China Car-Tracking Scheme Could Allow Higher Fuel Prices For Gas-Guzzling Cars (thestack.com) 150
An anonymous reader writes: In the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, traditionally a test-bed for nationwide infrastructure and technology schemes, 200,000 vehicles have been experimentally hooked into a real-time traffic-monitoring system based on RFID and roadside monitoring stations. China's state-owned Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASC) claims that such intense monitoring will be necessary for the driverless cars of the future, and to foil license-plate forgeries. On Monday the general manager of Chinese auto manufacturer Great Wall Motor suggested that a monitoring scheme of such scope could also be used to introduce a wide range of usage-based levies, and to easily ensure that less efficient cars could be charged more for fuel at gas stations.
why not use the car's odometer? (Score:5, Insightful)
why not use the car's odometer and charge them more at license renewal time?
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Maybe because the odometer doesn't measure fuel use?
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Neither does a RFID tag.
/greger
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If your car gets 25 mpg and your odometer shows a change of 7,500 miles at renewal time, how much gas did you use?
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The naÃve answer is 300 gallons.
But if you lived in the city, that could easily be 3000 gallons because being stuck in a traffic jam hurts mileage. Or maybe you're one of those people who keeps their car running 24/7 even when it's parked at home so you come to a nice cool car in the summer and a warm one in the winter.
The amount of gas consumed varies greatly. You can't even say 25mpg was
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So the government gets less gas tax revenue when people are stuck in traffic? That sounds like a good incentive for the government to end traffic congestion.
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Sounds like a great idea. How do you propose doing so (other than the obvious answer of reducing the number of vehicles on the road)?
It's easy to say "the government should do X" but not so much when you actually have to come up with a sane method for doing so.
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That's like asking how to get rid of mosquitoes without eliminating standing water.
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If your car gets 25 mpg and your odometer shows a change of 7,500 miles at renewal time, how much gas did you use?
Simple answer: we don't know. Fuel usage depends on speed. It also depends on the gear you are in. With a manual transmission and cherry picking speeds the difference between minimum fuel usage and maximum is certainly a factor of 3 or 4.
My car e.g. indicates its fuel usage. If I run 50km/h in gear 5 at 30 degrees outside it claims I'm using 2.9l/100km. If I run uphill a mountain in gear 2 with
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Okay, so why not just charge more for the fuel, no tracking required whatsoever.
We already have plenty of passive ways to calculate whatever we decide counts as a "fair share" of transportation infrastructure to its users. Anyone pushing for more active, GPS-based tracking has zero legitimate interest in allocating costs and every interest in having a readily available record of citizens' every movement.
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Okay, so why not just charge more for the fuel, no tracking required whatsoever.
Because the owners of gas-guzzlers are ALREADY paying more for fuel. The inherent value of the fuel does not change depending on how much it takes to go from A to B, but they use more to do that so they PAY more. And they pay more in gas taxes so they pay a disproportionate amount of the road maintenance fees.
Anyone pushing for more active, GPS-based tracking has zero legitimate interest in allocating costs and every interest in having a readily available record of citizens' every movement.
You know, I had a hard time convincing an engineer working on such a project that tracking people was going to be a natural use of her efforts. She just didn't believe it could happen. "But they won't
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Because the owners of gas-guzzlers are ALREADY paying more for fuel.
There are already many use cases for tiered usage pricing to drive an economic situation, i.e. bulk discounts, or high use penalty for scares resources.
Why should fuel be protected from government policies?
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Stating the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
They already pay more for gas. They use more of it.
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Gasoline is taxed (in the U.S.) by about 30 cents/gallon [wikipedia.org]. It goes up to about 50 cents/gallon if you include other taxes on the oi [api.org]
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In China it is subsidized.
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It may be heavily taxed but it is still subsidized sometimes.
Think strategic oil reserve...
Externalized costs (Score:2)
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Pretty much this. You could also achieve the goal of specifically penalizing the egregious polluters by charging a higher yearly registration fee for gas-guzzling models/years, or even base the fee on mileage with the data from the smog check inspection, also payable at registration time. Either option would be significantly less intrusive than the tracking scheme. But I don't think "non-intrusive" is a concern in China.
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Exactly. If they wanted to, they could raise the price of gasoline to the point where the externalized costs (i.e. pollution) are taken into account.
