Cartoonist and commentator Hugh MacLeod says it all about the organization with “an assured income of £3.5 billion a year” of forced funding:
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16 comments to Working for the BBC |
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You could replace “bbc” with “government”.
Speak for yourself. I have not owned a TV for years, and pay no license fee, and yet I get the benefit of excellent radio and a very useful website.
Yay!! Why would I want to pay for something when so many others are forced to buy it for me? Until last year I didn’t own a car either, and paid no road tax, and yet still had the benefit of lovely tarmac roads to cycle down.
All I need to do now is give up work, and I’ll *really* be ahead of the game!
Socialism rocks.
Sadly the commercial stations have the same leftist slant as the B.B.C.
Forget about Fox News, there is not even the attempt to be fair to conservatives that A.B.C. News sometimes makes (and no 20/20 either). The regulations in this country mean that broadcasting has to be “unbiased” and “objective” – i.e. have a massive liberal-left slant.
Of course it is not just the news and current affairs shows – the comedy shows show the same slant (in the United States the excuse is “that is because a Republican is in the White House”, in Britain we have had a tax increasing P.C. Labour government for more than ten years, and the only comic attack on it is that it is not left wing enough).
Still getting rid of the B.B.C. would be a start – and at least it would mean one less tax.
“But the television licence fee is not a tax”.
If anyone thinks that such a “fee” is not a tax they should go and get a job with the Mitt “fee-fee” Romney campaign.
Can’t quite use the word tax can he?
I resent paying a regular tax to an organisation I regard as congenitally leftist whose news coverage is commensurately misleading. Perhaps we could go on a licence fee strike.
I was wondering…
What would be the legal definition of the word “tax” so that it includes not only direct-taxation, but also “fees” like the TV Licence and the costs accrued due to regulation and other such legislation?
For a start, I thought something like:
“Tax is all payment to Government in any of its legal forms.”
But then I realized that this did not include forced payments to other people, which would be another way for Governments to impose taxation without actually calling it taxes (in my opinion, the costs due to frivolous lawsuits in America is just another way for the American Government to do a bit of wealth redistribution without having to dirty themselves with the word “tax”). Also it would not stop Government from using fines as a form of tax revenue.
Can anyone come with a better definition?
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cpst0106.pdf
I would have replaced the “don’t we all” with “No you don’t, you work for ME!”
Why don’t those chiming in with their ‘improvements’ draw their own cartoons? I would love to see the armchair cartoonists’ work.
Nice job, Mr MacLeod.
Anything the state forces you to fork over.
I do not think anyone here said otherwise!
If you trespass on someone’s property and are fined for it, the state will force you to pay; but that cannot possibly be a tax. How do you separate payment due to criminal behaviour from taxation without letting the state abuse fines for revenue gathering?
If you trespass on my land I can claim damages in a civil action. If I do work for you and you don’t pay I can pursue the debt in the civil court.
If I don’t pay my taxes I will be liable to action in a criminal court. If I don’t pay my licence fee I will also be liable to action in a criminal court (since I could lose my professional qualification and hence livelihood on being found guilty of a criminal offence, I pay my licence fee, albeit reluctantly).
That distinction may be a starting point for defining taxes.
PS – does anyone actually WORK for the BBC or do they just turn up, spout rubbish and draw their salaries? I try to use the term “employed by” instead of “working for” when referring to government staff; perhaps the same is true of the BBC?
Taxation: Governmental harassment and extortion of the citizenry, for the purpose of enriching traitors and parasites, under the guise of ensuring universal social well-being.
Looks like it’s time for all those British workers to resign.
@ Paul Marks
I’m not sure you’re entirely correct on your criticism of British comedians lack of effort in satirising the Blair/Brown government.
Bremner (with assistance from Bird and Fortune) has been absolutely cutting in his attacks on Blair and his government. Armando Ianucci, with various programmes but particularly The Thick of It (a BBC production, no less), portrayed the Labour government in a light that not even the blind could find flattering.
Do not be so hasty to jump on the bandwagon that dismisses all UK media as lefty US-liberal.
Mr Gannaway I never said that British television and radio comics do not attack the Labour government.
But attacking it for vastly increasing government Welfare State spending, or for vastly increasing regulations.
Or for handing over yet more power to the E.U. (which is the real source of more than 80% of all new regulations).
Well that is not common.
What the comics do is carry on the jokes they made during the Conservative party government.
The same anti rich people and anti business jokes.
I.E. – the Labour party government is not left wing enough.
It is not only biased – it is lazy as well.
It is not just doing the same stuff that T.V. comics did under Mr Major and Mrs Thatcher – they were doing this stuff on “That Was The Week That Was” back in 1963.
Forty five years of the same line.
The T.V. comics can not do comedy against the leftist nature of the government (the higher taxes, the higher Welfare State spending, the greater weight of regulations, the selling out the country to the E.U. and …..) because they are leftists themselves.
Plenty of antileftist people can write comedy and perform it – but you will not see or hear them on British radio or television.
Apart from a couple of Fox shows one does not see much of them in the United States either.