Now you, learned reader, are doubtless wondering, “But what about California v. Greenwood, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that Fourth Amendment protections don’t generally apply to garbage?” And of course you’re right to so wonder; Greenwood concluded that....Ha ha. I love the rhetorical device — must be a Greek name for it — of heading into something lofty or deep by portraying the reader as someone who's already thinking about it on that level.
Volokh explains Greenwood and proceeds to State v. Boland and makes the inconclusive conclusion of imagining "that searching materials turned over for disposal to determine whether they fit the rules about what qualifies for disposal might be different from searching such materials for evidence of unrelated crimes."
Posts
23 comments:
SC: "[R]espondents exposed their garbage to the public sufficiently to defeat their claim to Fourth Amendment protection."
I am amused when SCOTUS is completely stupid. I am often amused.
I love it when the left eats their own.
I wonder how it doesn't violate the 5th. You get fined and are required to provide the evidence to fine you.
You can pay extra and the garbage company will take your recycled stuff, where I live.
You can tell where the rare rich leftists live from their recycle containers. Three colors. I have no idea what they distinguish.
The rest of us just put everything out for the regular load.
Though, to be truthful, some pickup trucks scout the routes for stuff worth taking away and selling before the regular truck comes, and it's a rare couch, TV, fan, bicycle or treadmill that makes it into the garbage truck.
The economic analysis is: if somebody will pay you for it, it's treasure. Otherwise it's trash.
Nobody pays you for newspapers, bottles or cans.
Unless there is a market for resale, recycling is just a really expensive trash pickup.
Most of it will go to the landfill anyway.
This was also putting a tax on people without a garbage disposal.
The garbage truck driver was now a tax collector.
One of the elites must be concerned about journolistic or activist blackmail.
A majority of people who make decisions with other people's money in Seattle are Left-leaning true-believers on the utopian/dystopian scale and of course....openly secret authoritarians.
Today's composting push is tomorrow's impractical mandate and 10 rather overpaid jobs with benefits, and it will never be enough.
I assume such people are finding Virtue in both activism and victimhood, group membership, life-purpose, collective belief in ideology, and the usual anti 'something' sentiment.
It's kind of like a light rail train running a loop to 'the future', but really running into and over reality (economics, sometimes nature, always human nature, people who disagree).
It's sad, really.
"Unless there is a market for resale, recycling is just a really expensive trash pickup."
No, it is also:
1. A way to damage the environment with more elaborate, carbon-producing activities, and
2. A way to require participation in a ritual of the established Church of Environmentalism.
Not everything is just about money. They don't just want your money. They want your mind.
Funny enough the city already abandoned the policy because compliance was so high as to not make enforcement worth it.
Is there not a real distinction here? In the actions approved by SCOTUS the police are pursuing an investigation based upon reasonable, if not probable, cause. The ordinance in question here is a classic fishing expedition.
"Sir, we are from The City and we are here about your garbage."
"My garbage?"
"Specifically, what we found in your garbage."
"Is used cat litter supposed to go in the compost barrel instead? I was never sure on that one…"
"No, it isn't about cat litter. It's about the meth-making supplies."
"Meth-making supplies?"
"And the DVDs of underage girls dancing naked on their beds and eating bananas. Suggestively."
"Wait a minute! None of that was mine!"
"So these items just magically appeared in your trash, along with the polyurethane twelve-inch dildo?"
"Polyurethane twelve-inch dildo?"
"Yes. It was yellow, and we have reason to believe it has been used, possibly multiple times. However, that's just a side-note: that one isn't a crime. In fact, it is quite common in Seattle."
"I don't make meth, I don't watch child porn and I don't use twelve-inch dildos! This is a mistake!"
"You don't use twelve-inch dildos!? Is it because of the size? Maybe you prefer a smaller item?"
"No! Someone must've put that stuff in my trash!"
"Now why would someone do such a thing?"
"So it wasn't in THEIR trash for you to find, I guess. I've been trash-hacked!"
"You would swear in a court of law that you have no interest in seeing a teenage girl suggestively eat a banana?"
"Well, yeah. Sure."
"You'd be under oath."
"Okay, okay: maybe I'd be interested in watching, but it wasn't mine!"
"Well, we will let this slide, for now. However, if you happen to see any stringy twitchy lesbian transvestite meth-heads around looking at young girls please give us a call."
"Transvestite? How do you know they'd be a transvestite?"
"Just a hunch. You should see what stuff they put in their trash…"
I am Laslo.
Expense includes more than just money, Althouse.
Also, carbon is not bad for the environment. After your comments, you might understand that. But you did not say so.
"I love the rhetorical device — must be a Greek name for it — of heading into something lofty or deep by portraying the reader as someone who's already thinking about it on that level."
I think Volokh is using "kolakeia" - flattering his audience's sense of their own intelligence in order to make them open and sympathetic to his argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolakeia
Yeah. Although gets all bent out of shape about the distinction between a vulva and vagina but apparently doesn't know the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide.
Also, landfill space is not get free. Why should anyone get to throw as muchstuff away as they want for a flat fee. What other utility has that price structure?
Madison has been spared (for the moment) from separating out our organic refuse into a third bin. Thankfully, the City lacked the funds for the program. Where do these people think we've got room for all their bins?
"Not everything is just about money. They don't just want your money. They want your mind."
I don't think they want our minds. They get a bigger kick out of forcing compliance on a reluctant citizenry.
I'll recycle when I get paid some part of the value of the recycled material, minus the recycling costs. Oh, wait, you mean recycling costs more than just landfilling those empty bottles, cans, plastics and used paper products? Well then, just bury the trash and be done with it.
Future societies, where scarcity of raw materials are so great as to reward opening up the treasure trove landfills around the country, will thank me.
Freder Frederson said...
Also, landfill space is not get free. Why should anyone get to throw as muchstuff away as they want for a flat fee. What other utility has that price structure?
My town went to pay-as-you-throw. You have to use overpriced town trash bags, the price includes the cost to the town of handling the trash. That's fine, except the town trash bags suck. ( slightly too small for a standard trash can, plus poor quality. ) I'd happily pay more for a quality trash bag, but the town doesn't offer one.
And, once they did that, people naturally started recycling more, including curbside pickup of recyclables. Except the recycling collection truck is open on the top, an now we end up with recyclable trash littering the street. ( Not a huge amount, just a can or bottle or two per week. But it adds up. And the town is certainly not going to clean it up. )
"I think Volokh is using "kolakeia" - flattering his audience's sense of their own intelligence in order to make them open and sympathetic to his argument."
Thanks. That's close, but I think somewhat different. It seems less like flattery and pushing an opinion than easing into challenging material. It may be partly that he has a 2-level audience: 1. people who already know the law and don't like being treated like beginners (for them, it's: you already know this) and 2. people who need the professor to give a beginner's instruction (for them it's kind of funny, pretending that of course, I know about Greenwood, or: I'd better read this to get up to speed with what other people already know).
Also, landfill space is not get free. Why should anyone get to throw as muchstuff away as they want for a flat fee. What other utility has that price structure?
Landfill space is hardly a premium. We could pile the world's garbage in a shockingly small area.
Did Freder Frederson just worry about incentives? Does Freder Frederson really think price would be an effective tool for managing human affairs? And that government services should not be priced any damned way they want?
Would that these principles suffered broader application from statists.
Post a Comment