“Random Taxers” tirade yet again

[Molandfreak]

- People will deny this, but it is true.  WV drivers licenses were a laminated deal with an actual picture from the early 80s until sometime in the 90s.  (Before that they were a plastic card the size of a credit card with raised letters and numbers like a credit card, with the height-weight, etc and no photo.  You could use about anyone's DL for drinking purposes.)  Anyway, the photo background was yellow.  The DMV in Charleston has a second backdrop which was blue.  Insiders got their picture taken against the blue background, which was a signal to cops that they were an insider and should be let out of the random tax and such.   To this day, WV cop slang for an person with pull is "blue back".

Unless this is construed to be on-topic somehow, this behavior demonstrates the recurring pattern of SP being utterly incapable of leaving his politics off the forum. Has he been warned about this after similar locked or deleted posts? If so, I think it's time he faces actual consequences for it. Time to quit sweeping this under the rug. Start a blog if you want to spread conspiracy theories.

[kphoger]

I think it's time he faces actual consequences for it.

At the risk of sounding hypocritical...

By posting in our forum, you automatically agree to the following:

What's not allowed:

Political discussion is discouraged. Since discussion of roads will always involve politics to some degree, it is not outright banned, but members are instructed to remember that this forum is frequented by many people with diverse political beliefs, and strive to avoid protracted debate on the subject. The staff reserves the right to limit debate on political topics if a moderator judges the topic to be too divisive.

Posting in a topic that someone broke such-and-such rule. This isn't necessary. Please use the "report a post" feature.

[Molandfreak]

I think it's time he faces actual consequences for it.

At the risk of sounding hypocritical...

By posting in our forum, you automatically agree to the following:

What's not allowed:

Political discussion is discouraged. Since discussion of roads will always involve politics to some degree, it is not outright banned, but members are instructed to remember that this forum is frequented by many people with diverse political beliefs, and strive to avoid protracted debate on the subject. The staff reserves the right to limit debate on political topics if a moderator judges the topic to be too divisive.

Posting in a topic that someone broke such-and-such rule. This isn't necessary. Please use the "report a post" feature.

The continued presence of this nonsense degrades the quality of the forum. This isn't any different from other posts in this subforum discussing incidents of P13, MMM, etc. breaking the rules. I think you said it best here:

2.  "Achieving your goal" of "making us uncomfortable" is no valid reason to disrupt a non-political forum with your political protest.  Go to Reddit for that, or Facebook, or wherever.  Just as I hope you wouldn't start running around the mall screaming "Fuck you", you shouldn't do it here either.  Some of us come here to get away from politics.

So why shouldn't there be transparency regarding an identified problem others have mentioned as well?

[Max Rockatansky]

The way I see it you have three options:

-  Make sarcastic responses towards this person when they engage in perceived malfeasance.  You do run the risk of taking things too far and running up to that line tends to be an art unto itself.
-  Ping a mod and state your case.  Be warned, they might not agree you have one. 
-  Put this person on Ignore and move on with life.

[NE2]

Where's option #3?

[Max Rockatansky]

Now that you mention it seemingly is buried under a now inaccessible or hard to find menu option.  I know it still exists because I had someone on Ignore status temporarily and forgot to remove it prior to the current forum format.  The feature still pops up as something I manually need to clear to read said person's replies. 

[1995hoo]

Click on the icon at the top left of the screen where you can access your profile and such. The Ignore list is one of the items on the drop-down menu.

[kphoger]

The way I see it you have three options:

-  Make sarcastic responses towards this person when they engage in perceived malfeasance.  You do run the risk of taking things too far and running up to that line tends to be an art unto itself.
-  Ping a mod and state your case.  Be warned, they might not agree you have one.
-  Put this person on Ignore and move on with life.

Where's option #3?

It's the red one.

[1995hoo]

Click on the icon at the top left of the screen where you can access your profile and such. The Ignore list is one of the items on the drop-down menu.

I should add something to that in the interest of clarity. On a larger screen (PC or tablet), I'm referring to the icon that appears all the way at the top left corner of the page where your username appears next to a small rendering of your avatar. On a smaller screen (phone), it's just a small version of your avatar. Thought I ought to clarify in case someone misunderstood my reference to "the top left of the screen," which admittedly wasn't the most accurate wording I could have used.

[kphoger]

On a larger screen (PC or tablet), I'm referring to the icon that appears all the way at the top left corner of the page where your username appears next to a small rendering of your avatar.

[1995hoo]

That's the one. The reason I didn't post an image is simply because I don't currently subscribe to a free photo hosting service that would have allowed for it. For a time I used Tapatalk, but it no longer works.

[JayhawkCO]

That's the one. The reason I didn't post an image is simply because I don't currently subscribe to a free photo hosting service that would have allowed for it. For a time I used Tapatalk, but it no longer works.

https://postimages.org/

No subscription required.

[hbelkins]

Why get your panties in a wad over this? Have you never seen an occurrence of the cops, having the choice of vehicles/motorists to pull over and give a revenue-generating ticket, choose only one of them and let the other one go? That's pretty much the definition of "random taxation."

And that's not an overtly political position to take. I've seen conservatives and liberals alike decry traffic enforcement.

[Molandfreak]

Why get your panties in a wad over this? Have you never seen an occurrence of the cops, having the choice of vehicles/motorists to pull over and give a revenue-generating ticket, choose only one of them and let the other one go? That's pretty much the definition of "random taxation."

