The British have a whole different view of the world.
Their individual rights come from the royalty, not God, and most are happy to live that way.
That’s why we in the US broke away. And were able to sustain freedom for quite a long time. Sadly it’s now going down the tubes.
“These officers aren’t empowered to forcibly enter homes, “
I never seen so many bleedin’ aerials.
The cable company used to have vans that patrolled the streets pointing detectors at homes to see if they were watching cable, but not paying for it. The tube sets were apparently quite the IF radiators. The van’s equipment made a computerized comparison between what the detector picked up from your set and comparing it to what was on cable at the moment and then seeing if you had subscribed. There were lots of ways to jack the boxes and get the premium channels. Some of my neighbors got letters with a bill and threats of legal actions. (I had the full service back when it was only 12.50 per month and that included HBO. But it kept going up, and up, and up. Finally, I dropped cable and they tried to lure me back with a better deal. They operate on the razorblade theory, only the blades keep getting more and more costly.)
Talked to an English lady a few years ago. She had married an American working in England and they decided to come here about 6 years ago.
She was telling me about all the fees and licenses average people in England have to pay for. It was mind blowing.
There seemed to be a fee or license for everything.
London had just ramped up the Rush Hour Driving fee. Suppose we had to pay an extra fee just to drive during rush hour? Crazy, right?
Yeah, I know they had this TV tax in the UK for many decades, but I thought they got rid of it. I guess I was wrong. One of the most ridiculous taxes that I can fathom. Pay a fee every year to watch commercial television?
If they gotta be really hard nosed about it, why not just tax the commercials?
Yep. When I lived there we had to pay a license fee if we had a TV. It pays for the BBC.
When I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath, I was doing a post check at the main gate one afternoon and a van drove up to the gate. It was the detection van demanding access to our housing area for a check. I immediately told them how I felt with the licensing fees, and pointed to the turn-around lane. The MOD cop with me started laughing and bought me a beer at the pub later that night...”you got brass balls mate!”
Also...if you hook a water hose to the spigot outside...don’t forget to pay your “Hose Pipe Tax”! Not kidding.
In the US, “TV Taxes” are paid through the general fund for that thing called the FCC.
In England, they decided to make it a user fee.
The van is no worse than any other tax hungry government trying to spy on citizens, sort of like using satellite imagery to see if there’s an extra structure on your yard to increase your property tax, like they do here.
Slice and dice the taxation method how you like, the fundamental problem is always the spending.
An incredible number of their court cases are for the fines for non payment.
No, I was stationed in England for 3 years and it's true that they had detection vans, though I never saw one. Rather than have commercials you had to buy a license and I always kept mine current.
In addition to the BBC, there was an independent channel that did have commercials.
The shows on BB-1 and BBC-2 didn't necessarily start and end on the half hour. A show might start at 7:17 and end at 8:42. You really needed a guide to know what was playing. One annoying thing was that a show you wanted to watch might end on BBC-1 at 8:42 but a show that you also wanted to watch might start on BBC-2 at 8:23.
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
Been over there
They did have them, yeppers
And in places you stayed, had their licenses on or very close to the tv
I was stationed in Italy in the late 70s - they also taxed you for having a radio in your car, so a radio wasn’t a standard feature. Because of this, they didn’t always do a proper grounding of the system so if you were in a house watching TV or listening to a radio, and a car w/o the grounding went by, you’d get the pops of the plugs firing as interference.