In yet another example of government arrogance, councils have knowingly overstepped their bounds and won’t give wrongly collected fines back unless people come groveling.
Although advised to stop collecting fines, [authorities] continued to patrol the lanes, pretending to still have enforcement authority.
Cabinet ministers said they … didn’t think many people would ask for their money back.
Didn’t think many people would ask for their money back. If a private organistation – say, Telecom – screwed up and charged people when it wasn’t supposed to, it would send those people a refund or credit, with an apology – and if the organisation refused to pay the money back, hundreds of people would write letters to the editor complaining about the incompetence, the obvious capitalist greed, and offer sob stories of personal hardships caused by the overcharging.
But when the government does the exact same thing, ‘pretending to have enforcement authority’, it doesn’t even consider giving people their money back, thinks about passing a retrospective law, tries to hide the story from the media, and finally arrogantly concludes that people won’t bother to try and get their money back.
Private business: GIVES you your money back
Local government: lets you ASK for your money back
Even more depressingly, the public will sit there numbly and accept it. There won’t be any letters to the editor about this one. Firstly, it’s deadly boring, and secondly there is a perception that, while the government can be forgiven for being hilariously incompetent, it can’t do anything morally wrong.
But the government can and does do hundreds of things that are morally wrong:
- Locks up marijuana smokers, dealers and growers, most of whom haven’t hurt anyone (not even themselves)
- Prevents homosexual couples from getting married
- Forcibly extorts large amounts of hard-earned money from anyone who dares earn a cent
- Traps the most vulnerable people in society in a welfare system with an effective marginal tax rate of more than 100%
- Pretends – or even believes – that it is doing all these things for our own good
Disgusting.
It’s almost enough to make you vote Libertarianz.
