PennDOT says payment of services are situational, not moral (vehicle registration, buy)

[Consent Withdrawn]

PennDOT is confirming my belief that money, being an abstract thing with its value determined by fiat, is in essence unable to be stolen or owed. Sure government and corporations don’t want you to think of it that way because the belief in indebtedness is one of the most useful tools to keep people demoralized and compliant. But the fact is that as long as money is in use in some way, it is in the public sphere and therefore public property. The end result of this is that payment of services is situational, not a moral issue. In other words if circumstances necessitate that you are unable to pay for services, particularly non essential, nonpayment does not make you immoral. It actually makes you prudent, especially given the current economic climate. Now, let me explain how PennDOT revealed indirectly that this is theory true was and that it is a standard practice for them in their dealings with their “customers,” Pennsylvania drivers:
I recently contacted PennDOT concerning their practice of embossing the state website address on the bottom of the license plates. Having the state web address displayed on our license plates makes all of us advertisers for the state web site every time we drive, or even when we are parked for that matter. I wanted to inquire as to how PennDOT could reduce us to a means to an end by making us advertising agents. I also planned to find out how we could go about receiving compensation for said advertising.
The representative from PennDOT who I corresponded with was one Stephen Tomassini. He informed me that PennDOT has “a prerogative to include public information on the plates.”He also said that drivers “impliedly consented” to be used as advertisers for the state when we registered our vehicles with the Commonwealth. As for compensation, Mr. Tomassini stated that drivers have “no compensable interest” in the content of the plate since plates will be surrendered to the state when their authorized (italics mine) use is discontinued.
In order to reply to Mr. Tomassini I did some research on the implied consent law which he alluded to and discovered that it is primarily used as a loophole for police to be able to force drivers suspected of being intoxicated to submit to chemical sobriety tests. It did not state anywhere that it can be used to force drivers to provide free advertising for a state website. Although I would imagine that if pressed, the vague and ambiguous nature of an implied consent law could be used to justify anything the lawmakers and their mindless, robotic agents say it justifies.
As for Tomassini’s shallow and pitiful answer that we drivers have “no compensable interest” in the plate’s content and therefore the state does not owe us compensation, his and by extension the state’s logic is flawed. Let me illustrate with an example of a billboard company. Just as the state owns our license plates, so the billboard company owns the billboards. A certain advertiser may only advertise on a particular billboard for a period of a few months, whereas we maintain the same license plate for years. Additionally, the fact that the advertiser’s advertisement on the billboard will be removed and replaced with another advertisement for a completely different company does not mean that the former advertiser does not still have to pay the billboard company for the time that it held their advertisement. This makes sense to most of us because we have been taught that we must pay for services we have received out of moral obligation. But according to Mr. Tomassini and PennDOT we have been incorrect and payment for services is situational and I’d add a matter of priority.

]Suddenly the entire issue of not being paid for the advertising we provide for the web site seems trivial since the greater lesson that Tomassini and PennDOT are teaching us is that payment for services should be completely removed from the arena of morality and placed in the arena of pragmatism. If advertising for the state web site still gets under your skin, I suggest using duct tape to cover the web address part of your license plate. And you can always do what I plan to do. Withhold your annual vehicle registration payment. Mr Tomassini and PennDOT will not mind at all since they demonstrated quite clearly to us that payment for services is situational.

[ki0eh]

I'm Catholic and work with a number of municipalities and have explained the pantheon thus:

First come the people, then the priest, bishop, Pope, saints, and God, in that order.
Next comes PENNDOT.

[Ohiogirl81]

We as taxpayers have more serious issues with PennDOT than its forcing car owners to advertise the state's web site.

[pcity]

Yeah this is the biggest non-issue ever. It's just a website. Who cares?

[Bettylou22]

i agree WHO CARES? buy a license frame that covers the URL and get over it.

(on a side note, why aren't you complaining that the place where you bought your car is advertising their company on the back of your car too?)