Yeah. They could do the same thing for labor, too, to the point where the externalized costs (i.e. health care, pension, fair treatment of labor, etc.) are taken into account.
Like the United States does.
And then it would cost the same to manufacture in China as it does in the U.S., instead of being vastly cheaper in China.
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So? Why should gas have a linear scale for use? We have plenty of cases where various tiers of usage result in various usage charges. Some bulk discounts, some bulk penalties, some to promote over use, and some to promote the reduction of a scarce resource. Why not add climate and a pollution penalty to the mix?
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There is a far easier solution. Quite simply hugely inflate the registration fee of all infernal combustion engines and reduce registration costs for electric vehicles. This will drive electric vehicle use and hugely reduce the use of polluting infernal combustion engine vehicles of all description. We approaching that tipping point, so twiddling about at the edge of fossil fuel consumption makes little sense at this stage better to focus on planning to hugely reducing it's use where ever possible. There i
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NO, they are paying the same prize, just buying more of it...
I didn't not realize you get a volume discount for fuel. Is that what you are insinuating? Otherwise, your price per mile traveled is higher for vehicles that have lower MPG.
Punishment of the Poor (Score:5, Insightful)
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people seem to forget that the modern world runs on power, and if power gets to expensive, then a large number of people are going to be screwed
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the modern world runs on power
Tell me about it. You should see the contributions I have to pay the local politicians just to stay in business.
Oh, that wasn't the power you were talking about? Never mind then.
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Except when they don't. For example, many carbon tax proposals call for simply dividing up the revenue and paying it back out to the public again. The poor tend to use less energy than the rich, so most of them would end up receiving more money back than they paid.
Incentives for energy efficiency are not about increasing government revenue. They're about encouraging certain behaviors while keeping revenue unchanged.
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That's why we have mass transit.
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also forgive me if i dont like going places as if im a head of cattle daily
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Could the low price of gasoline be part of the reason?
That's fine. You lose the ability to adjust to civilized life as you get old. This is not your fault, it's a normal part of aging.
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i dont care what caused it (the auto dealers buying up small transit lines in the 20s) but i have to live with it. so i need my car, my impala gets 20-30MPG, and is big enough for 5 comfortably. i will continue to need a car for the foreseeable future and i cant think of anything i would ever do that would lead me to give it up
there are a 100 million other americans who think just like me
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Could the low price of gasoline be part of the reason?
No. The high cost of infrastructure (buses, trains, employees) to provide mass transit, combined with the low usage rates of less dense areas.
You simply can't get the number of riders to make a bus system pay off in a city of as large as 50,000, and when you consider the vast areas of this country where you don't have even that density of population ... mass transit is nice where it works, and it is usually highly subsidized even then. We have a tax on our water bill to pay for free bus rides for everyone,
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This city of 8,738 [wikipedia.org] has bus service [sctransit.com].
That's fine because people who live in the city heavily subsidize people who live in the suburbs [streetsblog.org].
You don't think young people are
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This city of 8,738 has bus service.
This "city" service is run by the county, so there is a huge amount of taxpayer subsidy going into it. This system is not "paying off", it is sucking money. I didn't say a city of that size can't have bus service, I said it cannot have bus service that 'pays off' -- i.e., is sustainable and self-funding.
That's fine because people who live in the city heavily subsidize people who live in the suburbs.
Umm, people in the suburbs who have no or little access to the bus service are not being subsidized, they are the ones who are subsizing the city dwellers. And city dwellers who have little to no access to t
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And yet it's true [forbes.com]:
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That's more about gaining wisdom and appreciating the more important things in life as you age, and nothing to do with "losing the ability to adjust to 'civilized' life as you get old."
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Yes, that's exactly what they tell themselves.
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Why i have to pay for them is beyond me
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Why i have to pay for them is beyond me
Because the people in NYC have learned that they can vote taxes onto the backs of others to pay for things they want, or elect people who will create such taxes for them. de Tocqueville:
A corralary: a democacy can survive only until the have-nots learn they can tax the haves for things they want.
