San Fransisco bans Plastic bags from Grocery stores

[Kaj]

Where do all the plastic bags used in SF go (those not recycled)?

They go buried somewhere in SF. Where they stay for hundreds even thousands of years. Thus the true cost of plastic bags is borne out by future generations and the rest of society -- in other words, your cost analysis completely externalized the true cost of plastic bags.

Thus if SF'ans want to protect their citizens and future citizens from dealing with such external costs, there can be a legitimate case. There are thousands of cities to choose from if you disagree. And if you want to stay and persuade others to change the law, it is much easier at the local level. The knee-jerk reactions against the decisions of local govt fly in the face of real democracy. Now you may not like local-level democracy, but no better alternative currently exists. And when an anarchist alternative does emerge, I wouldn't be shocked to see local communities develop and enforce their local values. In actuality, it would be inevitable, and that is okay.

[Kaj]

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The loss of small liberties that you don't care about is how you get the loss of big liberties that you do care about. It's only XYZ who cares? Well someone does and if you don't have empathy for them how can you possibly expect anyone to give a [censored] when you talk about how oppressive the state is?

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Sorry, but I'm not losing liberties over what people in San Francisco do anymore than I am over what people in Iran do. If it were my government that was doing this, I'd be righteously pissed off, but it isn't, so it's really not my business.

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Why should anyone care about the war on drugs? It doesn't affect them, they don't like drugs and it's getting some "unsavoury" people off the street it's really not their business.

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The War on Drugs is something that my government is doing. I don't live in San Francisco. Perhaps you support invading countries to libertate them and bring them democracy as well?

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Why not, it's not hurting me. It's none of my business.

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It has nothing to do with whether it's hurting me or not. It's not my government that is doing it. You realize this would happen in AC too, right?

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Good posts Alex -- just read them after I posted.

[TomCollins]

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Where do all the plastic bags used in SF go (those not recycled)?

They go buried somewhere in SF. Where they stay for hundreds even thousands of years. Thus the true cost of plastic bags is borne out by future generations and the rest of society -- in other words, your cost analysis completely externalized the true cost of plastic bags.

Thus if SF'ans want to protect their citizens and future citizens from dealing with such external costs, there can be a legitimate case. There are thousands of cities to choose from if you disagree. And if you want to stay and persuade others to change the law, it is much easier at the local level. The knee-jerk reactions against the decisions of local govt fly in the face of real democracy. Now you may not like local-level democracy, but no better alternative currently exists. And when an anarchist alternative does emerge, I wouldn't be shocked to see local communities develop and enforce their local values. In actuality, it would be inevitable, and that is okay.

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Are there any landfills in San Francisco? With the cost of real estate, I would be very surprised if there were. I'm sure they export their garbage somewhere else.

[Taso]

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The loss of small liberties that you don't care about is how you get the loss of big liberties that you do care about. It's only XYZ who cares? Well someone does and if you don't have empathy for them how can you possibly expect anyone to give a [censored] when you talk about how oppressive the state is?

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Sorry, but I'm not losing liberties over what people in San Francisco do anymore than I am over what people in Iran do. If it were my government that was doing this, I'd be righteously pissed off, but it isn't, so it's really not my business.

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That doesn't mean people outside of San Fransisco can't have a discussion about what is done in San Fransisco, as what is done in San Fransisco might be something that is taken up in your local government. It's sort of that classic "first they came for the ____" poem. I'm pissed off that SF's government is setting this precedent.

[Taso]

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Where do all the plastic bags used in SF go (those not recycled)?

They go buried somewhere in SF. Where they stay for hundreds even thousands of years. Thus the true cost of plastic bags is borne out by future generations and the rest of society -- in other words, your cost analysis completely externalized the true cost of plastic bags.

