Recycle Police fine senior $100

[Fantine]

A senior woman drops a newspaper into a street trash container and is fined $100 dollars for failing to recycle.

How much you wanna bet that if this city has to cut its budget, police and fire fighters will be the first to go, but the Environmental Enforcers will keep their jobs?

This is how municipalities punish voters for making them cut the budget. Essential services go first, but this kind of crap is immune.

Was there a recycling container next to the trash can on the street?

At the Sam's Club gas station, there's a trash can (I ALWAYS clean out my car when getting gas--if anything's inside) but there's a recycling container next to it for aluminum cans and plastic bottles. It it's available, then they have a case--otherwise, they're overenforcing.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

With the exception that the "slippery slope fallacy" usually ends up being true. Sorta like during the civil war, when people were protesting the massive grab of unconstitutional authority that Lincoln was taking by suspending habeus corpus, using the military to conduct a scorched earth policy on American citizens, imprisoning journalists critical of his war conduct. They all said that it would lead to a broad, overreaching, incestuous federal government at the expense of state soveriegnty. That was all claim "No!!! That won't happen. This is a special case. That slippery slope thing will never happen. This is America, damn it, we're different. We have a Constitution that protects us from abusive government." Riiiiight, and we can see how that turned out.

It's still a slippery slope fallacy, and thus not a good argument. But I think most people could see that from the outset. Everything is a 'matter of degree'. I could use that argument against any given law (e.g. don't fine me for speeding! That's like what the Nazis did... The only difference being a matter of degree.) But what is important is significance. In this particular case, the event you describe is obviously significantly different from the atrocities that transpired under Nazism. You can't hide under the banner of 'it's a matter of degree' when the degrees are so far apart so as to render the analogy insignificant.

 

[SOAD]

That would imply that I ascent to the validity of the law. You fight injustice, not comply with it. I will see if she intends to fight the fine and if she establishes a fund to defray the legal costs of it, I'll donate $100 to that.

Since you do not care about the lady, then yes she broke a law and is being fined for breaking a law. Maybe next time she will put her recycled trash in the proper bin!

Why do you have such disregard for the law?

 

[ScottBot]

Since you do not care about the lady, then yes she broke a law and is being fined for breaking a law. Maybe next time she will put her recycled trash in the proper bin!

Why do you have such disregard for the law?

Because most laws are stupid attempts to unncecessarily extert control over my behavior, thereby reducing my liberty.

And I said that I would help the lady, just not in a way you consider valuable.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because most laws are stupid attempts to unncecessarily extert control over my behavior, thereby reducing my liberty.

In the other thread you claimed that: 'The essence of liberty in a civil society is that my right to swing my arm around ends at your nose.' You should therefore have no problem with laws that encourage recycling behaviour since non-recycling behaviour actually hits someone's nose, so to speak. It is not an unnecessary measure of control. By your own principle, your right to not recycle ends as soon it causes harm. And it does.

 

[callmeMurph]

In the other thread you claimed that: 'The essence of liberty in a civil society is that my right to swing my arm around ends at your nose.' You should therefore have no problem with laws that encourage recycling behaviour since non-recycling behaviour actually hits someone's nose, so to speak. It is not an unnecessary measure of control. By your own principle, your right to not recycle ends as soon it causes harm. And it does.

That law does not stop at my nose should I decide to throw out a newspaper. My throwing out the newspaper hurts no one.

 

[ScottBot]

In the other thread you claimed that: 'The essence of liberty in a civil society is that my right to swing my arm around ends at your nose.' You should therefore have no problem with laws that encourage recycling behaviour since non-recycling behaviour actually hits someone's nose, so to speak. It is not an unnecessary measure of control. By your own principle, your right to not recycle ends as soon it causes harm. And it does.

What harm does non-recycling do?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

That law does not stop at my nose should I decide to throw out a newspaper. My throwing out the newspaper hurts no one.

My speeding down the street hurts no one. Does it mean I get to speed? Non-recycling behaviour hurts society less than recycling behaviour?

 

[ScottBot]

That law does not stop at my nose should I decide to throw out a newspaper. My throwing out the newspaper hurts no one.

