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Safety Concerns

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Clarissa

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The authorities in the province of Nova Scotia in Canada banned people from hiking or camping in the woods. Or going to the woods at all for any purpose. Because it’s unsafe.

The authorities in the city of London, Great Britain, painted lilac stripes on pavements to prevent bikers from robbing passersby. Pedestrians are supposed to use the lilac stripes as reminders that roving gangs of criminals ride around with impunity.

It’s curious how safety has come to mean that activities of law-abiding people should be curtailed. Authorities don’t want to combat crime. They want to constrain people who don’t do any crime.

13 responses to “Safety Concerns”

  1. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    Reminds me a little bit of:

    Crosswalk

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    1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
      oldcowboy3

      methylethyl

      LOL ;-D

      Liked by 1 person

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  2. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    The trails in Nova Scotia are closed because of wildfire risk during a severe drought, though. I agree that they went way too far with it, but it wasn’t because of safety. It sounds like they’re concerned about campfires and cigarette butts starting fires.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Yes, safety from fire. Instead of catching the bastards who set fire, they prevent law-abiding people from going into the woods. It’s obvious that an arsonist won’t heed this warning. Only people who weren’t going to set fires in the first place will.

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “Instead of catching the bastards who set fire”

        Yes, the meta-message of both is: We’re not here to provide services or help you. You’re own your own.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          My Canadian uncle who died in 2022 had lived his whole life on the edge of a wood in Nova Scotia. His whole lifestyle was about that. Taking that away from people who have ancestral traditions tied to it is insane. I don’t want to keep saying the word neoliberal but I don’t have a better term for it. The government became anti-people. In particular, anti good, law-abiding people.

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          1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
            oldcowboy3

            Clarissa

            LOL, I have a very jaundiced outlook on most politicians, but wildfire risk is not a hill that anybody should choose to die upon. Both your uncle and myself could gauge that by scent, particularly in coniferous bush. Various forestry services do that scientifically by measuring(weighing) the humidity of a known amount of fuel. But nobody can accurately assess the potential wildfire risk of ignorant people in the woods in a hot, dry August ;-D

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              I wonder how the woods managed to survive all the millennia when there were no bureaucrats to bar access to them.

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              1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
                oldcowboy3

                Well there appears to have been some deliberate burning near the prairies to increase game animals. But human numbers were so few that this supposed “game management” did little damage ;-D

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            2. cliff arroyo Avatar
              cliff arroyo

              “nobody can accurately assess the potential wildfire risk”

              I think the real issue is the government doesn’t want to ‘waste’ resources on things like forest management or fighting fires….

              Neoliberals don’t like spending money for anything that doesn’t make (them) money.

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  3. oldcowboy3 Avatar
    oldcowboy3

    In Canada, the territorial or provincial authorities are elected to, among other duties, manage Crown lands i.e., public land. The last thing that thoee governments want to do is to lose the monies collected from fees and licenses to use those lands ;-D

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    1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
      oldcowboy3

      those governments

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  4. bluebird of bitterness Avatar
    bluebird of bitterness

    Just as every time someone gets shot, the people in charge want to take guns away from everyone who didn’t do it.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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