Now I have to tell you about the German cat. In a recent column for Townhall.com I talked about the TV licensing tyranny in Great Britain. It seems that the British people must pay an annual “licensing fee” just for turning on their tallies. Been going on for years. There are vans that go around detecting signals from people who watch TV without paying the fee. The TV licensing people send periodic letters to non-payers and do their best to search the homes of non-payers who claim they don’t watch TV. Even confirmed non-TV watchers can’t get out from under this TV regime. It’s an outlandish petty tyranny that I really wouldn’t believe if there weren’t so much documentation of it.
Readers tell me that all this is happening in Ireland, Italy, and Germany too. And who knows where else. Which doesn’t surprise me, now that I have gotten over my surprise about the situation in the UK. But I already knew about Germany, because I had seen that story about the German cat. The cat got harassed about its lack of a TV license by the German TV-ocracy. The owner says, “My cat Maxi loves animal films, but I am not paying for him to watch telly.” A representative of the German TV-ocracy says, “From time to time, cats or dogs get letters. It just happens and of course Maxi won’t have to pay.”
Sure. What do we expect, what with 13 million letters from the TV-ocracy going out to German households each year? You’re off the hook, Maxi.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.