Fined if they comply. Like hitting your kid for hitting his sister.

How did they come up with the value of $57???

<"We knew we were doing something a little bit bold," says Dave Meserve>

Wow Dave, that's bold. A meaningless law, we sure need more of those clogging the books. All this proves is you and your fellow council members have too much time on your hands.

What's next Dave, repealing the law of gravity?

Awesome!

I cannot wait to sieze control of my town. I already have most of my friends on city council, so once I win the Mayoral race, watchout!

I'm renaming the town to "Murderville" and I'm fining anyone who reports a murder, or cooperates with a murder investigation! That way we can be sure to attract more murderers to my town!

Then I'm annexing the neighboring town and renaming it "ChildRapeBurg". I'll tell you my plans for this town in a future post...

Also, who'd have expected such a thing from a CALIFORNIA town?! I was shocked! I thought for sure this was happening in Texas or something, but California? Wow!

Hey LoveGravy, do you whack it when people respond to your trolls? Huh? Next thing you know you'll be posting to every slashdot/boingboing article is a patheic attempt at attention in your one man trolling 'crusade' agenst EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA TODAY.

Just read the QuickTopic by mail and use mail-rules to filter out all the trolls. That's how I do it.

Thanks Cory. I'll look into it.

How's my cynical reaction any more of a TROLL than the rest of the replies below mine? They don't seem to think that it makes much sense either.

I come here for both sides of the story. I could go live on foxnews, and I could leave BoingBoing to be a pitri dish for liberals, but why?

Let me know if you decide to make your site "For Liberals Only". Until then, my views are no less valid than yours, or anyone else's in here. Just because you don't agree with me, and think this mayor is a HERO or something for his policymaking, doesn't make me a troll.

The post below mine sums it up: more useless legislation cluttering up the books. It's not an attempt to do anything real, it's simply an anti-Republican statement, and trust me, the Republicans have had more than their share of dumbass policymaking too, and it's equally offensive and ignorant when they do it.

Anyway, think seriously about putting a disclaimer somewhere on your site saying "Liberals Only, no opposing views welcome" if that's really what you want. That message filter is nice, it protects you from opposing viewpoints, and if you cannot protect your views with logic then I guess you must protect them with ignorance.

And, like lovegravy, if we can't defend our views with logic, turn to name-calling, trolling, and stereotyping.

Edited by author 05-19-2003 04:51 PM
Yes, why do you do that? If you cannot stick to logic, don't resort to ad hominems. Thanks for pointing that out. Your post in the other thread where you call me an "Asshole" 15 times shows your wonderful defense methodology.

And if you cannot see beyond your own political bubble, then stay out of open forums.

Maybe you're not trolling. Do you seriously not see a distinction between a law against murder (designed to protect us the people against predators) and a law like the patriot act (designed to protect the government against us the people)?

Thwarting the former would just be advocating for anarchy. I guess it's possible to make that argument, but it's pretty hard to take it seriously.

Thwarting the latter would be advocating for the constitution. I wasn't aware that was an exclusively liberal position to take. I find it hard to believe that you believe that either, so it sounds a lot like trolling.

I guess the point is you're free to take an absurd position, but if you want to be taken seriously at the same time, you should think about supporting it rather than trying to extend it into further absurdity.

Arcata's in the far north of California, kind of a Berkeley/Santa Cruz town except liberal. That's a joke. They have an annual human-powered boat regatta, or something like that, good dope and lots of redwoods nearby. They can do what they want, but it just seems funny that the gov't wants to punish people for not complying with the PA and the anti-PA people want to punish people if they do. The mayor could've just said, if the gov't comes around, send 'em to me.

Look at the featured sentance:

"Starting this month, a new city ordinance would impose a fine of $57 on any city department head who voluntarily complies with investigations or arrests under the aegis of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism bill passed after September 11."

It's a bill, that passed Congress. There is a method of repealing laws, and it's not by making your own local laws to supercede state and Federal ones. If Congress ratified the Patriot Act, and you disagree with it, then have Congress change it. It's not up to municipalities to pick and choose what federal laws to comply with and which to ignore.

While the Patriot Act isn't a brilliant piece of legislation, I do not think that the "If I don't like it, I'll just ignore it" mentality is the right way to go here. Yes, my post was a "Reduce to the rediculous" fallacy, but there is a small piece of truth in it. If you cannot extend the logic beyond the confines of that one situation without it falling apart, there may be a fundamental flaw. In this case you might disagree with the Patriot Act and be OK with them running counter to it, but what if instead they decided the opposite, where the patriot act banned invasion of privacy and the town passed a law preventing it from functioning, would you STILL support that kind of action?

We are a republic. We elect representatives who act on our behalf to pass laws. They passed a law that was apparently amicable to most of America. If you are in the minority who don't like the law, then unfortunately that's the downside of having a majority rule. If the majority doesn't approve of the law, lobby congress to change it and play by the rules.

Lovegravy, at what point do you feel that it is justified for a state or municipality to go agenst Fedrial Law? Not saying that it is in this case, but what about Medical Cannibis fiasco, or, on the other hand, Arizona and the Fedral Assult rife bands and MLK day? If a state or municipalitiy has no chance of changing the law on a national level, when to you think it justified for them to do things like this town is doing with the PA act?

