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Yeah, that bit was just a joke, I even called it a "loicence". We do have a TV loicence though that the Tories want to scrap (no joke). Plus no pepper spray allowed either and the Skunk Bike Lock which spray would be thieves with a noxious liquid if they attempt to cut it is also illegal.
Self defence laws in general are a joke in bongland. It makes me understand the allure of gated communities as they allow you to offload the dirty work and liability of handling nasty people onto paid security guards.
The TV licence system is used – and hated – in many other countries (Wikipedia has a detailed list). Japan even has a single-issue party dedicated to abolishing the licence fee.
The licence fee is effectively a regressive tax (which is bad) with its own enforcement bureaucracy (which is inefficient (though speculation about the existence of the alleged detection vans is amusing)). IMO, it should just be scrapped and replaced with a grant funded from general taxation.
@5852a
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I thought about addressing that but felt I should stay on-topic. The loicense meme has nothing to do with knives and is entirely about the funding structure for the public broadcaster, it just gets used as fuel for shitposting because that's what the internet does. "Do you have a loicense to post UK memes? Do you have a loicense to ask if I have a loicense?" etc.
I'm not sure what the full extent of alternatives to TV licensing might be. I assume the discretionary licensing format was chosen as a preference to either advertising or imposing a universal tax and was introduced at a time when the BBC was the only broadcaster offering broadcasts. Again, trade-offs. Some countries choose advertising, some subscription, some a license, some a tax, and none of them are perfect solutions. The fact that attacks on TV licensing aren't advocating for a tax offers some suggestion of whose agenda is being advanced.
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