Talk:Open Letter to the BBC
The British govt. should really draw the line the same place that Japan draws it with their NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/日本放送協会: lit. Japan Broadcasting Association). They're pretty much completely funded by income tax but there is a law that says they can tax people a certain amount (something like $40) for every TV they own. They go door to door to collect but unless they can see a TV through a window they can't prove you have one and the law says that looking in the window is as far as they're allowed to go in so the only people who pay it are the socially conscious types. They can get a bit aggressive if you claim not to own a TV, jamming their foot in the door etc, but they can't use anything other than honesty to ascertain whether you have a TV. Being a white guy like me makes it easier, just say you can't understand what people on TV say because they speak too fast and hence a TV is useless to own.
Dr. Boy
Ahh! That is crazy! Its so stupidly unnecessary! Ricky from trailer park boys said it best with:
Ricky: Who the fuck are you guys and what the fuck are you doing here? Hope you got insurance n shit... Satellite Employee: [pointing at dishes on the roof] You can go to jail for a long time for this Ricky: For what? Free TV? Satellite Employee: It's not free! It's like stealing! Ricky: Stealing? You guys are beaming a singnal into this fuckin trailer park without my permission, not me, so i got these little things that pick up the signal from space, how the fuck is that stealing? What, do you own space? No, Naysaw does. Satellite Employee: Naysaw? Ricky: Rocket people? Perhaps you've heard of them? Satellite Employee: It's NASA! Ricky: Who the fuck calls you guys anyways? Get the fuck outta here!
You don’t own space! I have asked government agencies in the past about who owns the airwaves in Australia. The AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE i was told. Not the government, you don’t OWN the airwaves. We do. BatInTheHat 07:03, 20 May 2007 (GMT)
"The Australian People" is a pseudonym for "The Australian Government". I agree it's stupidly unnecessary and taxes are much fairer way, but NHK does draw a small profit from it and hence they continue it. It's like what they say about the bureaucracy expanding to meet the expanding needs of the bureaucracy. I was referring to the line that the Japanese govt drew on privacy laws as opposed to the tax itself. Dr Boy sometime on 22/5/07
