A license to watch TV?

[Lloyd Danforth]

Dwarf.......oops, there I go being superior again!

[Pat K]

Dwarf.......oops, there I go being superior again!

And PC too.

[Lloyd Danforth]

No, there is a difference.  Its sort of like someone referring to you and I as a couple of heavy dudes verses a pair of fat fuckers

[Pat K]

Well if you want to say that to feel superior go ahead.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Aparently, I already was before I said that

[Pat K]

Well good for you, ya Fat Fucker.

[tracysaboe]

I watched Boston Legal last night ,it was good and I had no licence.

Beware the killer midget's !

Can't stand cop shows.

TRacy

[Lloyd Danforth]

Not a cop show

[Michael Fisher]

Sounds like a cop show to me.

TV is bleh, in any case. 

[Michael Fisher]

His comparison does not make any sense. TV licensing is far more absurd than firearms licensing

No it's not, if anything it's less. Firearms ownership is an expressed right, at least in America, whereas TV Ownership is a right implied within the 9th amendment.

Yes, from our perspective, it's more absurd to take guns, though we expect our guns to be taken first.

Please allow me to explain this in statist terms so that it can be understood:

"A firearm goes bang when someone pulls the trigger and people kill people with them, so firearms must be bad; thus, let's ban them!" 

A TV... does nothing. No, really. Even if you push all the buttons, nothing happens. It just shows things -- sometimes bad things -- and then eventually stops working one day.

Besides the theoretical radiation levels, I have no idea what the excuse was for them to license TVs. It's probably because most of European government has gone beyond public-health-justification territory and into because-I-said-so territory. I assume Europeans do not care about anything the government does if they're willing to allow even TV licensing to occur. 

[Dreepa]

I watched Boston Legal last night ,it was good and I had no licence.

Beware the killer midget's !

Can't stand cop shows.

TRacy

It is the next step down.. lawyer show.

[Pat K]

Funny as hell though.

[KBCraig]

It is funny. And I don't remember there ever being a cop on it, except maybe in a background shot.

[Lloyd Danforth]

If I didn't own a television, why on earth should it be incumbent on me to tell the authorities? Do the people who licence firearms expect non-firearms owners to tell them that don't have any rifles in the cupboard? How long before non-motorists have to ring up Swansea and confess that they don't own a car? Where would this insanity, this intrusion, this downright insolence stop?

His comparison does not make any sense. TV licensing is far more absurd than firearms licensing -- the absurdity of it is incomprehensible! The insanity is already far out of control, and it will stop at nothing.

I think it is less a license and more like a fee.  At least in the early days of TV, there were no commercials on British TV and the fee went towards supporting the BBC.

[eques]

If I didn't own a television, why on earth should it be incumbent on me to tell the authorities? Do the people who licence firearms expect non-firearms owners to tell them that don't have any rifles in the cupboard? How long before non-motorists have to ring up Swansea and confess that they don't own a car? Where would this insanity, this intrusion, this downright insolence stop?

His comparison does not make any sense. TV licensing is far more absurd than firearms licensing -- the absurdity of it is incomprehensible! The insanity is already far out of control, and it will stop at nothing.

I think it is less a license and more like a fee.  At least in the early days of TV, there were no commercials on British TV and the fee went towards supporting the BBC.

I think it most resembles a property tax.  The government is requiring a fee for something you own outright (though I realize that land is a slightly different commodity than television sets, the net effect is similar--you end up paying tax on something you own rather than on consumption or income).