Toronto May Just Have the Largest Number of Busybody Whiners Per Capita Than Any Other City

...and the award for paternalistic fucking killjoys of the week go to this site I just stumbled onto mere minutes ago: Illegal Signs.

Oh fuck, am I right? Someone's putting up advertising, goddamn demonic fucking signs of commercialism gone rampant, on their own private property? Well, fuck me! Fuck everyone! How will we all get on with out lives?

These are the same type of people who would cancel Christmas because the lights might be distracting to drivers.

Read this screed, right from the jackass's mouth:

The outdoor advertising industry has a global culture of non-compliance with the law. Advertising companies are erecting illegal billboards all over the world, wherever they can get away with it. In Toronto, this renegade, lawless industry has been acting with impunity due to bureaucratic negligence.

"This renegade, lawless industry?" What are they, smuggling Afghani children to be eviscerated and used in high-priced sex-dolls? They've entered into a private contract with whomever owns the building to put up an advertisement. If you don't like it, tough fuckin' cookies there, sunshine.

Join us as we fight to legalize and democratize Toronto’s visual environment.

Total mis-use of the word "legalize" not worth the trouble to point out to these nut-jobs, I have never seen an invented word so badly used in all of life than "democratize." You cannot "democratize" what you do not own. You have as little right to remove advertising from the subways as I do to tell you what to wear. And don't tell me these fuckwits aren't out to stop all advertising (just the illegal ones), because they admit as much in their "about" page by displaying their total contempt for private property, and their stated wish to have the citizens of Toronto be shielded from the dreaded horror of having a way to promote their business.

Notice how the site enters into no discussion about why the permits are necessary for the city - for revenue, and that's all. The "about" page moans on for the few short sentences their minds can string together to denounce any "monetization" of "civic capital" by selling out to the evil corporations, without once the notion coming up that permits are a way for City Hall to suck revenue out of another creation that wasn't their's.

I have a question How does Mr. Joe Bloggs and Ms. Jane Doe know when an advertisement has gone up without requiring a permit? Oh that's right. They usually fucking don't. They go through their lives, almost blissfully, unaware of the total fucking horror that somebody else's property might be inflicting upon their sensitive, still child-like brains. In fact, it seems that this site may be the only collection of people actually bothered by "illegal" signs - or should we say, pompous enough to want to exert power they haven't earned over property they haven't got. Envy is the worst of the seven sins, guys...

Addendum: to more properly rebut these folks (because I know that I've written this while in a bad mood, and have likely not provided the correct logical and philosophical ammunition to take them on, but mere invective), check out Jerry Kirkpatrick's book, In Defense of Advertising.