It happens everywhere. In parts of Michigan outside Detroit metro, it was a common complain
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just because you live in a sardine can with a million others doesnt mean the rest of us do
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Shanghai officials have put in place a complicated—and expensive—process to purchase the right to add a car to the often-gridlocked roads of this city of 23 million people. To register for the license auction, prospective car buyers must put down 2,000 yuan as good faith money. In exchange, they get a disc loaded with software they can use to bid online. After a couple of rounds of offers, the government figures out the highest price it can charge to completely sell out the year’s new allotment of licenses. Lottery participants who had bid at least that much then get to pay for their plates.
for communism, it sure seems a lot like capitalism at it's finest.
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The only thing communist in china is the communist party.
The rest is 1750 capitalizm at its finest.
Ah, well and a few health care and education related issues ... are still "communist".
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Geeze, just like winning the lottery (Score:4, Informative)
Because driving a gas-guzzler (usually older as the only thing poor folk can afford) isn't punishment enough. It's like winning the lottery: you beat the stratospheric odds and you end up having to pay ridiculously high tax rates on the winnings even for a state-based game. I'm far from a libertarian, but that has always struck me as total bullshit^.
And yes, I'm also terrified of this coming to the US (Oregon is seriously considering real-time monitored mileage-based taxation).
^ - Back when they were first considering the national lotteries, David Brinkley observed: "The mob used to have something similar called the Numbers game. But the odds were better, and you didn't have to pay any taxes on the winnings."
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I apologize for moving OT here, but I am genuinely confused by this attitude. In the case of lottery winnings, it's already free money anyways.... it's not like one had to work particularly hard for it, and if the prize is running into the many tens of millions of doll
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The answer is... they double tax it because they can.
The government will tax what it thinks it can get away with. As long as it doesn't show up on a voter's direct tax bill, they can get away with it unless someone looks for it and notices.
In that way, taxes actually make things at least a little more expensive for us without us even noticing. Make no mistake, that tax increase your elected representative is voting for on some company or group that you don't know anything about is affecting how much you p
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But if the money is free, what difference does it make how many times it is taxed when the amount that remains is still well in excess of what you need?
I can understand the objection to such taxation when the amount remaining does not leave one with a fair or reasonable amount based on one's needs or even their desires.... but as near as I can tell, the only reason to be upset about the amount that the government wants to take from lottery winnings when even afterwards one is still left with more than an
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the government did even less, thats why
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I'm not aware of any state where winning a lottory leads to taxation of the winner.
The lotto company is paying the taxes on the money put in, the rest is distributed to the "winners".
the government did even less, thats why ... you are an idiot. Or did the aircraft carriers stop moving while you farmed in your lottery winnings?
The government is working constantly for you
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Most of them, afaik... For the really big ticket ones where the jackpots go into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, I think Uncle Sam gets 30% of the winner's prize.
But as far as I can tell, all that it means is that the jackpot can just be thought of as being about 30% smaller than it is advertised... at least with respect to how much money you actually get to keep if you win.
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With state In obviously meant state as in the meaning of what the word state means: a state like Germany, France etc.
If the 'stares' in the 'states' tax the individual instead if the 'company' that is obviousl up to them and would only require a kind of ballance in the rate of the winnings.
kf
i win 3 millions I would not care to pay one million intaxes.
However if I win 3 millions in Germany, it would not be taxed, as the lottey company payes 'taxes' and 'licenses' far higher than 30% before issuing any wins.
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In the case of a big lottery win, why should it matter to you how little the government has worked to get some of your money when it has left you with more than enough to be set for life regardless?
Or do you have so little to worry about in your own life and welfare that you feel compelled to constantly try and second guess whether or not everyone else around you is living up to your expectations of them?
One thing learned in China investments (Score:1)
Over the long haul, as one of the first IPO investors in China back in the 90s, I've learned a few things.
One is that you need to verify and then not trust. Keep verifying.
I predict license plate fraud will be endemic in wealthy fuel stops and in remote regions.
Is this a good idea? Possibly, but it needs to be closely monitored, as up to 50 percent of the Chinese supply chain has fraudulent materials, and people will politely pretend to do something and then not do it.
A better method would be to disincentiv
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no, that leads to fraud. you need to understand how the system works, and what the incentives are.
there are entire ghost towns and ghost companies that look complete on the outside but are hollow shells. the metrics require they be built, but nobody makes sure they are actually being used for what they were built for.
so parking requirements (reserved spot) will just be "paper" parking spots, as fraud is cheaper than building one.
