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They Called the Police on Me Because of COVID-19 Restrictions
On Sunday, I went to the town transfer station (the dump) to dispose of some old boards that I had loaded into my trailer. The station’s supervisor called the police on me. I do not appreciate being treated like a criminal for going to the transfer station.
I drove into the transfer station and waited for the supervisor to come over to my car, and I asked him where I should put the boards, most of which were half rotten. He said they were not taking construction debris (“CD”) anymore. I asked if I should put the boards in the household trash compactor in that case. He said no, I would have to go home. I suggested that since my debris was all natural wood I could dispose of it in the brush pile. He grew exasperated and asked me, “why do you have to be like this?” And told me I could not leave the boards anywhere. I was also exasperated, and hyperbolically said I wasn’t leaving without putting the boards in either the open CD containers, the compactor, or the brush pile, and asked what was he going to do about it. He called the police.
I stayed and waited for the police officer to arrive because I didn’t want him to think, or me to feel like, I had “fled the scene.” To be honest, I don’t think anyone has ever called the police on me before and I was confused how to act, especially because I don’t view going to the transfer station as nefarious.
To be clear, my grievance is not with the supervisor or the police officer. And I told that to them both and I believe that we were OK by the time I left.
My problem is with the town’s board of selectmen. The board has arbitrarily and capriciously ordered that the transfer station not take CD. The reason the supervisor gave me for this decision was, to paraphrase slightly, “to maintain distancing and protect us [the employees] and you [the townspeople] from infection.”
This makes no logical sense. The CD containers are outside and there’s no reason to come within 50 feet of another person when unloading your trailer. It’s the compactor for household trash where you’re much more likely to come close to another person. Yet the household trash compactors (also outdoors) remain open for use. In fact, while I was speaking to the supervisor and the police officer I observed numerous town residents coming in close proximity with each other and with transfer station employees. I pointed this out and the police officer told me that the distancing guidelines are optional. So the guidelines are optional at the compactor but not the CD containers? This is maddening.
Do we really want to live in a society where you have the police called on you for going to the transfer station? (Even if you get angry and say something slightly bombastic but don’t actually start chucking wood off your trailer in the middle of the parking lot?) It wasn’t exactly fun to stand there being confronted by an armed police officer while countless fellow town residents drove by, assuming who knows what about the reasons I appeared to be under interrogation. The police officer is very professional, but let’s be honest: When the police are called, the threat of arrest (loss of liberty) is always present. We have all seen the videos from across the nation of people being arrested for no good reason: for paddle-boarding alone in the ocean, for letting their children play on a playground, for playing catch with their daughter in a park, for sitting on the beach.
It’s time to fully reopen the transfer station, the rest of the town, our states, and our country.
Published in General
How many got that reference?
Uhhhhh. . .never mind.
I don’t see it. This is the matter of putting some wood in the landfill. It’s not at all important. It’s not food. It’s not his livelihood. It’s not important in the least bit. It’s not even recreating. It’s not even trying to mind his own business.
Frankly it reads as a petty man who thinks he shouldn’t be bothered to follow the law. Protesting the closing of an obscure and only occasionally needed government service is hardly how to start a revolution. I’m not buying it.
Just let the broken windows of the buildings of our freedoms pass…. they are not a big deal. Rudy Giuliani. put an end to that in New York.
The authoritarians are pressing us on every side. I appreciate over sensitive hot heads like Max for pushing back on the small infringements by the government, because if enough people push back on the small infringements, maybe the authoritarians will think twice before a big infringement.
I would much rather Max get hassled for something minor and push back hard, than have me get hassled for something major. I am lazy, and grateful to Max for doing this. Michigan pushed back against Whitmer, got ridiculed, but also got some freedom back.
Sweden has been going about business as normal and they seem to be no worse than the rest of the world. The Swedes advise old folks to stay home, distancing and business pretty much as normal. Good experiment. Too bad other small places aren’t doing the same. Big places won’t because the center likes the power they’re getting and folks are letting them take it.
“The board has arbitrarily and capriciously ordered that the transfer station not take CD. “
This is why when this thing blows over, the Feds, every state, county, city and town need to get together and decide ahead of time what to stop and what to keep going. You could even have a phased approach of implementation just like we’re having a phased approach to reopening. However, most people under the gun make bad decisions, and politicians will make the worst ones because they’re putting everything they do under the lens of re-election.