And that's not an overtly political position to take. I've seen conservatives and liberals alike decry traffic enforcement.

The issue I have is that it's literally impossible to tell if he has a legitimate point or if he's an insane sovereign citizen type who doesn't think he should pay vehicle registration fees. But if I enquire further into this, I'm probably the one who would receive the brunt end from moderation.

[SectorZ]

Why get your panties in a wad over this? Have you never seen an occurrence of the cops, having the choice of vehicles/motorists to pull over and give a revenue-generating ticket, choose only one of them and let the other one go? That's pretty much the definition of "random taxation."

And that's not an overtly political position to take. I've seen conservatives and liberals alike decry traffic enforcement.

The issue I have is that it's literally impossible to tell if he has a legitimate point or if he's an insane sovereign citizen type who doesn't think he should pay vehicle registration fees. But if I enquire further into this, I'm probably the one who would receive the brunt end from moderation.

I don't think you'd receive negative feedback if someone stands in a hole and you just hand them a shovel to make the work go faster.

[formulanone]

Why get your panties in a wad over this? Have you never seen an occurrence of the cops, having the choice of vehicles/motorists to pull over and give a revenue-generating ticket, choose only one of them and let the other one go? That's pretty much the definition of "random taxation."

And that's not an overtly political position to take. I've seen conservatives and liberals alike decry traffic enforcement.

The issue I have is that it's literally impossible to tell if he has a legitimate point or if he's an insane sovereign citizen type who doesn't think he should pay vehicle registration fees. But if I enquire further into this, I'm probably the one who would receive the brunt end from moderation.

Yeah, as HB said, I don't think it's a real wild take that cops to pull over just to fill up coffers, it's not always evenly spread from place to place, it's effectively random (more random for some than others), some people get varying degrees of warnings / punishments / treatment and the whole scheme is a bit ridiculous in many cases (one-time causation not necessarily a correlation on insurance risk). There's a big difference between going 15-over in a residential neighborhood and the same amount on a freeway, and it can feel like a random tax (although it's a loaded word, calling it a "fee" implies a desired service or benefit is rendered).

I'm also on quite the other side of their area on the political spectrum and that's enough to say about that.

[kphoger]

There's a big difference between going 15-over in a residential neighborhood and the same amount on a freeway

That's why, in Kansas:

speed limit = 55-75 mph → less than 11 over the speed limit not reported to insurance
speed limit = 30-74 mph → less than 7 over the speed limit not reported to insurance

Chapter 8 — Automobiles and Other Vehicles
Article 15 — Uniform Act Regulating Traffic;  Rules of the Road
8-1560d — Certain violations of maximum speed limits not public record; not to be considered for liability insurance.

Convictions for violating a maximum posted speed limit of 55 miles per hour or more but not exceeding 75 miles per hour, by not more than 10 miles per hour in excess of such maximum speed limit, or a maximum posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour or more but not exceeding 54 miles per hour, by not more than six miles per hour in excess of such maximum speed limit, shall not be reported by the division and shall not be considered by any insurance company in determining the rate charged for any automobile liability insurance policy or whether to cancel any such policy under the provisions of subsection (4)(c)(7) of K.S.A. 40-277, and amendments thereto.

[hbelkins]

Why get your panties in a wad over this? Have you never seen an occurrence of the cops, having the choice of vehicles/motorists to pull over and give a revenue-generating ticket, choose only one of them and let the other one go? That's pretty much the definition of "random taxation."

And that's not an overtly political position to take. I've seen conservatives and liberals alike decry traffic enforcement.

The issue I have is that it's literally impossible to tell if he has a legitimate point or if he's an insane sovereign citizen type who doesn't think he should pay vehicle registration fees. But if I enquire further into this, I'm probably the one who would receive the brunt end from moderation.

Yeah, as HB said, I don't think it's a real wild take that cops to pull over just to fill up coffers, it's not always evenly spread from place to place, it's effectively random (more random for some than others), some people get varying degrees of warnings / punishments / treatment and the whole scheme is a bit ridiculous in many cases (one-time causation not necessarily a correlation on insurance risk). There's a big difference between going 15-over in a residential neighborhood and the same amount on a freeway, and it can feel like a random tax (although it's a loaded word, calling it a "fee" implies a desired service or benefit is rendered).

I'm also on quite the other side of their area on the political spectrum and that's enough to say about that.

I can assure you, from having been acquainted with him for nearly 30 years online (since the early days of MTR) and having met him once, he's no radical sovereign-citizen type. He's just a normal conservative who hates paying more than what he feels is an appropriate amount to the government.

But regarding paying vehicle fees, what's fair? Kentucky has an annual registration fee that varies by the type of plate, plus annual property taxes. Kentuckians aren't very happy about having to pay taxes annually on something they already own and paid sales taxes on when they bought it.

West Virginia has some sort of inspection program; I have no idea how that works. Kentucky did away with its inspection program back in the late 1960s or 1970s. My vague memory is that in Kentucky, you went to a private vendor to have the inspection done. I'm sure they got a tiny cut of the proceeds and forwarded the rest to Frankfort.

As for the example cited, I found the bit about the background color of the photo to be humorous, and it sounds exactly like something West Virginia would have done.