Same reason thieves rob banks. It's where the money is! When the municipal government confiscates a car they either make the owner pay through the nose to get his vehicle back or they sell it at auction. Either way the town wins and the poor painter, carpenter, or domestic worker loses.

And when he can't pay? Loses his car. Cops know that poor people put up far less resistance in the court room. Can't afford good attorneys. This is why poor folk get victimized by the parasitical arm of government: Easy pickins...

Think that this doesn't happen? That cops are only looking for the bad guys? Guess again. Only place I've seen cops use these infrared scanners is in poor neighborhoods. One town, Daly City, CA (biggest bunch of crooks in Northern CA) uses infrared scanners on residents of San Francisco. A completely different county! What they do is station a scanner near a poorer area of San Francisco that is RIGHT ON THE BORDER OF DALY CITY. When the inevitable 1988 Nissan with lapsed insurance drives by they nail him.

More than that however is that Daly City cops know they will find a few more petty dope users in the process of their vehicle seizures. Now this becomes a "two fer". Or two for the price of one. Seized car to be sold at auction and another incarcerated victim of the "War on drugs".


Last autumn the Daly City police confiscated my own vehicle. Put me out of business. My crime? Trying to make a living. Next thing you know they will charge for air. The "breath tax".


Only property owners will be exempt from the breath tax...

One more time, keep clear. Big Brother is watching. This dog bites:




Post Script: Yesterday on my way through some public housing projects and poorer private homes in San Francisco I observed yet ANOTHER traveling cop car with infrared scanners. He was checking every single parked car. But not in the wealthy areas. Only the poor.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. funny that...

your article talks about 'areas where poor people and "quality of life crimes" can be expected to be found' and the pic is of an Alpharetta police car...one of the most prosperous towns in all of GA...

sP

[WileEcoyote]

2. I just wanted to display a good picture of one and they are hard to find.

In my town I've never seen these cars deployed outside of the poor neighborhoods.

Even still they are only a tool to make money for municipal governments. Those that use them have little to no moral scruples at all.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. not disputing their use at all...

the Alpharetta PD is very good at collecting revenue. we are rapidly turning into a society where your every thought and move will be entered into a database somewhere...and someone (or thing) will mine that data to know your patterns...and how to exploit them.

sP

[Celebration]

4. you have a point, but

People should not be driving cars without insurance. Sorry.

[WileEcoyote]

5. Wait until you lose your job.

Your tune will change right quick.

Auto insurance is easily afforded by the wealthy and property owners. Poor people foot their bill two ways. The working poor being the only real producers of wealth.

[DaveJ]

Massively unfair

I always thought it was ludicrous having to pay necessary bills that go to people making $100+/hr when you only make like $10/hr. This goes for car insurance that pays the body shops and health insurance too. Auto insurance doesn't care how much they pay for auto repair. It's just a game to them. How can someone making minum wage be expected to pay taxes and fees to support people making 10 times as much? You are absolutely right, I'm not sure what the solution is though short of some kind of revolt.

[WileEcoyote]

7. Here's how it can go;

1. Lose job through no fault of your own. No unemployment benefits as your last employer fired you before you worked six months. That's when these pricks will usually can you. In order to give your job to their son in law and avoid paying in to the system for your unemployment..

2. Lose apartment due to inability to pay rent resulting from job loss.

3. Live out of your car/truck, shower in park (I used my storage space to bathe and dumped out the gray water every Sunday after they turned off the security cameras).

4. Can't apply for any welfare as most localities won't send money to homeless.

5. Lose car due to non payment of insurance or registration.

6. Live under culvert, bridge, anywhere to keep rain off.

7. Get ill from exposure to elements, sanitation issues, starvation, infection.

8. Die in the streets.

[DaveJ]

8. We live in a dual class society so I was just thinking...

Just keep the have's separated form the havenot's somehow. I'm not sure how we can get medical care on the have not side, but at any rate, we can't afford real doctors so might as well find a nonlicensed alternative. We shouldn't be expected to pay the bills for douchbags driving Lexus's, Infiniti's, Mercede's, etc. I walk past a gym for the upper class on my way home and I just wish they'd go away and stop taking our money.

200 years ago I could have built a home by myself if I'd just had some land, but today's world is based on capitalistic methods of stealing money from the hard working.

[kelly1mm]

9. So what do you propose happen when one makes $10 per hour,

has no auto insurance, and is in an accident where they are at fault? Lets suppose they hit a vehicle worth say $25,000. Damage to the vehicle including rental fees for 10 or so days and the body work cost $5000. How do you make the non-at-fault driver whole?
Or lets say you were to hit another non-insured driver and she can no longer get to work because her car is now out of commission - how are they to be compensated?
Still another - what if the uninsured driver hits a pedestrian without health insurance? How are those medical bills paid?
I am not saying that it is easy to pay these bills - just that the requirement for insurance is to protect others from your actions, not primarily as a "punishment" for the poor.

