Presumption of guilt (an example of why I am conservative)

The City of Detroit has found me, or rather more specifically my business, in violation of Ordinance 22-2-61. I do not have a marked container for solid waste disposal at my Shop. If I don't contract with a private entity (or pay the City $450 per year) to remove my solid waste I could be subject to fines and costs up to a grand (and still have to get the serices anyway). So sayeth the city inspector who stopped by the Shop yesterday.

He was cordial so I was cordial. I explained to him that I have little solid waste to dispose of, maybe a thirty gallon trash bag a week, and that my neighbor allows (indeed he offered me the use of his refuse container on his own years ago) us to use his. On the occasions I have more than normal garbage, I take it two blocks and put it in with my own household trash. Boxes we reuse or recycle, scrap spring steel is picked up twice a week by a local scrap man, and other scrap material (non-spring steel, copper, and aluminum) we accumulate inside the Shop and take to the junk yard ourselves when we have a load. Why must I have my own container?, I asked him.

He explained that the purpose of the ordinance is to prevent commercial businesses from illegal dumping.

That trips my trigger. I stayed cordial to the man (no point in going off on him) as he handed me a citation and then left. But what upsets me, deeply and profoundly angers me in fact, is the presumption that as a commercial business I will illegally dump without my own dumpster. It is an affront to my dignity and I resent it.

I have not dumped my trash. The City of Detroit has no evidence nor compelling reason to believe I have. I simply have little and was seeing to its disposal in other proper ways and manners. I should not be made to either contract a waste disposal business or pay Detroit 450 bucks a year simply because the powers that be want me to. As it is, this is nothing but legal extortion under the guise of protecting Detroit and her residents.

And this is one small reason why I am a political conservative. So very many regulations presume guilt, which is wrong by itself and often is not there anyway. In this case I have been a good and responsible citizen. Yet that's not enough for the City of Detroit. I have to prove it at the figurative point of a gun. It is morally wrong for the government to treat me that way.