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| Wednesday, April 24, 2024 |
Miles from the Mainstream |
D.
R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor |
Lonely Pamphleteer Review
| DECEMBER 1, 2003 -- Welcome to Lonely Pamphleteer Review, a website dedicated to the proposition, stated by U. S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White, in Branzburg v. Hayes, that "[L]iberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer... as much as of the large metropolitan publisher...." Reports indicate that the media did not much like the Branzburg decision, holding that reporters have no constitutional right to ignore grand jury subpoenas. Justice White, in that 1972 opinion, indicated that the First Amendment is an equal opportunity provision and that it gives no greater protection to newspersons than to citizen- scribblers. The decision, however, did not go further to hold parking privileges accorded the media contrary to the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Perhaps for this reason we have yet to see, in New York City, investigative reports on the use of parking fines as taxation by other means. Vehicles bearing press tags in New York City might not be subject to the $115 fines levied on lonely pamphleteers and other ordinary citizens.
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Hmm. Has anyone heard of a poll of the views of New
Yorkers on the use of parking violations as municipal taxation by others
means? Indeed, has any TV outlet or politician in New York City convened
a focus group to determinecitizen reaction to huge parking fines? Of
course, those two words "focus group" are all the evidence
we need that a news outlet or political figure is removed from the people.
Show me a focus group and I will show you that there stands behind it
persons who have no clue of the lives of the commonfolk. We have a basic
problem when the persons elected to represent the people have no idea
what the people think, how the people live. This proves something of
a problem when clueless officials are elected pursuant to a governance
commitment to the consent of the governed.
With parking fines at $115 for bus stop and double-parking violations, in New York City, today, what are these fines going to be in 2012, in time for the summer Olympics that New York City wants to host? Well, what with the extension of bus zones, it would be fair to foresee that all avenues will be reserved for buses by 2012. Still, there must be some parking in New York City nine years from now, if only to provide the means to employ the ticket agents, the computer operators, the hearing examiners. Unless, of course, the city simply demands payment from motorists stopped at red lights, payment in the form of road use and curb-parking use taxes. In recent years, the red light intervals in the Big Apple seem to be getting longer -- all to lead to long intervals for direct road tax payments? |
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