I'm going to blow a gasket.

Up until my move to Portland, I've never had a parking ticket. Since then I've had 7. Now I know what you're thinking, "wise up dumb-ass." If only it were that simple.

Here is a picture of a sign I was ticketed in front of. Unfortunately for me, I was in Montana at the time of the ticketing and so were my keys. I have a "Zone L" pass and this grants me privilege to park in Zone L areas. Since this is the lowest sign on the pole, it was the first sign I saw from the vantage of drivers seat. The sign at the top designates this area as a "1 Hour" zone as well. See the confusion?

On my way into court, I was alerted by the presumed guilty-until-proven-otherwise Auschwitz styled checkpoint guard that my Swiss Army knife wasn't allowed inside. This would be the same novelty Swiss Army knife that wouldn't be able to pierce the skin of a peach mind you. Deputy Doo-little, after he yells hastily "who's knife is this!!?" over the sea of people when he spotted it in the EZ Bake x-ray machine, tells me that the hot dog vendor out front will hold contraband. You guessed it, it cost me money to store my knife. One hell of a sweet-heart deal if you ask me.

As I sit in the court waiting for the P.M session to start (judge was 8 minutes late by the way), I begin to notice the chairs, desks, and people working in various facets of the building. I begin thinking about Deputy Doo-little, the cashier clerks, the judge and the enormous money generated through this whole racket. Before I sat on that pew, or before that pew even existed, there was bare land. When this land was bare funds had to be raised by TAX to purchase (or imminent domain) these lands. These levied TAXES were used to build a building in which people worked inside of it were paid by more TAX. Then these TAX sponsored employees walk around your neighbor hood waiting for you to fart in a crosswalk zone on a Tuesday. Didn't know that was a law? Sorry. Now you get to pay them money from your already illegally TAXED wage.

So I go into court to contest the four tickets I have pertaining to expired registration. Since I had the car licensed three days previous to the tickets, the judge dismissed all four when I showed him my Montana registration. Most people would be happy about this dismissal charge but I am becoming angry thinking about the other "bail" I had to put up for my other tickets. Are they collecting interest on my money? Why does it really take 90 days for me to get a decision? If you are issuing that many tickets and can't process them that quickly, perhaps you are issuing too many tickets. Nah, many tickets equals much revenue, and if I were a betting man, I'd say that the system is set up to exploit the ticketed party's apathy.

With this in mind, on my way out, I asked about the two tickets I received in June for the one- hour violations. The first ticket was reduced from 24 dollars to eight dollars. The second ticket was still cited at 24 dollars. To conclude, even though these signs are clearly misleading, according to the judge, I am still 66% wrong and therefore responsible to pay 32 dollars. Most people would be happy with a discount. They are eager to kneel down and bow in awe that is big brother swinging his authoritative dick around. Not me. Recouping all my money back is tomorrow's project. That 32 dollars that they are trying to take away from me is an extra three hours of patrol time for the meter maid to give tickets to my neighbors. And the cycle continues ...

While this chapped my ass severely, it didn't have me thinking about firebombing an embassy. No, that was to happen on the ride home. I'm sitting on the nearly full Tri-met city train minding my own business when this woman walks up to me and the two teenagers sitting next to me and says, "One of you are gonna need to move because of my disability. I need one of those seats. I can't afford another fall because of my knee. I think there is some seats up front for you all." A couple of moments elapse and I start to crack a smile reveling in the sheer awkwardness of the situation. No one says anything until the two teenagers, apparently not as indebted to exercising personal rights as I am, stand up and allow the woman to sit down. Now before anyone calls me out as callused, please explain to me how being 5'3 and 250 pounds or smelling like piss are disabilities. So let me get this straight, because you can't push away from the feed bowl before the 3rd round of chicken wings, I have to give up the seat I payed two dollars for so she can enjoy riding experience that resembles the last 25 years of her life (sitting on her ass)? Fuck that. This is the new America folks. In our country, it's always someone elses fault. This is the new America that panders to every sniveling minority group (Harvard + Tyson Chicken) and whiny bitch under the sun.

We need to be challenging our laws as opposed to just taking things because "that's the way it is." If only we all thought like this guy. A true patriot!

Expert: Michael Troy
Date: 7/29/2005
Subject: Free speech/Michigan's "cussing" law

Question
Can you tell me if Michigan's law of using obscenities in front of women and children has been repealed? If it has not, is it still freedom of speech to call a woman a f****** b**** or a f****** c*** in front of her children, in a grocery store parking lot?

The answer from about.com