He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good…
I always found it disconcerting as a child that Santa Clause knew so much about my personal habits. I’ve since discovered that the old man is as real as Tammy Fay’s eyelashes. Now the villainous hero has been replaced by Governor Joe Manchin who, in a recent campaign to crack down on littering, is urging everyone to run through Mayberry’s main street yelling “citizen’s arrest!”
Instead of addressing the looming decline of our state’s economy, Manchin is spending our tax dollars on radio and television, urging everyone to hide in the bushes and see who is chucking losing lottery tickets out their car windows. If you do, Manchin orders us to call their special number and report the license plate. He doesn’t say what will happen to the unfortunate snitched on by their neighbor – maybe they’re forced to work in an underground coalmine or carve West Virginia: Open for Business on the side of every mountain in this state.
Perhaps becoming an unperson is better than the punishment warned of in an additional commercial. An ominous voice tells us if we are caught littering, three points are added to our driver’s license and we could pay a $25,000 fine. $25,000! That’s a hair less than the average income of a West Virginian for an entire year! The penalty is especially egregious when you consider the maximum fine for driving drunk is $500.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m for saving the planet, keeping West Virginia beautiful, and WVU winning the National Championship. But let’s not go overboard here. Can’t we find a way to keep our state clean and keep the Orwellian jackboots in the closet?
Until then, with the sword of Damocles looming over us all, I suggest you be good for goodness sake.
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Comments
William,
I heard that the fines are going to go to pay Rich Rodrigueze’s salary. I mean, a loss to USF is worth at least $1.7 million on the backs of poor West Virginian’s on food stamps. Heaven forbid we raise any money for academics! Fixing roads, paying off our debt, or even the WVU Marching Band. Give it all to Rod the man who sells us out every 6 months for more money!
At the rates the counties pay for housing them at regional jails why not put the imprisoned to work picking up trash along the highways. The fines are a bit out of line and Mojo could spend his time and OUR MONEY on more useful projects, e.g., working on inane regulations which really inhibit industrial development not concerns about the educationof our workforce. Surrounding states find them quite adequately trained.
I remember the old littering commercials with the state trooper who pulled a guy over and said “you just through away $2,000. You could have used it to put a down payment on a car or house, but you chose to throw it away.”