Re: Heads-up: Possible Televisual Recovery

Zebee Johnstone <zebeej@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

In fairness, literacy rates were higher before compulsory public
education than after it and road maintenance was an old common-law
duty for those who lived along them.

And, in fairness, only the people that lived along them actually
*used* those roads, unlike today.

??? They were used as much and as little as roads today.

Eh?

How do you figure that, considering the transport situation in mid
19thC America? Or even late 19thC America?

I'm thinking more of the Dark Ages, although it applies to 19th century
America too: people from all over town used the road running outside
between Aelfric & Berhthold's homes, not just Aelfric & Berhthold.
Heck, people from all over the country would use the roads when bringing
produce or goods through town.

And I'd be quite happy if there were simply a rule that roads built to
spec be provided by those living alongside said roads, leaving the
details of how up to the landowners. Fine those who don't maintain the
roads or don't maintain them to spec; make the fines steep enough that
it's not worth not doing.

Much like the law doesn't care if you clear your sidewalks yourself,
have your teenage son do it, hire a company to do it or install electric
coils to do it, it wouldn't care who constructed the roads and how, so
long as they met the spec (lines painted properly, able to bear X tons
weight, surface meeting whatever criteria are specified &c.): it might
be done by the landowner himself; he might contract out for it; he might
get together with all the other landowners in his neighbourhood to do it
more cheaply.

But I'm an idealist.

--
I use shell scripts at ork. Some cow-orkers refuse to touch them,
their excuse is usually `I don't understand perl.' Their fear of perl
is such that all things unknown are also perl. --Andrew Dalgleish
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Heads-up: Possible Televisual Recovery
    ... to spec be provided by those living alongside said roads, ... government, just in tax money meing more specifically earmarked. ... We trust our government. ...
    (alt.sysadmin.recovery)
  • Re: Libertarian cartoons
    ... America had stuck to this course we wouldn't be a 3rd World Country. ... roads and railroads and canals. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Back to Ireland again
    ... ""We have all of these people coming in from Europe and from America ... and the roads that they are used to driving on in their ... of whom feel Ireland is part of the old empire. ...
    (rec.travel.europe)
  • Re: My Ride Home...after 15 years
    ... After 15 years of living in Japan I am gonna be heading home to America at ... roads and riding by going south and bypassing R-CAN-SAW!! ...
    (rec.motorcycles.harley)
  • Re: Did Europes new standards for pc boards ground Airubs?
    ... AFAIK imperial measurements is of British origin and was around before ... America even existed. ... The roads are still marked in miles. ... and they call thousands of an inch a mill. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)