[DaveJ]

10. Oh, you're asking me? I've always paid my insurance.

But in a hypothetic situation, in an ideal world, I would say that there should be some sensitivity to what the person can afford. Something like a sliding scale. Realistically, in today's world, people do have insurance for noninsured drivers, so those who drive without insurance are not 'bad' in the sense that they are risking the financial security of others. They know the other guy will be covered. When they are caught though it's effectively a fine for being poor, a poor tax, or whatever you want to call it. That's just not right. Sort of sadistic. But most people can afford their car insurance, so it doesn't affect them, only others, so most people selfishly don't care.

[kelly1mm]

12. Thanks for the clarification. Others should have to buy non-insured

motorist coverage (that they may barely be able to afford) or not be made whole by a non-insured motorists actions but rather get what that person can afford in your ideal world. I disagree with that notion but understand your position now.

What about the pedestrian hypothetical? How are there medical bills/lost wages/pain and suffering compensated for in your ideal world? Or, more importantly in this world?

[BeFree]

18. Pay for car insurance when you buy gas

If you use a lot of gas you pay more.

A pay as you go situation. And if you are a high risk driver you pay a premium. Otherwise everyone who has a license pays some and those who drive more, pay more and everyone gets covered.

[kelly1mm]

19. I have read about this idea before and think it is interesting.

Two main problems I see are that it is regressive (although the current system maybe more so) and how would you have the high risk driver pay more? How would the pump know who was a high risk driver? I suppose you could design a system where a driver would have to swipe a drivers license to get gas and data on the card could set the "insurance tax rate". Lots of problems with this though from civil liberties points of view an potential fraud of "good" drivers buying gas for "bad" drivers if the surcharge was significant. Interested in hearing your thoughts though.

[WileEcoyote]

11. I'll answer that one

First of all drop the "deadbeat automobile owner doesn't pay insurance" crap from your whole thought pattern. This is a philosophy similar to the Ronald Reagan "welfare mother" shit.

If we must have automobile insurance make it based on accidents and moving violations. Sure, I know what you're thinking "it already is".

Not so. I have not had even one moving violation in thirty two years of California driving. And no accidents. A record so unblemished that they ought to pay me to just to drive. I'm a very freaking safe driver. Especially when driving without insurance really got to watch out for pigs. And yet my insurance isn't affordable.

Tell ya, I really don't care about a minor fender bender on some bourgouise shit's Lexis.

These are typically the kinds of accidents that take up most insurance/court industry snits. As for physical harm? Easily addressed through compulsory health care.

Bad drivers should go to jail. Not poor people.

Hey, it could happen to you. And as the recession deepens is more and more likely to happen to you.

[kelly1mm]

13. I don't believe I said anyone was a deadbeat - in fact I said I know it

is hard to pay insurance. In my younger days in the SF bay area I was paying over $200 per month (no tickets) for a car that my payments were $180 per month!

As to the fender bender with the Lexus, is your position that even if you were at fault that the Lexus driver should just suck it up?

Also, who will pay for the lost wages/pain and suffering of the pedestrian hit by the non-insured motorist? Or do they just suck it up as well?

[WileEcoyote]

14. This is similar to the "health care insurance debate"

First and foremost i don't give a shit about some wealthy dudes fucking Lexis (the poor baby!). He should have spent twenty grand less and donated the rest of his money to the poor. Or the nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood etc.

I suggest dropping the "insurance" word from health care and perhaps in the whole world of automobile safety too. Just talk SAFETY and reinforce it with jail time for shitty and drunk drivers.

[kelly1mm]

15. Ok, got your position on Lexus dude but what about the pedestrian?

Are you OK with the pedestrian not getting compensated for lost wages/pain and suffering? (assuming the medical bill are paid for by as yet enacted universal health care)

[WileEcoyote]

16. Thanks for the discussion

well I think you kind of answered the question. In a way that is.

The problem is that any human in Amerika can suffer job loss and disability for any reason. We have people in the U.S. who have been disabled and are dying because they can't wait for their eligibility to come around.

One can have lost a leg, maybe two and STIIL not qualify for disability until after a full year has passed since he/she had to leave job. Regardless of how the injury occurred. Car accident, workplace, falling down stairs at home? Still gotta wait a year. Plenty of time to get more ill, depressed or just die altogether...

If fact a injured person can't even fill out or process his disability paperwork until a full year after the accident. After that? Even these get thrown out by Social Security sometimes.

My idea is simply to punish shitty drivers. As it stands now even a lousy driver can get auto insurance. Just has to pay more. Like the rich bitch who broadsided me on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000. She just had pay more for insurance which is easy because she comes from wealthy family.

Again, thanks for the discussion.

[kelly1mm]

17. Thank you as well. Have a great night! nt

[Fla_Democrat]

6. holy catfish

:smoke: