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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Little cartoons on those same labels? Not so much.
Overall I can't blame the city for wanting to crack down on graffiti as the vast majority of it just awful.
They're a form of free expression, much like the mayor wanting to let Russell Investments put a giant neon sign on the top of their building.
I'm so glad that we have a system that puts both scribbling your "name" in paint on public or private property with rape on a level plane in terms of punishment. I don't mean to comment on the validity/artistic merit of painting on public or private property because I think graffiti can be both artful and also damaging vandalism. BUT, I think something needs to change (read: we need to have punishments fit the crimes).
Good job Seattle. :(
Yowch.
@7: Rape in the 3rd degree is different than statutory rape. It's rape that doesn't involve kidnapping, weapons, actual violence, breaking into a home, mental incapacitation, a supervisory role, and various other circumstances that would make it 1st or 2nd degree.
Except Barry Goldwater loving Reaganite Trickel-down-sucking REPUBLICANS! A lot of people forget that Reagan got his start oppressing sticker artists.
If a sticker damages property it can be considered vandalism under current law, no change needed. I've never had a problem with so-called midnight sticker attacks, even after years of almost daily graff cleanup. The stickers are stuck to dumpsters and deceased newspaper dispensers.
Because illegality does not deter vandalism. The spirit of vandalism inherently lives in it's illegality.
For metropolitan areas free of vandalism (apparently with the exception of Denver - eyeroll.jpg) you have to look to places where the punishment is so severe and violent that the mere thought of being caught is simply terrifying.
It's a property crime that costs more than it's worth to enforce and isn't much discouraged by fines and criminalization. When we decide that we can no longer suffer vandalism we must go to ridiculous extreme to eliminate it. It's worth getting over your petty ideas of property, civic duty, law and order and just live with it like sane people do.
Google the MTA crew in Los Angeles. L.A. County has gone so fucking crazy about fighting graffiti that they're using RICO against the MTA crew. For grafitti. In the fucking L.A. Riverbed. A place full of graffiti that you would need to ride in a helicopter to be properly offended by.
Organized crime laws. For graffiti. These guys are gonna do life for painting on walls.
This is where it all leads. So either get over it or get ready to be on a par with China in terms of human rights vs. law and order.
Because that's how grafitti works. It's illegality is pertinent to it's existence. You can't make it MORE illegal. You can't make it go away by increasing the punishment for it. At least not right away. You have to cover that margin all the way up to making it on a par with capital crime before it starts to vanish and that's a fact. That's what it takes to silence people, especially here. Threaten to take their freedom forever and maybe they stop. Maybe.
And then you're left to wonder why, in America a person can get rewarded with billions of our tax dollars for sinking the economy and ripping off millions while a vandal can do more time than a murderer.
But at least the walls are clean, right?
Those graffiti artists are... well, artists! Their work is so full of energy that I can see why a politician would hate it. If it doesn't smell like shit that can somehow be turned into votes, politicians automatically loathe it.
There was also the incident in which a girl and her boyfriend caught tagging on Capitol Hill ran over the guy who was calling the cops on them. Cops got the plate and sure enough picked 'em up that night back home on the east side.
You can't deter graffiti with legal sanctions that fall short of being unjustly extreme. It just doesn't work.
So it's either go far enough to alarm Amnesty International and impress China or learn to live with it like sane people in urban areas have done for decades.
If you can ignore logic then certainly you can ignore graffiti.
Why do we need to outlaw incredible work like this?
http://leftcoastletters.com/2010/09/16/s…
I hope somebody covers Tom Burgess's car in "mighty oh do-nut stickers" arrogant old cunt.
I hope somebody covers Tom Burgess's car in "mighty oh do-nut stickers" arrogant old cunt.