A Thought Experiment…

So recently a hateful spiteful old man kicked the bucket.  I think George Takei put it best:

Today, Mr. Phelps may have learned that God, in fact, hates no one. Vicious and hate-filled as he was, may his soul find the kind of peace through death that was so plainly elusive during his life.

One would always hope that the better side of an argument would exhibit self control and “be better” than those who are so angry and spiteful.

Last night though I started thinking about ways you could have fun with this. Again, be the better person but what if you didn’t have to be.  What would you do?

My immediate thought was to get a squadron of Huey’s with loud speakers and buzz the funeral in a fashion much resembling this.

To which my friend Gay Cynic then said we need to go further. That is merely the intro for the “playlist”.  Below is the playlist that was sitting in my inbox this morning.

We intro with my idea as above.

First song in the set:

This is followed with a remake of the following:

A remake with the following lyrics:

Ding Dong! The Bitch is dead. Which old Bitch? The Wicked Bitch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Bitch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Bitch is dead. He’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Bitch is dead!

Third set in the set:

Fourth in the set:

Fifth in the set:

Sixth in the set:

To which we close with the following Postlude:

With the helicopters doing the dance sequence.

That will do quite nicely.  If someone has the resources to make it happen, get video and I’ll edit it into something awesome!  If not, well everyone just take pleasure in the thought exercise, and if it’s a thought exercise close it out with a strafing run as the Huey’s depart.

Evidently the State Doesn’t Want My Money…

So let me lead off with the email I’m sending GoodToGo as I type this:

So some how I wasn’t notified as my account level got low. It’s now at -0.35 cents. I just went to go put money on it and am told “I can’t make a payment currently because the account is in negative balance.”

OK, I’ll try to call. I call and it wants some pin number that I don’t have and cannot find anywhere to set one on the website. I try to find a way to talk to a human and cannot find one.

So just to make sure I’m clear on this. I give an interest free loan to GoodToGo (WA DOT), am finally notified when I have a negative account balance because it’s run over, and when I try to go give another interest free loan I can’t? If it wasn’t for the fact this is “sanctioned by the state” I’d be calling the BBB to report a scam.

Why would I report a scam? Because at this point my assumption must be that the reason it is so difficult to pay a negative account balance is to accrue interest against the user, in which case why is my loan to the state an interest free one? And if not that to bill the user at a higher rate for using the toll bridge because my account is out-of-order. This also ignores the fact the first time I drove across the bridge I was billed through GoodToGo and sent a paper bill at a higher rate in the mail.

I have updated to a different card, although I would prefer not to have automatic payments configured on that card, but if this is going to be the way the state is going to behave I do not have much of a choice.

I had been making a habit of making one time payments when notified and this time I couldn’t.

As an additional note I will be forwarding this to my state representatives asking how this type of user interface and treatment of Washington State citizens is acceptable. Especially for those of us who purely use this in transportation to or from work. I will also be posting a copy of my experience and this letter, along with how the situation is handled on my blog.

Thank you and sincerely,
Barron Barnett

So for those not familiar with the GoodToGo system, you maintain a balance for toll roads around Western  Washington.  When you take one it subtracts from that balance.  When the balance gets low it can automatically get more from a credit card or deduct from a bank account.

The initial credit card I was using has been disabled, not because of lack of payment or anything, it just has and I’m too lazy to go call the bank to fix it.  I’m going debt free so why bother worrying about it, it forces me to not use it.

So I take to paying off my debit card when I get a low balance notice.  I get no low balance notice until I get a call and email about it this morning.  I go look at my account, -$0.35.  Well I need to fix that, I go into payments and see:

Outstanding Balance
Account balance is negative, payment not allowed. Please contact the Customer Service Center.

I then hop on the phone and start getting drug through automated menus.  Finally get to one that sounds reasonable, it asks me for my account number. I enter it.  Then it asks for a 4 digit pin.  A what?  I never configured a 4 digit pin, not that I remember anyway, and I cannot find anywhere in the online forms to find or configure a 4 digit pin.

So lets recap.  I’ve been giving interest free loans to the State of Washington so that I can drive over public roads at a non-inflated price.  I guess you could say that’s the interest, but then some pay more interest in others do they not because that becomes dependent on how long it takes for them to dwindle their account balance, but I digress.

Evidently my account ran negative and I just discovered this.  I attempt to use the manual payment system and am told to contact the Customer Service Center.  I do exactly that, and am greeted with an automated system asking for information that I do not know and cannot find a method to find out or set.

Ultimately leaving me in the following state, an outstanding balance I’m now aware of and unable to pay because their system is so screwy I could swear it was built by the same idiots that made the Obama-care website, and some would wonder why I don’t want my financial information stored within it.

And people wonder why I view the state as worthless and unable to pour piss out of a boot reading the directions off the heel.  If I can’t pay them when I owe them money, what the hell do they need the money for in the first place?

On Lists… (Alt Title: In which I make some people hate me…)

So currently there are a large number of people screaming about a list that someone compiled of all the politicians in Connecticut that voted for the assault weapons ban.  Predictably the other side promptly held up the list as an indicator as we’re out of control and attempting to “chill debate”.