Thus if SF'ans want to protect their citizens and future citizens from dealing with such external costs, there can be a legitimate case. There are thousands of cities to choose from if you disagree. And if you want to stay and persuade others to change the law, it is much easier at the local level. The knee-jerk reactions against the decisions of local govt fly in the face of real democracy. Now you may not like local-level democracy, but no better alternative currently exists. And when an anarchist alternative does emerge, I wouldn't be shocked to see local communities develop and enforce their local values. In actuality, it would be inevitable, and that is okay.

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Are there any landfills in San Francisco? With the cost of real estate, I would be very surprised if there were. I'm sure they export their garbage somewhere else.

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From what I recall reading, the problem with the plastic bags was that people weren't recycling them, only about 2% were being recycled. The rest were being thrown out or just left to fly in the wind. Seems to me a recycling campaign would be better than flat out banning a commonly used item.

[TomCollins]

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Where do all the plastic bags used in SF go (those not recycled)?

They go buried somewhere in SF. Where they stay for hundreds even thousands of years. Thus the true cost of plastic bags is borne out by future generations and the rest of society -- in other words, your cost analysis completely externalized the true cost of plastic bags.

Thus if SF'ans want to protect their citizens and future citizens from dealing with such external costs, there can be a legitimate case. There are thousands of cities to choose from if you disagree. And if you want to stay and persuade others to change the law, it is much easier at the local level. The knee-jerk reactions against the decisions of local govt fly in the face of real democracy. Now you may not like local-level democracy, but no better alternative currently exists. And when an anarchist alternative does emerge, I wouldn't be shocked to see local communities develop and enforce their local values. In actuality, it would be inevitable, and that is okay.

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Are there any landfills in San Francisco? With the cost of real estate, I would be very surprised if there were. I'm sure they export their garbage somewhere else.

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From what I recall reading, the problem with the plastic bags was that people weren't recycling them, only about 2% were being recycled. The rest were being thrown out or just left to fly in the wind. Seems to me a recycling campaign would be better than flat out banning a commonly used item.

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Simple solution- put a deposit on each plastic bag. Return bag, get deposit. If they are floating around, homeless people will actually catch them. Recycling plastic probably is very wasteful since no company pays you to turn in bags (unless they are subsidized to do so).

Also, plastic bags are useful. I save them and reuse them to throw out other trash. Is this recycling?

[Taso]

lol, I don't know Tom. My parents save them too, we usually have at least 20 of them under the sink, which we use to carry the stacks and stacks of newspapers my dad gets, to recycle.

[bluesbassman]

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Local government doing things that the people living there probably mostly support, because if they didn't they certainly wouldn't choose to live in San Francisco. Who cares?

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I actually have to agree with this. The "love it or leave it" thing doesn't hold any legitimate ground with the Federal government, but with local government it's pretty different. It's really not hard to move your ass to the municipality that's right for you in this county.

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So if the majority in San Fran voted to require that every residence be installed with a working government issued video camera which transmits data to a central database, would that be okay too? Like you say, if the minority doesn't like it, they can just move.

Do I understand your position correctly?

[TomCollins]

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Local government doing things that the people living there probably mostly support, because if they didn't they certainly wouldn't choose to live in San Francisco. Who cares?

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I actually have to agree with this. The "love it or leave it" thing doesn't hold any legitimate ground with the Federal government, but with local government it's pretty different. It's really not hard to move your ass to the municipality that's right for you in this county.

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So if the majority in San Fran voted to require that every residence be installed with a working government issued video camera which transmits data to a central database, would that be okay too? Like you say, if the minority doesn't like it, they can just move.

Do I understand your position correctly?

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I don't think most ACists really *like* any of these positions, they just prefer when they are done locally to when they are done nationally.

[Barcalounger]

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Conservatives simply like to micro-manage other peoples' lives -- no surprise... Government says to use "religion X" morals, you use "religion X." Maybe it's easier for some people to live that way -- I don't know.

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Hippies don't have a monopoly on dumb legislation micro-managing your life. Does it get any more stupid than conservatives outlawing certain kinds of sex between consensual adults?

I'm glad to see a couple AC'ists break from the fundamentalist ranks and admit that in the real world this is pretty much a non-issue if you don't live in SF.