What's Wrong with Brantford Transit?

The problems with Brantford’s bus system pointed out by Brodie Vissers (“Bus system needs improvement”, Nov. 22) are typical of every municipality which has collectivized its transit system, and its deficiencies ultimately cannot be remedied within a central planning perspective. Riders pay directly only a relatively small portion of the cost of maintaining the transit service, which invariably runs at a deficit, despite the enormous funding from local and provincial governments.

So it’s little surprise that rider satisfaction seems largely irrelevant to the day to day operations of the transit service, since from the point of view of the unionized public sector staff, riders are not customers but pests huddling at mass loading points who only serve to disrupt the fixed route schedule. Unlike private businesses who must gauge a volatile consumer market daily in order to stay in business, decisions impacting service to their captive market rely on public meetings, petitions, public complaints and most important of all, levels of funding, where poor service is more likely to draw more operating revenue in the name of improvement. As a result, adaptation to changing demographics is glacial, and resources are more likely to be devoted to showy renovations and inflated wages than actual improvement of service.

Private companies once operated a variety of inexpensive and efficient public transportation services, but in the 20^th century were driven out by regulation, political collusion and corruption, and many were outlawed altogether by governments pressured by public sector unions. It’s time to consider replacing our lumbering, Soviet style mass transit monopoly with a decentralized model that, when applied consistently, has a proven history and works so well for the rest of the economy.

10 Interesting Things to Do on Voting day, Instead of Voting

1. Take some paid time off work (it's the law).
2. Make this your chance to begin measuring toenail growth..
3. Visit the polling station in your area, and take your ballot into the booth. Exit the booth repeatedly, complaining that you can't make up up your mind. Ask the staff some very specific political questions and debate the answers they give. They will appreicate your commitment to democracy.
4. Offer to scalp your vote, , at a discount to those who have not voted, and at a premium to those who have.
5. Enter the booth and whisper inaudibly. Simulate more than one voice if you can.
6. Laugh while in the booth
7. Cry
8. Curse and swear, with frequent references to "why this has to be so difficult".
9. Leave the staff a tip.
10. Or, download a copy of Lysander Spooner's "No Treason; the Constitution of no Authority" to learn why voting is not merely ineffective, but makes voters tacit supporters of the crimes committed by the state in their name.

The State as Pimp?

A court ruling has (for now at least) unloaded some of the contradictions in this country’s prostitution laws. It goes without saying that, typically governments respond in two ways when it comes to civil liberties, criminalize it or subsidize it. This court decision seems to have been heavily influenced by the premise that women are victimized by the lack of protections resulting from prostitution laws, and not (big surprise) a woman’s right to ownership over her own person, or the right of consenting adults to mutually agreed upon exchange. We can expect this to pave the way towards bringing sex workers into the "social services" fold of the welfare state with their own set of subsidized entitlements. We can also expect the trade to be heavily taxed and regulated, with a cartel of institutional brothels. With the state assuming the role of the pimp, Canada will be served up as yet another failed experiment in "legalized prostitution".

Despite all this, for anyone who believes in individual liberty, there is something hopeful in a court ruling of this scale, one that could (but not likely *will*) weaken and slow the momentum of a major campaign of persecution in this country against people who choose to live their lives in an unconventional but non-violent manner.

Update

A friend recently mused about the impact this ruling has for those currently collecting Unemployment Insurance. After all, as we know Eligibility is contingent on being "ready, willing and able" to accept any legitimate form of employment. With brothels, pimps and solicitation now being legal, will the EI eligibility criteria be re-assessed? Time will tell.

Steal This Blog Post

Danielle LaBossiere Parr (Technical protection measures curb threat of piracy – Aug 7), in his zeal to promote the new copyright bill, also fails to provide the full picture. Obviously he sees no contradiction in which a person who legally buys something can be accused of “stealing” it at the same time. Bill C-32 does not merely legitimize the digital locks that software manufacturers and distributers encode in their products; it also further criminalizes the act of circumventing those locks; in other words, making modifications to products that a consumer has purchased and owns. The proposed legislation is logically absurd and a violation of basic property rights.

The revolution in digital reproduction, and the near zero cost of distribution through broadband and wireless networking is quickly rendering so called “intellectual property” as an obsolete, archaic and unenforceable program of government protected monopoly and privilege. Defenders of this franchise rarely mention the countless ways through which copyrights, patents, and the latest DRM laws actually stifle innovation and competition. Not only do such laws discourage compatibility across different brands, it raises prices for consumers by providing venders legal protection from the development of improvements from more efficient rivals. A law that enables producers of digital content to treat its customers as criminals is a law we can do without.

The “Eco Fee” is a Tax

Mr. Horsnell's letter ("Concerns over eco fees", July 16) has its heart in the right place, but he makes the problematic claim that the "eco fee" is not a tax. If the government compels payment to itself, we call it a tax. When a government takes from Peter to give to Paul, we call the compelled payment a tax. If the government compels Peter to pay Paul directly, what has happened here? Essentially, the government has granted Paul the power to tax. In this case, "Paul" is Stewardship Ontario.

Since the rationale for this tax is the need to divert waste from landfills, the tax is intended as a disincentive at the consumer level. However, we are told this is not a tax because manufacturers and retailers can choose to absorb this "fee" at their own expense. So, while this fee is equivalent to a tax from the manufacturing and retailing perspective, the cost of this tax will only be passed to the consumer by them voluntarily, and is therefore a fee. The problem with this convoluted explanation is clear.

By this standard, the former PST, the GST and the current HST are not taxes, but "fees" since a merchant could always, and often does, absorb these costs on their own. How many times have we been exposed to that "pay no GST" marketing gimmick, or paid a discounted price for an item that essentially waived the sales tax? A tax is a tax. The "eco fee" is mandated by the government, and that makes it a tax regardless of who ultimately pays it.

The more interesting question is: Why the intense effort to deny this is a tax? Could it be that no one wants to think of Stewardship Ontario as a recipient of legalized graft? Or could it be the need to pretend that the government is developing market based solutions to waste management, when in reality it is forcing the taxpayer to finance a massive jobs program for the eco-industry?

Colborne’s South Side: Myth vs. Fact

Myth: The south side fell victim to neglect and disrepair. Building code standards for fire and safety were not upheld, and a general blight fell over the south side, detracting from the advances made in urban renewal by the municipal government for the surrounding area.

Fact: According to a recent news report, almost all of the bylaw and property standards citations issued against the owners concerned exterior conditions, and none for safety and fire code infractions.

The blight and disrepair of the south side was the result of a three pronged assault on the private commerce and commercial development of the downtown by the city government.

1. Taxes, regulations and bylaws artificially inflated the costs of maintenance, repair and created disincentives to capital investment.

2. Previous boondoggles in the core were already taking their toll in the downtown. The vast amount of funds and infrastructure for the former Icomm Center (now a government run gambling parlor), the closing of market street to Colborne at a key intersection, combined with millions in structural (roads, utilities etc.) and direct subsidies to development in the north end.

2. Once the paralysis of the south side was in place, the city planners were only getting started. Then they decided to Corral the south side landlords and business into an "improvement district" which would utilize the immense brain power of city council and its pool of loyal consultants, and the cash invested by the property owners. However, city planner's stupid ideas are less likely to draw private investment without funding guarantees; another bright idea was moved to the back burner.

3. So the various businesses and landlords forged ahead on their own. Much of the south side was adjusting to the commercial losses and transitioning to a residential district. Plans were put in place to convert many of the former shop fronts to street level rental housing for low income families and individuals (called "slums" when they are privately run, and "social housing" when they are government run). The activity of Colborne, as Jane Jacobs would put it, and the neighborhood would be monitored by the people who lived there (horrors!). Again, the city planners became incontinent at the thought of an uncoordinated, unplanned community right smack where their bureaucratic wisdom was needed the most, so existing bylaws were amended and altered to prohibit these changes, which further backfired for two reasons: First, some permissions for mixed use alterations were grandfathered in, and the changes that could be enforced only drove vacancy rates up higher. The incompetence of the government had turned the south side into an urban wasteland, so city council capitalized on the growing frustration and demands that they "do something", and quickly signed the Memorandum of Understanding to justify the seizure of this vast stretch of nominally private land once and for all. Now in city hands, it could be destroyed literally, as well as economically.

Drafting your Trees

If you live and own property in Brantford, and it has trees on it, city council is going to consider a proposal this June that would amount to conscripting your trees (namely the big ones) and pressing them into service maintaining the city's tree canopy. This is meeting some pretty fierce resistance, which is good. The bad part is that the opposition is severely hampered because it agrees with the basic principle of this Orwellian nightmare; that the state has a responsibility to regulate the climate and the air we breathe.

“Tree canopy” is one of those environmentalist phrases that is indispensable to central planners, not for its scientific or biological value (it has none), but because by definition it reserves a sphere of influence for public policymakers. The objective, personal values that trees provide to their owners, such as shade, aesthetic beauty etc. is a function of private property. But if lobbyists, consultants and other special interests can persuade us that the air we breathe will be poisoned and the global climate will make the planet uninhabitable, then of course governments must roll up their sleeves and spring into action to save us all, while keeping a balance between “private rights” and the “needs” of the environment. So far the scam seems to be working pretty good. Hey, we can keep our rights intact while appeasing the climate gods at the same time!

The planners know better.

Tree Bylaw Considered

 

In a rare and uncharacteristic show of concern for property rights, city council is reconsidering an expansion of the site alteration bylaws that could further prevent you from cutting down a tree on your own property.

Hopefully, by "private property", they don't simply mean the interests of large developers. We'll see. I love trees as much as the next guy, but frankly, those on public property and crown lands are in much greater danger of being cut down than anywhere else.

Buckling Up For Your Own Good (and theirs too)

According to the Brant News today, 16,000 people in Brantford were detained and searched without a warrant this month…impressive.

Of course, that’s not exactly the wording of the original article.

We certainly have short memory spans. As recently as 40 years ago, any kind of “seat belt law” was considered an obnoxious invasion of liberty. But under the guise of “safety”, we have become very accustomed to laws that allow bureaucrats to dictate and mandate the devices we use for health care purposes. The promises of significantly reduced highway fatalities and lower insurance rates quickly found its way into the memory hole as the studies showed mixed results for the former and no impact on the latter.

Worse still, the “safety lobby” got its real start in the early 80’s, a coalition of the auto giants and insurance companies who were faced with pending legislation to install air bags, a hassle and expense they resisted. Transportation regulators hinted that if the safety lobby could pressure the government to pass seat belt laws, the industry could thereby pass the costs of its regulations to the consumer and taxpayer instead in the form of fines and higher insurance rates. This partially backfired for the auto makers and insurers since air bags were eventually mandated anyway, and costly lawsuits for the malfunction of seat belts as well as air bags have resulted (the costs for both, of course, went to the consumer). But it was an unqualified success for the state and an excellent example of the gradual growth of government power.

It began with a compromise, seat belt laws would only impact drivers who were already “bad” (stopped for other infractions) in what was called “secondary enforcement”. But of course, lobbyists continued to chip away at those limitations, and typical of the growth patterns of the regulatory state, soon enough, check points were set up with the express intent of checking specifically for seat belt infractions (and any other violations spotted during the visual search), a free surveillance/cost cutting service for the insurance companies and a permanent source of new tax revenue.

"Illegal Smokes"

Submitted today to the Brantford Expositor___

Every once in a while, an editorial such as Christina Blizzard’s rants about the “dangers” of black market cigarettes (“Revenue and lives up in smoke”, April 10). The motives are usually easy to discern, if not the logic. It’s not about native sovereignty; it’s about nicotine addiction among young children, she claims. Somehow, it is believed that teenage smoking can be reduced by drafting convenience store clerks as unpaid babysitters, an extension of moms “watchful eye”. The problem, of course is that the age verification stickers on the cash registers, and the tax inflated prices of regulated tobacco does not discourage teen smoking, but merely shifts it underground and beyond the view of caregivers.

No doubt, having the government relieve caregivers of their parental authority and responsibility is the bottom line for some, but this alone does not explain a crusade aimed not at tobacco, but specifically against cheaper, unlicensed cigarettes.

There is, of course the “lost tax revenue”; public service propaganda designed to recruit the average taxpayer as a stakeholder in defense of the tobacco cartel, despite the fact that the state can always compensate for “lost taxes” by looting someone else. So who are the real beneficiaries of this hand wringing over the “illegal trade” in smokes, and whose interests are really at stake? Why, it’s the tobacco cartel itself, and its efforts to use the state to restrain the informal, underground trade in cigarettes. It’s a turf war, all in the name of “the children”, of course.

Indeed, Illegal tobacco is big business. But legal tobacco, protected by regulations and licensing, is an even bigger business with the tax funded resources to suppress its competitors. Supported by a coalition of retail, state sponsored charities and corporate interests, big tobacco mounts an impressive “public health” campaign that attempts to teach us all about how a drop in their market share is not just bad for your health, but a threat to western civilization itself.

As the formal, regulated tobacco cartel collapses under its own weight, native “smoke shacks”, as they are called, are part of the process of reindustrialization, of reduced overhead and less burdened supply chains and networks. It is the free market, seeping through the cracks of the corporate state.