A bunch of people on our side started screaming about how that not helping, stating that we must perceiver and rely upon the ballot box and the jury box.  I originally wrote this as a reply to someone on Facebook but figured it would be better placed here.

The problem here is we’re all forgetting the scope of the game we’re playing.  Not only that we’re ceding moves and pieces for a perceived moral stature increase that doesn’t actually count much at all in this game.  One side of this is already threatening force.  It however won’t be the politician who kicks in someone’s door at 3am, endangering everyone from law enforcement, to children, to the parents.  Honestly it should be the politician who pays, he’s the one that wrote the check that he’s making everyone else cash.

At the same time many also started screaming “well pack up and move.”  I’d like to point out packing up and moving only works for so long.  Believe me, my family knows quite well, we basically were chased across the US as we kept moving west to stay on the frontier.  The same will keep happening legislatively, and even worse when enough states have fallen, they can be used as examples to infringe on your rights from the federal level.  Think how concealed carry was finally forced upon Illinois.  If everyone had just packed up and moved, would that have changed there?  If everyone just packed up and left for “greener pastures” would concealed carry have been won in the states who didn’t have it?  Plus you end up ceding ground which they then use against you later as an example of what is “allowable”.  Think in the inverse, what if only one state had a CCW law and an attempt at a federal ban on carry was attempted?  49 other states might make SCOTUS go yeah that’s reasonable.

No, you must fight.  Retreat when you must, but do not do so hastily and you must have a plan for coming back.

Frankly inviting all these people from other states that are crashing eventually backfires because many of the same people start voting for the same crap that got them in trouble to begin with.  Believe me, Washington is being overrun with people from California and I’m watching it happen.  Ask people in Texas about the California invasion as well.

But back to the list, politicians, and the game.  I could give two shits about the list.  Doesn’t really matter other than it plays better as a political tool by the opposition than for the friendlies.  So do I wish it had not been published, yeah.  But at the same time it serves are a reminder to the politicians exactly the ballgame they’re playing.  If the card has been dealt in the open you might as well play with the damn thing.

But Barron, we must exercise the soap box, ballot box, and jury box.  We had successes in Colorado with the recall, we don’t need force yet.

Well what am I doing here, and you doing there, and what was he doing by publishing the list?  Last I checked, that all falls in the realm of soap box.  But to think that all states will be OK because one successfully recalled, and was lucky enough to have a recall process, is also naïve.  Not all states have a recall process.

Seriously, the game we’re playing the time periods are much shorter than election cycles and many are acting knowing they will loose their jobs.  They don’t care, they’re being bought by our enemies.  But why would that be?

The first rule of any game is to realize you’re in one.  Their goal is to do the damage with no way to hit “undo”.  Tell me, what is the punishment for passing an unconstitutional law?  What is the punishment for enforcing an unconstitutional law?  Who really pays to right the wrongs and who actually gets the reparations in the end?  Just look at New Orléans and the Katrina fiasco for those answers.

But Barron, I just don’t think the time is right yet…

That is your opinion and you have every right to it.  But, everyone has their own lines in the sand.  If them kicking in the doors to people’s homes and taking them by force, and let’s not bullshit here this is what’s being discussed,  good for you.  Not everyone however views this in the same light and for many that is the line in the sand of no going back.

The enforcement of any laws–local,state or federal–that through the action or inaction of the courts makes nugatory the individual means of resisting tyranny, justifies resistance.

Don’t like it? Get the police to say screw off regarding enforcement.  Currently though there are two sides of this coin, one side is the state wanting, and willing, to use force.  The other side is preparing to strike back, not strike first, at those truly responsible should it happen.

But Barron we should fully exhaust the political route before fighting back.

The British rolled up one April 19th, should we have continued to wait hoping our pleas to the king for a political solution panned out?

No we fought while also trying to achieve a peaceful political solution.   War is an ugly nasty business.  However to dismiss the violence they will bring against you by saying “ballot box” while laying down your arms is already admitting defeat.  Your enemy is willing to use force while you are not.  By default he wins.  You have lost the game.

And that folks is the problem.  Welcome to the pot of boiling water.  The heat was cranked up quite quickly and we very rapidly found ourselves in the very predicament we are in today.  Does it suck?  You bet your ass it does.  Do I  wish it was different?  Yup.  Do I want to have another civil war?  Hell no, but that isn’t really up to me now is it?

In the words of Malcolm Reynolds,

If someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.

The answer to this problem is quite simple, “don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’.”  If this side was as truly blood hungry as the opposition thinks, crap would have already gone down.  At the same time, trying to make us all pacifists by screaming about the Soap, Ballot, and Jury boxes, implies that when a criminal is robbing us we should only every rely on those tools.  Why bother with the firearms at all if we can’t defend ourselves and then go after the person who tried to kill us by proxy?

The ball is truthfully in the state’s court.  All they have to do is respect the rights of their citizens and nothing will happen.  Trample those rights, and well some may fight back.  Some may go after the very people who passed the laws.