Why "My" Government(s) Disgust Me (R/WP)

(Part 1 of what could be 1,000s)

Yes, I wrote governments plural. During my normal work day, I am affected by Lower Providence Township, Whitpain Township, Upper Gwynedd Township, The Methacton School Board, the Borough of Lansdale, Montgomery County, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Federal governments. I'm convinced we can survive without at least half of these...

Thank gosh I don't commute to New Jersey or Delaware like many of the residents in my area do, to further compound the ... disgust.

Today, after spending the entire day dealing with various (I counted 14) business taxes, permits, and other "required" items necessary to try to run a business in this state - and not actually getting around to doing anything productive in terms of our economy, I decided to get some fresh air and try to clear my head of the gov-babble-speak by taking a walk.

Not having even driven into the parking lot, I encounter a "Speed Limit - 10 MPH" sign that was never enforced and people ignored it.

The fix?

A couple speed bumps which people now drive in the grass to get around instead of slowing down. Enforcement of the speed limit? Still nil or at least never witnessed in hundreds of hours of walking there. The reason this is even noteworthy is that the Township Police are headquartered in the building adjacent to this parking lot.

I start to walk around the park, noticing the usual amounts of trash, that I pick up along the way, when I encounter this gem denoting the "Ball Park Rules":


Let see now, this is a township sign listing "rules". I see a couple things that are not rules at all, a couple of these so-called "rules" actually contradict each other - and some more unenforced (but refreshingly polite) "rules" which are actually unenforced laws and one is ambiguous to the point of causing headache.

Let's give it a run down. "Ball Park Permit Holders Have Priority" contradicts "Share Field with Others."

I'm sorry but "Players must supply their own bases" and "Sliding into bases may cause injury" are not "rules" at all.

Unenforced are "No spectators in playing area"; I'm not even sure this is a "rule" or if it is really just a suggestion, and the same with "No climbing on backstop or fence". As an aside, there are no fences to be found here.

"Please put trash in receptacles" is an unenforced law.

I've called the Township to no avail to get clarification on "Fields open from dawn to dusk"; my troubles with this are two-fold. When is "dawn" and "dusk"? Did you know there were at least 4 legal definitions of dusk? And more importantly to me, does this mean the entire park is closed, or just the ball field?

No one that actually answers the phone at the Township seems to know - and there is no mention of it at all on the township's "for the public information" website. The only information that seems to be available on-line is how to pay (and how much) to get a largely unnecessary ball field permit.

I have to wonder how these people actually graduated from High School.

Shaking my head, trying unsuccessfully to get the governmental crappola out of it, I continue my walk. A while later I encounter a woman walking the other way in the far field (so named because they are the farthest away from the parking lot) and she is pulling leaves off the trees. I raise an eyebrow, and she laughs and smiles and says, "My little boy needs these for a school project!"

So much for "preserving the green spaces" and the little boy actually maybe even learning something about (I presume) leaves. I won't even go into the fact that 'harming the plants in the park' is against the law. Fifteen minutes later I walk up to the end of the soccer field and see this:


Yes, "No Parking", and four cars very much parked there. While I pause to take this picture, a man in one of the cars in this picture, presumably watching his child learn to play soccer, sees me taking this picture and what does he do?

If you guessed "turn on the parking blinkers", you guessed right! Yes! Those wonderful blinkers make it legal to park anywhere you durn well feel like! Don't they?

Uh...no, I'm sorry I have to be the first to tell you that they don't.

I take a picture of all four "scofflaws" and would call this the "Hall of Shame" except they don't have any shame.



I then head back down the trail to return to my car when the lady with the leaves, remember her? is on her cell phone talking to (I found out a short moment later) the man in one of the illegally parked car. She runs over and yells, "Did you just take a picture of MY car?!?"

I replied, "Yes, I did".

She demands to know why. I begin to tell her, "It is a no parking zone, clearly marked with a sign. I'm going to e-mail it to the Township Police..." I didn't get to finish with "in order to ask why they aren't enforcing a law being broken no more than hundred yards away, right outside their window. And to ask that they remove the signs if they aren't going to bother with enforcing things. I'm especially concerned because it's a situation where 'young impressionable' children are witnessing the blatant disrespect for the law."

No I didn't get anything but "It is a no parking zone, clearly marked with a sign. I'm going to e-mail it to the Township Police..." before I was told:

1) "My husband is sitting in that car!"

To which I said, "And that makes no difference. The car is PARKED."

(Obviously so, since she was wandering around in the woods a half mile away at the time.)

2) "You are an asshole! I'm calling the Police!"

To which I said, "Oh, alright. I'll wait. I won't mind sitting around in the unsupervised Roper Room that calls itself a Traffic Court all day waiting for the case to be heard if you won't mind either."

She (mercifully) was so livid and tongue-tied at this point she stopped calling me an asshole.

I turned my back and walked off. Twenty minutes later I drove out the parking lot and the woman's car was still in the no parking zone.

What I expect will happen with the Township?

Absolutely nothing at all, or perhaps a pile of b*llsh*t that boils down to, "We won't (but phrased "can't") do anything" but it will take them at least 400 words and about 45 minutes of their (taxpayer paid for) time in order to so.

What I expect at least one child will grow up to do?

Park illegally and think that the no parking signs are either meaningless, a foreign language, and/or only apply to someone else, and that putting the parking blinkers means it's okay to park anywhere you want. Not to mention that it's okay, when you get called on it, to call that person an asshole.

Yes, both my school district and local government disgust me.