“It’s time to fully reopen the transfer station, the rest of the town, our states, and our country.”
Amen, Bro. Let businesses and individuals make their own decisions about what level of safety they want to live with. Heck, we were already doing that before this virus . . .
“When the police are called, the threat of arrest (loss of liberty) is always present.”
It could have been worse. Imagine the Ricochet post with your mug shot. I bet it would have made the @jameslileks “Post of the Week” . . .
If the transfer station is open at all, can someone explain to me how the *type* of stuff they’re taking affects “social distancing”?
From a purely practical point of view, the stupidity of this whole thing is that while people are stuck at home they are doing projects. Projects generate waste. Waste needs to be disposed of. At some point you’ve got so much waste that you can’t continue with your project. If you want people to continue to stay home, you’d better allow them to be somewhat productive while they’re stuck there, or they’ll be more resistant to staying.
I’m curious why a dump is called a “transfer station”? When we dump stuff around here, it stays put.
Because they pretend to recycle most of it.
I’m not sure “business as normal” is accurate. They’ve still closed all colleges, high schools, ski areas, and any venues greater than 50 people. They’ve also imposed the same social distancing restrictions as most other countries, only it’s voluntary. But apparently enough people are abiding by these guidelines that friends of mine in Stockholm say they’ve never seen the city this empty in their lives. I read today that they have also started forcefully shutting down restaurants that got too crowded over the weekend.
Their economy is tanking, albeit at a slightly less rapid rate than everyone else’s. Similarly, their fatality rate is lower than the worst countries (Spain, Italy) but still much higher and rising faster than their Scandanavian neighbors.
Still, there does seem to be a spirit of treating each other like adults for the most part, which the US could definitely learn a lesson from.
It probably doesn’t. But apparently it’s the law where he is.
We aren’t suffering under British taxation without representation. I’m fairly confident that the emergency laws were created quite legally. If you don’t like the law, then tough toenails.
I don’t like a lot of laws. I find them foolish and unnecessary. I find most of them to be over bearing and harmful. But liking the law is not the standard for whether it should be obeyed.
Bring your grievance to the government entity that made this law and leave the poor worker alone.
If he had just let Max dump the stuff, there wouldn’t have been any “close contact” with two other people – the transfer operator and the cop.
Our dump has been open the whole time. Almost all of the operators there are geezers like me and none of them are wearing masks . . .
The fewer types of stuff they accept the fewer people they expect to show up to use the facility. Fewer people means easier to practice social distancing.
It’s the same logic behind banning the sale of certain kinds of goods. People who only want to buy those goods won’t go to the store, only the people who want to buy other goods.
It doesn’t account for people who would want to leave two categories of things (one halal and one haram) at the transfer facility, or buy more than one category of items at the store while they’re there, but I think that’s the basic logic.
In Dripping Springs? If so, “they” is the Left-wing loonies in nearby Austin. They have no doubt begun to infect the surrounding areas.
That’s what makes it a perfect place and time for a small rebellion. Because it’s not a big deal. But Max demonstrated that we can’t give an inch on even these small things because that’s all it takes to usher in the Very Big Things.
I encourage all kinds of acts of small rebellions during these times.
We can’t allow that. That would be productive behavior. You are required to be miserable, lonely, and idle during this time. Anyone experiencing an emotion that could be construed as “joy” will be taken to the detention center.
My local transfer station is literally that: we tip rubbish into dumpsters, and they are routinely trucked away to the main dump. It is far preferable to have citizens do this than have us leave the stuff by the roadside (which is what will eventually happen if there is no alternative).
Oh. So someplace where the mayor or governor won’t see, just pick on the poor guy at the dump who is just doing his job.
What’s the saying about how you can tell someone’s character by how they treat the waiter? Leave the worker alone and if you want to protest, do it where someone will notice.
You haven’t read the entire chain of comments, or skimmed over them. Max’s comment #20:
Governor Abbott is not a left wing looney. He made the law. The restaurant is probably hurting and wants to stay in business. Early in the quarantine I brought my broken cell phone to a business in Dripping Springs. It’s not much more than a one man shop at this point, but he was very strict on how he met me outside, etc. He didn’t want to jeopardize losing what business he had left. I don’t blame him.