Edited by author 05-19-2003 05:35 PM
oh lovegravy, i come to the quicktopic for you, all you. well, you and sakusha, pretty much. you are so fun, so cute, such a delight. on the long lonely days when i'm feeling a bit cranky, it's you that i turn to. never leave.

re the whole LoveGravy thing:
I used to think that that name was some sort of a naughty colloquialism, but now I'm thinking it comes more from an attraction a certain dressing or condiment that's yummy on potatos! Kudos to him!

Toast,

I'm trying to think of a case where it IS a good idea for a town to override Federal mandates. It sets a bad precedent. As many boingboingers like to do, don't only look at this case, look at the precedent it sets. My outrageous example simply takes the concept of allowing cities to supercede laws from a higher court to an extreme.

My father is an Opthalmologist, and is well versed in the perscription of marijuana for glaucoma patients. Does that mean a town can say "Medical Marijuana is OK"? I don't believe so, and neither does he. I'm a pro-choice person. If Roe-v-Wade is overturned, do I think it's OK for towns to override it? No, as HUGE of a mistake as I think overturning that precedent would be, I also feel that a city is too small of a body to override that decision. I DO feel, however, that a state can take a stab at it, but allowing it at the city level could lead to pandemonium. It opens a dangerous door.

Near where I live there is a town called "Rabbit Hash" (I live in KY). It is for sale, for $300,000. I can buy the entire town and become it's mayor. There are thousands of these tiny towns out there, what's to prevent a wealthy person to say "No Federal Income Tax in my town" (No roads needing Federal funds to maintain, no real huge benefits from the Federal government, so why not??). What if the KKK buys the town, what laws are they going to override? Do we say "Ok, the town has to have at least 10,000 citizens to override a Federal Law"? Or maybe 100,000? Where do the lines get drawn?

It's not that I have any love for the Patriot act, it's that I think that the move this town is making is a dangerous one. It's hard to say "Well, in this case it's OK, but if it's a case that I DON'T agree with then it's wrong", the problem with the law is that it must be applied evenly, and if this is allowed, then abuse within the confines of this precedent must be allowed too.

Edited by author 05-19-2003 06:32 PM
By the way, my name comes from this:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/down/downl...cca2f2411e8a20c45b4

Chef from South Part is the poet laureate of this age...

Well, frankly, I thought you were a woman and the LoveGravy was sort of, well, the gravy of love, you know, and now I feel like I've been in the Crying Game. No matter, it's all about the posts. Carry on.

OK Chico, now I feel all wierd.

You americans have the best witch hunts... salam, macarthyism, etc, but calling a witch hunt 'the patriot act' takes the cake.... weird... at least there is someone sane all the way over there, even if they live where bears shit....

Arcata, it should be noted, is the home of the Arcata Eye, which in turn is the home of the best police-beat column in the world.

  http://www.arcataeye.com/police/

(You've probably seen this before, but I figured I should mention it for those who haven't.)

I've got a good reason why passing the law is really a bad idea, and it's kind of playing off the libertarian-poster who said it's a bad idea to pass junk laws: that is, that the law is a "statement" with absolutely no balls at all.

To LoveGravy, I'd say that the time when it's OK to disobey a federal law is when you are actually DISOBEYING it, to wit, if the community of Arcata had the patriot act enforced against them in some manner, and said "go stuff yourself" to the federales. Now THAT takes balls! Simply passing a law that says "we don't degree" is useless gesturing of the first order (since the law is invalid de facto and de jure) and doesn't really DO anything -- it's a prime political maneuver!

I am waiting for the first librarian to say NO to the FBI, then once the FBI has come and gone to tell everyone. That's a statement worth standing up for.

Couldn't it have been handled in another way?!?

For example: Fine the person DOING THE QUESTIONING $1000, NOT the person being questioned, and word it in a way that it's not specific to the Patriot act: "It is illegal to question someone about their own, or another person's, activities without a court order or an arrest being made".

The problem I have with this is that a person may have info on a terrorist, but suddenly they will be fined (granted a paltry sum) for turning them in! Instead make it a fineable offense to ask the questions, since that's the specific act that they want to stop, right?! Then you aren't directly countermanding the Patriot act, or asking citizens to break federal laws, but rather are attacking the specific problem.

This law hurts the innocent as much as the Patriot act itself. If questioned, you're in a lose/lose situation.

Something else in Cali that I think is FAR worse than the Patriot Act:

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/03/37/cover-kane.php

Hey Toast (and everyone else), take this test:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Lemme know where you end up. I am:

Economic Left/Right: 2.75
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.49

1 down, 3 right of center.

Economic Left/Right: -1.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.26

Closest person on the international chart is the Dalai Lama.
I tend to vote Libertarian in Federal elections and other
parties in local.

I don't remember my exact score, but it was negative one or two point something in both dimensions.

However, there were a lot of questions I wanted to answer with "yes (or no) but...".

1 down, 2 left of center, near Ghandi who will look over and move.

Economic Left/Right: -0.12
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.72