Journey into Outer Grace

I love living in Britain.  I will miss the British landscape and people when we return to America.  But there are some things I will not miss.  And in fact, there are a few things that drive me crazy about living here, I suppose because it seems counter-intuitive (or maybe as an American it just challenges certain privileges I have grown up having).

One of these is the TV License.  If you want to own a TV here, you have to buy a license to watch it.  Which made me wonder when we first arrived in the UK, why a license?  Isn’t that for hunting, driving, you know… things you need to be qualified in order to do?  Whoever heard of needing qualifications to watch television?  I’m not sure it requires many brain cells.

But a license you must have, to the tune of £120 ($200) a year.  This “telly tax” provides us with 5 channels–2 of them government owned (the BBC) and 3 other networks.  Pros: no commercials ever on the BBC channels.  And loads of awesome documentaries & quality programs (and a few lousy ones thrown in).  Cons: the cost (it works out to about $17 a month).

It’s like a mandatory cable charge.  You can’t opt out if you want to watch TV, unless you buy a special TV set that has its receiver removed (so you can still play videos & DVD’s).  The funny thing is, they send out special enforcer vans that can detect TV’s receiving the BBC signal.  They compare addresses of who’s not paying (practically everybody is) with the addresses they “listen” to.  They they bust the illegal TV watchers.  Here’s a link to a UK site about it:

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/detectionandpenalties.jsp

No, Jenno and I are not “licence evaders”; though we don’t like it, we affirm God’s Word as it teaches us to submit to the governing authorities, and pay the piper.

If I had to admit it, I’d say that the reason why it provokes me to mild outrage is that as an American, I have grown up thinking that watching TV is a basic inalienable right.  It’s like, in the Constitution, isn’t it?  Well, maybe not.  But what was actually a privilege in American culture, I assumed should always be free.  Now that I look back at it, ”free TV” wasn’t always great, either.  TV reception in some states is lousy, depending on where you live.  In the Diablo Valley east of Oakland, CA, you can’t get all the network channels unless you buy cable.  I suppose most people reading this have cable TV anyway, so it’s a moot point I suppose.  You already pay something every month, so who cares, right?

But the thought of being forced to pay for non-cable programs makes the American part of me grind my teeth.  I guess British tax laws have driven Americans crazy ever since the Boston Tea Party.  What will they think of next over here?

Hmm… how about charging people in Britain for driving on the road, per mile?

They’re already proposing it! (we will thankfully have escaped this particular tax).  See below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nroad05.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_05112006

The United Kingdom has many attractive features; the government’s appetite for surveillance is not one of them.

Brian