Now that the IMHE model has broken down “government-mandated social distancing” into 6 categories instead of 3, it says Sweden has implemented 1 out of 6 of them, the one being mass gatherings. But that model isn’t very good at capturing nuances. It seems to treat the 6 categories as interchangeable, at least on the public-facing web site. And it doesn’t even take voluntary social distancing into account. But how could it? Where would it get those data? Technocrats need accurate data, and an inexpensive way to get data is through mandates.
This comment, by the way, is about the quality of that model and not so much anything you said.
The world’s economies are interrelated, so for that reason alone it isn’t likely that one country could completely escape the effects in the others. Tanking more slowly is probably the best they can hope for, but if they do it without arbitrarily destroying certain segments of their own economy, it might be worthwhile.
One thing I find ironic is that we were told we need to take measures to flatten the curve to delay the caseload so it doesn’t all hit at once before our hospitals were ready for it. So now Sweden has successfully delayed the caseload and is getting criticized for it in some quarters. IMHE also predicts that by late May their need for hospital beds will exceed the number available. We shall see.
Fires start small. Your small act may cause the guy at the dump to question his orders. He’s less likely to harass the next guy who comes along. Pretty soon the whole town is going to the dump freely, and it’s chaos!
Honestly, everyone needs to stop allowing themselves to be so easily controlled.
Because once it became clear how bad the models were, the goalposts were quickly moved from “flatten the curve” to “stop the spread” and done in such a way that our leaders are pretending that’s where the goalposts were all along.
Given the accuracy of their models so far, I’m guessing Sweden will be fine.
That is hilarious! Max – you’re always getting into trouble! Didn’t you get into something when you were out with your yard sign? Trying to be a good citizen in NH is different I guess than being a good citizen in FL. The boards would have been accepted here, and hauled off since we have pickup weekly and they seem to take everything except hazard items.
The 13 colonies weren’t suffering under British taxation without representation, either. Their tax burden was actually very low compared with that in the mother country. But like Max, they could see ahead and see where the lack of representation was leading. So they were very sensitive about principles and precedents.
If you think of the dump manager as the same guy as all the DMV workers you’ve ever met, or building inspectors who can reject anything up until final sign off because TheyCan or the USPS delivery person who leaves the Amazon box out in the rain instead of taking it 20 yards away to the covered porch – you have the idea of what this transaction represents: The Petty Bureaucrat who wields power over their tiny turf, will defend it to TheBitterEnd and hopes ByGod to get just a little bit more. It may be inherent to some human personalities but I’m not inclined to ever indulge or reinforce the tendency. if I were a surfer I would for sure be out at Rye beach surfing and take the $62 ticket for parking and show up in court to make them defend it to my face. And I’d pay the tickets for others to do the same. Yes I’m pretty cranky here in Live Free or There’s not Enough Testing Because of the Feds and You’re Going to Die NH.
The IMHE predictions haven’t been great, but my own guesses haven’t been so hot, either. For example, I wasn’t nearly paranoid enough about the extent and ferocity with which the technocracy has taken advantage of the situation to enhance its own power.
Exactly. Ours is five minutes away and open every day but Tuesday and Thursday. I prefer to go when needed rather than have to drag a full “curbie” to the street once a week. The real “dump” is about 20 minutes away. We have to go there to dispose of electronics and must allocate an hour for the whole affair. The huge bins at the transfer station are carried off to the dump when full and emptied. We have a good recycling program that actually recycles. Ours is well laid out and easy. There are bins for recyclable yard waste (much), yard trash, white/green/brown glass, metal, aluminum cans, plastic, garbage, paper, cardboard, textiles, carpet/pads, and tires. There is a collection point for auto and cooking oils, fluorescent lights, and batteries. We bag all our trash and kitchen waste then put in the bagged garbage can in the garage. It is easy to grab the big black bag out of the garbage can, pull the drawstrings tight, toss in back of SUV, drive through, and toss in their dumpster. We sort and bag recycles at home once we have enough to take and simply pitch them into their appropriate bin. The transfer station has trash cans by each recycle bin for the bags once you dump the contents. We don’t pay anything extra to use the transfer station.