This is getting off topic but . . . I wrote:
> It is a fact that you cannot build a house in Georgia or Pennsylvania > without electricity and a flush-toilet. That's enforced by law, which I > suppose in some sense means it is backed by violence. For that matter, so > is a library fine. In actual fact, no one is going to come after you for > having a house with no flush toilet. (I have one.) > Clarification: You cannot build a house like this now. If you happen to own one (as I do) you cannot legally live there. It is not a house. It is a structure, like a barn. However, if you do live in that house, the sheriff will not come to your door and evict you. You are technically in violation of the health laws but no one cares. In rural Georgia many people live that way. There are still millions of people in the U.S. who have outhouses (privies) without indoor plumbing. They are mainly in remote areas such as Alaska. There are 670,986 houses like that (0.64%). See: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2002-07-05-plumbing.htm This is probably not against the law in rural Alaska, nor should it be. It causes no harm. It is against the law in Adams County, PA. In rural Japan they have few sewers. Outhouses are not allowed. Most houses have a cesspool. That is dreadful. It stinks in the summer. But it is reasonably hygienic. Japan spends billions on useless concrete infrastructure but many people even in towns and small cities still lack sewers. It is crazy. In India and China, poor people defecate in the streets and streams. That is what people did in New York City in 1900, which is why they had typhus and other diseases, just as they do today in the third world. That is how we will live if we let the wealthiest among us control the government and get away without paying taxes -- as surely they will do if they can. Every wealthy class of people in history has done this. Every wealthy class in the world today that can do this, does it. - Jed
