Municipal Violations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

What people said

SuoDuanDao · 2020-06 · Recommendation

Well, I can give you a simple example. Where I grew up, you'd hear a gunshot every so often. No one paid it any mind - we knew it was the neighbors hunting out of season. Technically a crime. But we all knew they and their children needed the meat. If everyone did it, the deer population would collapse and no one could hunt effectively even in-season. If someone had called a wildlife officer they could have certainly made the trek down. But no one would think to call the wildlife officers on them, because we knew it would lead to their children going hungry. I think the thing people from rich neighbourhoods miss about that sort of thing is that when they hear stories of that nature [1], people's children going hungry over a minor infraction is seen as a failure of empathy on the constabulary's part. It's not. It's a failure of the law, and the constabulary's job is to uphold the law, not play social worker to people who break it. Hence our community's collective judgement that it was in everyone's best interest if the wildlife officer never found out about our neighbor's poaching activities. [1] Joe Oliver has a great rant about a similar situation, lest readers think this only works in rural settings: [VIDEO]

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Clubber · 2017-03 · Recommendation

>How much can the government be stealing from you if you have no money? John Oliver did a good breakdown of how municipalities do pretty nasty things when you can't pay your tickets. [VIDEO]

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kevin_thibedeau · 2016-01 · Recommendation

Even more relevant is his piece on municipal violations and how they can unfairly steamroll the poor with escalating fees. [VIDEO]

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