It kills polar bears....

 

[ScottBot]

My speeding down the street hurts no one. Does it mean I get to speed?

As long as you don't hurt anyone, why not? If you do hurt someone, then the courts exist to ensure that the victim is compensated for whatever harm you've caused.

Non-recycling behaviour hurts society less than recycling behaviour?

How so?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

As long as you don't hurt anyone, why not? If you do hurt someone, then the courts exist to ensure that the victim is compensated for whatever harm you've caused.

Right, as long as I don't hurt anyone... I am perfectly justified in driving down my street, at dangerous speeds. What other grand logic could alleviate the fears of public safety more than the quaint remark: 'As long as it's not hurting anybody right now... it should be legal.'

How so?

That is a question that I've posed to you. How is non-recycling behaviour less harmful to the public than recycling behaviour? If you grasp the obvious answer, then you will see why - even upon your own principle - you are not justified in treating both behaviours equally, or as though they are equiprobable in the prospective harm they can cause.

 

[ScottBot]

Right, as long as I don't hurt anyone... I am perfectly justified in driving down my street, at dangerous speeds. What other grand logic could alleviate the fears of public safety more than the quaint remark: 'As long as it's not hurting anybody right now... it should be legal.' That is a question that I've posed to you. How is non-recycling behaviour less harmful to the public than recycling behaviour? If you grasp the obvious answer, then you will see why - even upon your own principle - you are not justified in treating both behaviours equally, or as though they are equiprobable in the prospective harm they can cause.

So, you want to outlaw behavior that MIGHT be harmful? How control freakish of you. Hey, the EPA has declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Since when you exhale, you are polluting the environment, you have no right to breath, as it MIGHT endanger my life. I insist that you stop breathing immediately.

 

[SOAD]

Hey, the EPA has declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Since when you exhale, you are polluting the environment, you have no right to breath, as it MIGHT endanger my life. I insist that you stop breathing immediately.

straw man

 

[William_0]

So, you want to outlaw behavior that MIGHT be harmful? How control freakish of you. Hey, the EPA has declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Since when you exhale, you are polluting the environment, you have no right to breath, as it MIGHT endanger my life. I insist that you stop breathing immediately.

Comparing pollution to war crimes, breathing as polluting... Wow, just wow....

 

[keith99]

how hard would it have been to put the paper into the other bin? lol

There is nothing in ht elinked story to indicate there was another can.

 

[keith99]

One other board I frequent is a cycling board, not recycling bicycling.

I remember seeing a thread on that site about cyclists being cited for not using the bike lane.... Because a police car parked in hte bike lane and then ticketed all the cyclists who left teh lane to get past the police car!

I'm guessing New York is trying to surpass teh tradition of Speed traps in the South.

 

[Pommer]

I'm all for recycling but if I feel like throwing something in the trash I have the right to throw it in the trash. This is ridiculous.

PLANETKILLER!!! How dare you disagree with the state's authority to dictate where you put your discarded paper?

I exercise "extreme recycling" which can be summed up by the maxim: "Out of the ground it comes, back into the ground it goes!"

 

[ScottBot]

... Wow, just wow....

I get that alot.

 

[MichaelHelp]

You are saying that an 80 year old lady intentionally violated the law and contibuted to the destruction of the planet by conspiring to, and with malice and forsight, put a newspaper in the garbage bin and not the recycling bin?

No more malicious than the comparison to a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.

 

[MichaelHelp]

There is nothing in ht elinked story to indicate there was another can.

Then how could she offer to take it our of the trash can and put it where it belong as Scott stated?

You are focusing on the cost of the ticket. I am focusing on the purpose. She was given a ticket (regardless of cost) for putting a newspaper in the trash can and not the recycling bin. When she offered to take the paper out and put it where it belonged, the officer refused and gave her a ticket anyway. If you cannot see the plain stupidity of it, I cannot help you.

Seriously.... there are city and neighborhood ordinances which are stupid. Grass can't be so many inches high, etc... either get them changed or comply with them to avoid fines. It's not that complicated.