Just increase the tax on all fuel. (Score:2)
Increasing tax on fuel will have a similar effect.
This idea is stupid - it's a technological solution looking for a problem. What if I buy an efficient car and tweak the engine to make it faster and less efficient. Does it still count as an efficient car?
Tax vehicles by weight if you have to - the heavier they are, the less efficient they tend ot be.
And tax the fuel. The more fuel you use, the more you pay.
And this does not involve any fancy tech.
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And tax the fuel.
Electric cars. Plug in anywhere and dodge the tax.
And this does not involve any fancy tech.
One could apply a per mile charge only to alternative fuel (like electric or bio diesel) vehicles. But then you'd get a 'No fair!' whine. And the thought of charging per mile or per zone (like central London) based upon GPS technology make politicians moist.
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you don't think like a government in the large corp/banking cartel's pockets, now do you.
Electric cars - tax the "less efficient" ones too.
Nevermind the person with 10 person van actually is hauling 8 people, tax that poor bastard to death!
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Well, as someone else said, this was a small car manufacturer who was basically asking the government to tax his competition. You need look no further than that.
The only question is whether this owner has more pull with the Party than the big car makers.
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Don't less (Score:2)
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Re: American leftsist are taking note... (Score:4, Informative)
I hope so. This is good for the planet.
Perhaps it should be noted that the Chinese are not actually doing it, or even planning to do so. The proposal to charge inefficient cars more did not come from the government. It came from the boss of a manufacturer of small cars. Basically, he is proposing that his competitors should be taxed more. Chance of this actually being implemented: ~0%.
His big pickup carries ... (Score:2)
His big pickup carries solar cells to construction sites, you insensitive clod!
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Well you'll be delighted to note that there is no constitutionally protected right to possess vehicles in the good US of A. So even if the federal government implements such a system (and it makes sense since the wear and tear of roads is not the same wether you drive a small car, a suv, a double decker or a heavy camion) you can't go crying to the autoequivalent of the NRA lol.
I used to be joking when I accused the left of wanting a totalitarian state. I wish I were still joking.
Are those who touted China centrally-planned economy as a great model still doing so this year? I've lost track, but I doubt their point was ever about the economy, but instead just looking for more centralized control. Those redneck racists in flyover country just keep making the wrong choices, don't you know.
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When you're joking you know you're doing it. When you don't know, you're delusional.
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I used to be joking when I accused the left of wanting a totalitarian state. I wish I were still joking.
You ARE joking, whether intentional or not. The totalitarian candidate is the one leading the primaries on the Republican side. That's not "the left". "The left" wants the second place Democrat candidate, who is not a totalitarian. The people on the center-right want to see the status quo continue by voting for Clinton or one of the other Republican candidates.
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Leftest never want totalitarianism,, but they always end up getting it anyhow.
The key flaw in socialism remains excessive concentration of power. The end.
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that's the key flaw in every human system of government.
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They are not all the same. Lower % of GDP spent by the government == better.
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The key flaw in socialism remains excessive concentration of power. The end.
you mean like [fortune.com] capitalism? [forbes.com]
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No you dimwit. Show me any one corporation that controls 50%+ of GDP. Until you do you are full of shit.
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If the BBC is to be believed, the closest thing to a moderate running in this election is Trump. Clinton is more left wing than almost all dems in the last century, sanders even further. If you disagree with this, please forward your complaints the the BBC.
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I'm not on a crusade to correct the BBC, but I'm happy to correct you. Here is where the presidential candidates stand [politicalcompass.org], if you'd like to compare that with the parties in the UK then the UK parties are here [politicalcompass.org].
Clinton looks pretty super-left-wing, doesn't she? Note that Obama is to the left of Clinton [politicalcompass.org], but more authoritarian, or at least he was in 2012 when he was trying to get re-elected. When he was trying to get elected in 2008 he was far left of where he is now [politicalcompass.org].
Hillary Clinton is a conservative, she's ju
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Socialist governments quickly turn into authoritarian, totalitarian states. The State sees the need for more of itself in order provide more social services. They will drive out productive members who eventually tire of being stolen from, leaving them with a smaller tax base, which they will squeeze even harder. The recipients of social services will demand that more be done to squeeze people, and that there be a need to regulate people's behavior in order to ensure the services can continue.
