Fines for picking dandelions—the latest ridiculous news story

Tyler Bishop56 said:Watch it with those kinds of ideas before you end up swallowed whole by the darkness. It’s just repression, repression, and more repression. History is supposed to be life's greatest teacher, and honestly, we all know things were better under Joseph Stalin.

So, word on the street is that Jacqueline Kennedy actually went to school in a little small town in the US. 😍

Nah, mine passed away for the homeland a long time ago. We’re patriots, through and through—it’s just how we were raised. It runs in the family.

I think older people deserve some respect.

Samuel Garcia6 said:I think older people deserve some respect.

Must be nice. 😢 You actually have something to think about. 😢

Another absurd law hits the books... It seems like around here, the legal system treats a woman selling cheap trinkets on a street corner as a much bigger criminal than anyone else. $1.75 So, we have this self-proclaimed "entrepreneur" who just happens to be handed a whole pedestrian mall on a silver platter...
It’s truly disheartening to watch how things are being handled lately. They are essentially taking the bread right out of the hands of hardworking Americans, yet the very people who should be facing accountability are being shielded from any real consequences. It’s a frustrating cycle to witness.
Much like that old law regarding petty theft, I’ll say this quite proudly: whenever I’ve hired independent contractors for side jobs, I have been consistently impressed with the quality of their work. There is a certain level of pride in a job well done that you just don't see anymore. On the other hand, when you hire those massive, high-priced corporations—the ones whose entire business model is supposed to cover these exact services—the experience is often a disaster. They leave a mess everywhere, they somehow manage to "lose" expensive materials, and the craftsmanship is frankly embarrassing. You pay for precision, yet you end up with something amateurish; for instance, you might ask for a perfectly curved feature wall, only to have it come out looking like a botched corner of an octagon. It’s a frustrating reality of modern contracting.

Tyler Bishop56 said:Must be nice. 😢 You actually have something to think about. 😢

Sit down. Great point.

I am in complete agreement; the government ought to exercise much tighter oversight on this matter. Protected plant species that grow wild should exist solely for our enjoyment—to be observed and inhaled while one takes a quiet stroll through the woods or a meadow.

A series of modest fines would likely suffice to bring such sales back into line.

How rare is that flower, really?

As far as I can tell, they're everywhere every single spring. Honestly, wouldn't be surprised if most of them just get mowed down along with the grass...

Robert Hall7 said:The visibaba is an endemic species—protected by law. It’s like trying to find a wild violet in our forests; you could search with a flashlight and still come up empty. In both the plant and animal kingdoms, there are species that are strictly protected because they're on the brink of extinction. No one should be out there scavenging visibabas to sell. It would be just as absurd as starting a campaign to cull cormorants, hawks, or sparrows. Those species weren't considered "protected" yesterday, and they aren't today. I see grandmothers offering visibabas every time I drive through the valley. If they actually faced the legal consequences, they'd be screaming. Have people ever heard of flora and fauna conservation? Maybe try reading the law for once and checking when it was enacted. I fully support this initiative to protect and preserve our native plants and wildlife.

It seems perfectly normal to some primitive idiots to kill every snake they encounter while hiking through the woods, simply because they view them as venomous pests.
A rattlesnake will just sit there peacefully soaking up the sun on a rock without bothering anyone, but some moron feels the need to strike it with a stick—and then, once the snake defends itself, the headlines scream about a "rattlesnake attacking a human."
It’s just like that senseless incident a few years back where some idiot kicked a rattlesnake, causing it to fly right into a baby carriage and kill the infant.

restlesscrane152 said:How rare is that flower, really?

As far as I can tell, they're everywhere every single spring. Honestly, wouldn't be surprised if most of them just get mowed down along with the grass...

It doesn't actually matter how "rare" it is on paper; even if it's protected by law, there's always the risk of it becoming truly scarce if people start mass-harvesting it to sell at local farmers' markets. It's a lot like all the snakes, lizards, and turtles here in America—they might be legally protected, but that doesn't mean they aren't facing real pressure from habitat loss or over-collection.

Human stupidity really is infinite. What’s the sentence for destroying a person?

urbanotter said:They ought to be handing out awards for finding visi-baba 😁

instead of punishing people for something that's going to be common practice very soon.😁

Honestly, we should just go ahead and arrest every grandmother out there picking those berries! That’s how it should be... let them all become hanging-grandmas instead...

It's practically an endangered species at this point! 😂 Even my dear Robert Hall7, who grew up right in the heart of Times Square...

Noah Cruz75 said:Human stupidity really is infinite. What’s the sentence for destroying a person?

Oh, there won't be any punishment... because Medicare actually hands out rewards for things like that!

