On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 04:36:18PM -0800, Lewis Wolfgang wrote: > Neil Schneider wrote: > >Todd Walton said: > > > >>On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:26:56 -0800, boblq <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > >>>Your stupid argument could be used against any law that any > >>>democracy passes that forces someone to do something that > >>>they do not want to do, which is after all the whole point of laws. > >> > >>Like the DMCA or Patriot Act. > >> > > > > > >BZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Bad analogy. The DMCA or Patriot act have nothing > >whatsover to do with funding anything by anybody nor do they involve > >taxing anybody for anything. The BBC funding mechanism is a > >fee-for-service mechanism. If you don't like the service, don't buy > >it. You seem to be under the misperception that you aren't "taxed" for > >television programming here. Instead of the government taxing it here, > >the corporations are doing the taxing. You pay a little more for every > >item you buy that is advertised. The corporations then spend that > >money to advertise on TV and they put programming in between the > >commercials. In return they get to veto programming. If they don't > >like it, it doesn't get shown between their commercials. > > Hi Neil, > > If memory serves, (I didn't google it) ALL televisions are > taxed in Britain to fund the BBC, whether you watch BBC or not. > I recall that the authorities enforce the tax rather enthusiastically > and I wouldn't be surprised if the tax collectors drive by houses > looking for TV emissions. (I think they used to look for local > oscillator emission, but do modern tubeless tuners emit enough > signal to track?) > > Thus, your choice is to own a TV or not, hardly a way to > introduce competition in programming. Your opinion of advertisement > supported TV is rather cynical, isn't it? >
Not cynical at all. Economically accurate. I wonder how all you privitizers would feel if you had to pay tolls every time you used the roads to run to the store. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- KPLUG-List mailing list [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
