Your self-justification is jaw-dropping.

Implicit permission? Is your failure to lock your car implicit permission to open the door and take your stereo? The fact remains that it is someone else’s property. If it would be impolite to walk up and turn it off by hand, it is still impolite to do it with a remote.

You know what annoys me? People who get holier-than-thou about not watching TV. If “only one person” is watching it, well, they got there first. I think it is more polite to allow them to continue than to run around having votes about it. Anyway, it is the owner’s decision, not yours. I think the same courtesy should be extended to you if you were in a room with the TV off. I’d ask if you mind if I turn it on. If you said no, I’d put up with the inconvenience.

Part of civil society is the ability to put up with the occasional minor annoyance. Your protests notwithstanding, that what an inconvenient TV is.

I hate TVs, I don’t own one, and (being unaccustomed to the crap that is on there) get almost physically sick after 15 minutes of exposure. “Minor irritation”? Not minor for me, at least.

Whenever I go to an establishment that has a running TV, I almost always ask them to turn it off, and if they refuse I often leave. What happens, usually, is that the server (or whoever) looks around and asks people if any of them are watching it. If *even one* says yes, the TV stays on. Sometimes, they would say “I’m not allowed to” or “I have to ask the manager”… and usually, the cover-your-ass answer is “No” since that simply preserves the status-quo. So there is a very strong bias in favor of it being on. *If* they did a hand-count of patrons (yes/no/don’t care) that would be a different matter… but you know how that count would usually go, right?

Regarding going somewhere else – yes, absolutely, I avoid places with a running TV whenever possible. It is not always possible though, since I also like to hang out with friends who sometimes/often go to places with running TVs (Fudruckers). In such a situation, me and my friends would often be a majority in the area we’re in, and we mostly don’t want the TV on since we prefer to talk, but getting it turned off is not easy (see above).

After some consideration, I think I am going to buy the TV-B-Gone and use it judiciously. Obviously I would not use it in a sports bar in the middle of a game (well, I wouldn’t be there, to begin with). But in a situation where there is nobody obvious I can ask to turn it off, or I am the only person being exposed to the TV, or I and my (non-TV-watching) friends are a large majority in an establishment, I will use it. If anyone cares enough to turn it back on, I will not override them, but would probably just leave.

Regarding the “disposing of other people’s property” argument? Well, if they don’t want patrons to control it, they should put some tape over the remote sensor. If they don’t, I see that as an implicit permission to control whether it is an and what channel it shows.

What I have in mind about “a blog like this” is the bloody pretense of that masthead of imagery and everything it implies, at a place that actually puts up a post endorsing the arbitrary and unilateral disposition of other peoples’ property.

This is bloody obvious.

Public TV is also like public smoking in another sense–it is an assault on others masquerading as personal liberty. If I hit you over the head with a ballpeen hammer do you have the right to object? If I were to protest that I have every right to hit you with a ballpeen hammer as it is a free country and I can do as I please, you would consider me insane. Wait, you protest, as blood curdles down over your eyes. Why, then, is it OK to blow noxious poison in my face or to drive me mad with endless commercials for hairspray, laxitives, accident attornies and soylent green? Methinks I might prefer the ballpeen hammer as long as you don’t hit too hard. “Ah, welcome to my restaurant, the host will seat you as soon as I hit you with this hammer…As an alternative you may listen to 100 commercials for Ben Affleck’s new movie or smoke a pack of these new menthold cigarettes.”

Ideological objections aside, I would not be so tweaked if the set went off in the public space.

You know those keychains weigh in at 10,000 ohms so you might write a letter to Greenpeace about them, too. I’m sure they’ll understand.

So, what has changed with TV-B-Gone? Well, it’s still rude. I guess you won’t get beaten up, but since it’s anonymous, you can add that it is simply cowardly.

Anonymous, cowardly rudeness is not something we need more of.

James

What do you mean, “a blog like this”? Most of the Chicagoboyz contributors who commented on this issue argued against interfering with other people’s TVs. Meanwhile you’re calling people names. Jeez.

What if I wandered around town with a cappucino machine zapper and shut those steam-hissing bastards down at 50 paces? I hate cars, can I employ a carberator-zapper? What about pacemakers?

Turning other people’s stuff off without their permission is a first-class jerky thing to do.

What’s it to you? It’s none of your business. That’s what. It’s not your problem, so you can safely stay out of it.

“Why shouldn’t we have recourse against the telscreens that seem to be placed everywhere in our daily lives?”

You “shouldn’t” because a TV in someone else’s pub is not your property. Now, what sort of a goddamned retard do you have to be in order to not know this? If you don’t like a TV in a pub, then just go somewhere else. This is bloody obvious, and it is completely disgusting to see a discussion like this on a blog like this.

At the same time, I know a lot better — now — what “a blog like this” is all about.