Regulating how
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That's all fine and dandy, but so far it doesn't apply when put up against the Constitution. If Bernie Sanders got elected we would not all of a sudden become a socialist country, and any laws that get enacted still need to satisfy the Constitutional requirements.
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The days when we were protected by the Constitution passed decades ago. The SCOTUS members vote their political preference, and then justify that preference afterwards. The current SCOTUS is very close to accepting much of the above, and with one more leftwing member I wouldn't expect any resistance.
Re: American leftsist are taking note... (Score:2)
It is not a question of left or right, but rather of the extremes. Both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were totalitarian in their own way.
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They were totalitarian in the same way. Their economic system differed, but that wasn't an important difference on balance. The danger is in giving power to a central authority, not specifically in an economic system. However, some economic systems can only work with a strong central authority, and are inherently dangerous because of that.
Re:American leftsist are taking note... (Score:5, Insightful)
...there is no constitutionally protected right to possess vehicles in the good US of A.
Yes, there is. It's implied. The constitution doesn't grant rights, it limits the government's power to restrict rights that citizens already have by default. The bill of rights, which include the second amendment's right to keep and bear arms (for example) was originally controversial because it was argued, is it really necessary to explicitly state that the government can't infringe on those rights when it has already been implied elsewhere in the document that the government has no authority to exercise authority in ways not already granted to it (when it comes to restricting rights that citizens have by default)? Also notice that the language used doesn't grant any rights to the people, but confirms that, no, we really mean it, the government has no power to infringe on a right that is inherently possessed by the citizens.
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Any right is implicitly constitutionally protected, but there is no restriction for non-rights. So we are still left with the question of what is a right or not. Do I have a right to a free pony?
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Yes, but it will be an ID pony. You will be required to have it with you at all times.
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Maybe that was the theory at the start, but it's certainly not the practice, and has almost nothing to do with how the courts have interpreted it. That's because the powers granted to the government are so broad and vague, they can cover almost anything. For example, Article I section 8 gives the government the power to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." It also says it can "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing
Re: American leftsist are taking note... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes but the second amendment is total bullshit, it's to keep slaves from escaping. The first is bullshit as well, its only purpose is to enable hate speech. I think you were raised in an earlier age in which Go Go America bullshit was fed to you and you uncritically believed it. You need to get back to university, Grandpa, and get a modern education.
You are scary.
Really, really scary.
Because it's fools like you that enable authoritarianism to exist.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "HATE SPEECH"!!! IF WHAT SOMEONE SAYS HURTS YOUR PRECIOUS FEELINGS, TOUGH FUCKING SHIT. GET OVER IT
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Or, you haul off and knock the asshole's teeth out with either your fist or nearest heavy blunt object.....
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I think some people confuse "hate speech" with "incitement to violence". Realistically though, the difference between the two can be a fine line in various situations. Personally, if somebody wants to say "I hate X", then that's their business (though I may choose not to associate with said person). However, when that becomes "we should kill/hurt/main all them bloody X", then that's a problem. It's also similarly a problem when there's collusion to restrict the rights of certain demographics.
It's a crime to
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The way I read the Bill of Rights, both of those things are protected. I see the first as a 4th and 9th Amendment issue and the second as a 1st and 9th Amendment issue, if I'm correctly interpreting the second one.
No, I don't look very favorably on the mainstream on either the D and R side. One of my patented off-topic rants backed up by my personal guarantee that at least one reactionary or feminist will get triggered by the word cisgendered follows. Bonus points if that person is in the Apache attack c
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Well you'll be delighted to note that there is no constitutionally protected right to possess vehicles in the good US of A.
Nonsense. I classify my vehicle as a weapon, and the second amendment means that I get to possess it.
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The way you drive that might be valid, but in other cases how much legal weight does your (or my) classification generally hold?
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Uhh, ok. Or, my post was a joke and maybe you should take some time off and relax.
You're no NYCL.
No shit. In fact, I'm not a lawyer at all.
Re:American leftsist are taking note... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Private ownership of property is a constitutional right. See the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Vehicles are private property in exactly the same way as clothing, electronics, furniture, and everything else.
What isn't a right is driving an automobile on public roads -- but you have the right to drive it on your own private property all you want, license or not.
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