<story><title>Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet</title><url>https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sambeau</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with.&lt;p&gt;If local government can&amp;#x27;t use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for?&lt;p&gt;Community toilets (and streets clear of shit &amp;amp; piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>franciscop</author><text>Coming from Spain and having lived in Japan, I have come to believe that the US is really far away from what can be considered a &lt;i&gt;civilized&lt;/i&gt; society. There&amp;#x27;s a huge mismatch between the public opinion (best country) and the reality that you can see through smaller things like this. Some of these things are better even in the so-called &amp;quot;third world countries&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Note: Spain was named for the &lt;i&gt;smaller things like this&lt;/i&gt;; public toilets are not widely available here (even though there are some).</text></comment>
<story><title>Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet</title><url>https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sambeau</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with.&lt;p&gt;If local government can&amp;#x27;t use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for?&lt;p&gt;Community toilets (and streets clear of shit &amp;amp; piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adwn</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If local government can&amp;#x27;t use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If local government can&amp;#x27;t use local taxes to provide free food to everyone to stop us all having to starve in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for?&lt;p&gt;Is access to toilets a more fundamental human right than access to food?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; Stallman explicitly demands that public toilets should be free to &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt;, independent of their financial situation. Using his logic, we should boycot food until food is available to everyone free of charge.
&lt;i&gt;Of course&lt;/i&gt; I&amp;#x27;m not arguing against feeding the needy, or against social nets in general.</text></comment>