🤣 Look, you idiots, 😵 here’s the new law banning farting. Apparently, every single one causes climate change and melts the ice caps, which makes it impossible for mountain climbers to reach the peaks they're aiming for. This might even become an Ivy League demand during negotiations.

goldengull3 said:I am in complete agreement; the government ought to exercise much tighter oversight on this matter. Protected plant species that grow wild should exist solely for our enjoyment—to be observed and inhaled while one takes a quiet stroll through the woods or a meadow.

A series of modest fines would likely suffice to bring such sales back into line.

Go ahead and explain that to your little forum crowd. Try explaining it to those idiots who go out into the woods and fields shooting at anything that moves—deer, elk, doesn't matter if they have a permit or if it's legal. You can laugh all you want, but even elementary school kids are learning about protected plant and animal species in class.

Adam Collins4 said:Since you can find cornflowers all over Europe, it's clearly not an endemic species...

Maybe take a moment to actually look up the definitions of the words you're using...

Why don't you grab a second-grade social studies textbook, read up, and then come back when you're ready to actually discuss this?

Kate James11 said:It doesn't actually matter how "rare" it is on paper; even if it's protected by law, there's always the risk of it becoming truly scarce if people start mass-harvesting it to sell at local farmers' markets. It's a lot like all the snakes, lizards, and turtles here in America—they might be legally protected, but that doesn't mean they aren't facing real pressure from habitat loss or over-collection.

Everything has the potential to be protected by law. If I went around culling cats right now, they'd suddenly have "the potential" to become rare. Personally, I don't see the point in protecting something just because it might become scarce, especially since every time someone mows their lawn, half the spring wildflowers get wiped out along with the weeds.

What's next—should we tell landscapers to stop mowing and start transplanting lilacs?

restlesscrane152 said:Everything has the potential to be protected by law. If I went around culling cats right now, they'd suddenly have "the potential" to become rare. Personally, I don't see the point in protecting something just because it might become scarce, especially since every time someone mows their lawn, half the spring wildflowers get wiped out along with the weeds.

What's next—should we tell landscapers to stop mowing and start transplanting lilacs?

Good grief, who on earth is mowing large fields this time of year? Seriously, step outside. Walk through a meadow. Mowers and scythes are still tucked away in the garage. Besides, those wildflowers are already past their peak bloom. There isn't even any mowing happening. What are you talking about?

Those weeds have no shame; they just spread across the yard like they own the place. Everywhere you turn, there’s more of them. 😁
And the penalty? It's like you've gone out and robbed a whole herd of bison.

Robert Hall7 said:Why don't you grab a second-grade social studies textbook, read up, and then come back when you're ready to actually discuss this?

Back to the insults again... seriously, you can do better than that.

I’m telling you for the last time—that plant isn't an endemic species.

An endemic species is something found specifically within one country, maybe popping up occasionally in neighboring states...

It isn't something that grows all over Europe.

So, now that we've actually taught you what "endemic" means, we can move on...

Even if it's written in some elementary school textbook—as if that's somehow gospel truth...

First, you missed the mark on American geography during that other topic, and now you're failing at endemic species... you really should know the basics about your own country.

Take a local wildflower from the Rockies, for example—that's an endemic species because it doesn't grow all over Europe like this one does.

And since you love citing middle school curriculum so much, let me debunk you with some actual links from school websites...

http://www.elementaryschool-example.edu/science=1049#mod_news

Where it clearly explains how to identify if a plant is endemic...

Just take a look at the number of subspecies listed for that common weed...

Bottom line: it’s not an endemic species, and you really need to learn the terminology you're tossing around so carelessly.

I hear Jacqueline is planning to slap a tax on asparagus next. She’ll probably start handing out fines for selling them under the table too.

Picking wildflowers and other protected plants should carry some seriously heavy penalties. I mean, honestly—how does anyone in this day and age think it’s okay to just go out and needlessly destroy wild flora? It’s just senseless.

It reminds me of how people used to hunt box turtles—which are a protected species—all over California, just to sell them to tourists out of little cardboard boxes. And more often than not, it was the folks struggling most financially who were doing it.

Well, those kinds of idiots need to be punished, regardless of how broke they might be.

And it doesn't matter if they aren't strictly endemic species; think about how ridiculous it would look if we wiped out our own native species only to turn around and import them from other countries later.

Look, I’m saying this again—it isn’t the picking that gets you fined, it’s the picking followed by trying to turn a profit...

If you just grab a bunch of wildflowers from your own backyard to stick in a vase, nobody is going to bother you...

But if you show up at a farmers market with a massive haul of them to sell? Yeah, that’s when the fine hits...

Technically, if you have the right permit from the Department of the Interior, you can actually sell them legally...

It seems like a ton of people here are chiming in without having any idea how the actual rules work...