fall in line

I was somewhat amused, although not quite shocked to see this postcard stuck in my regular mail delivery.

It's not that often that you see the naked hostility of the state presented in so clear a manner; after all, apologists can be found aplenty to offer explanations as to how the master-slave relationship we live under is nothing more than on a benign voluntary basis.

What I also found sweet is the legerdemain involved in the implication that the leaves which fall off of trees 'owned' by the city, which you can be fined and/or jailed for pruning without a permit and a licensed arborist, would then have the balls to call it 'your' leaves, as if that now makes it your responsibility to contain. Sneaky bastards-- it almost makes me want to suffer violence upon the inexplicably uppity cartoon duo, and the mindless civil servants who brainstormed this mushy propaganda to sugarcoat this KP duty.

But this by far is not as ridiculous as other so-called 'laws' that I've encountered. For instance, while you may not own the sidewalk pavement in front of your property line, you must act as though you do. That includes maintaining and replacing cement flags as the city inspectors determine necessary, keeping a neat and clean condition on the sidewalks at all times including a minimum of 18" further onto to road surface. When it snows, the homeowner or landlord is obligated to clear a path and lay down salt to prevent ice buildup and is held personally responsible for injuries or damages that occur there. And so on and so forth.

And just a few days ago, I inadvertently opened a letter containing a tax notice for a defunct corporation and shivered over a display of audacious verbiage, including a 'Warrant' notice stating that so-and-so has been appointed by "the people of the state of New York" (funny, I don't remember authorizing anything of the sort) to seize properties of the said corporation for failure to pay taxes. I was quite horrified and repulsed by the brute and stentorian tone found in some sentences which read "you are commanded to do such and such".