Why bother with solving problems like tagging, when you can just keep making things worse?
The city of Los Angeles had good reason to push a tough anti-graffiti bill through the Legislature, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasted no time in signing it. L.A. pushed the bill not only because taggers did their dirty work at more than 650,000 locations in the fiscal year that ended June 30, but they also were bragging about their work on Internet sites.
How's this for a statistic: In the year ended June 30, taggers defaced nearly 32 million square feet...
...
Critics of the new law contend that a tagger who paints over another gang's graffiti could be put in harm's way. Officials will have to figure out a way to prevent a possible death sentence for taggers, who are not the brightest of people, despite their artistic efforts. Taggers who display their work on the Internet, while divulging their handles, basically dare police to track them down. In that game of chicken, law enforcement has a real advantage.
Good to know that law
makers in California are so concerned about the rights of law
breakers.
(I've made sure to underline the key phrases in above sentence for
those of you who might be unfamiliar with the concept of "governance.")
Of course, considering that 32
million square feet of tagging is a pretty good indication that California has
lost all control of tagging, may I offer the
most humble suggestion that maybe the solution isn't yet another muddle-headed law?
In the old days of long ago, when California was still "the" Wild West, there were cases in which crime raced out of control. You know how Californians back then handled things?Yup, you guessed it:
Guns.If the State of California were
really serious about taming the newly re-Wilded west, maybe the government out there ought to start treating its
citizens subjects as more than
helpless victims. We are all grownups, are we not? And, as such, shouldn't we be treated as if we are capable of providing for the defense of our
own property, instead of risking prosecution for
defending ourselves?
The act of tagging shows a
serious disrespect for the inherent property rights that are a
foundation of our country.
If we can't get past our overly-sensitive, mind-addled selves long enough to figure that out, maybe we're not worthy of
keeping it.
#La Migra
Comments:
The new law will make it mandatory for convicted taggers to clean up their mess - and keep it clean for up to a year in some cases. [/i]
$30 million? wonder if that could lead to a budget problem? naaah
Please explain this lunacy to me. How do officials make sure that a tagger that they arrest (as a side issue, how do they arrest them in the first place. they can't seem to do it now) comes back to keep cleaning up a wall that other people "tag"?
I agree, this is really dangerous for the repeat-tagger. But then, maybe they should not be in a gang, huh.
For me, I have always liked the idea that was in that crappy Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes movie. The kids came up to the wall to spray it, and they were vaporized if I recall right. And then the wall self-cleaned itself.
Wouldn't it be a cheaper alternative to place some of those auto=guns used in the Aliens movie in strategic locations?