The first two years I went to Burning Man, in 98 and 99 it was a pretty open environment. The cops on site were few and looked the other way for just about everything. I took bong rips in front of cops cruising in their vehicle. They just waved and went about their way. In 200 I saw them actually beat up a Burner, not sure for what. But i saw more cops and they were out looking to actively bust people. That’s the year I said I had enough. Hauling 500 lbs of water into the desert along with everything else, along with riding ticket prices every year, I was burned out on Burning Man. Still, it’s a shame they are hindering folks from even getting there. My advice of you’re coming from Salt Lake, take the Junco Rd. from Winnemucca. It’s amount a 50 mile long dirt road, but you cut off a huge portion of the drive and it’s just more fun driving in the desert. Just have a good spare and plenty of gas.
I hope you meant several spares. Jungo can be brutal.
why does this stink of Jeff Sessions?
Yes, I have never had a flat on Jungo Rd. but almost everyone else I know has had one… or two.
Where does this weird meme that Burning Man is only for richies come from?
Burning Man attendance costs $390 for 8 days, plus $80 for a vehicle pass (carpooling encouraged). San Diego Comic-Con costs $276 for 4 days, plus at least four times that much for the hotel room.
But no one here ever hates on the rich geeks at Comic-Con.
(See also: Where Does My Ticket Money Go?)
This was just sent my way. I did not make it but there is a long tradition of making Burning Man/Hitler memes:
Why warn them? Let them take the push-back and afterward be wary of hippies in general.
Sounds cheaper than Defcon, which is decidedly corporate nowadays and also had issues with unwarranted searches:
While both events are doable for those prices, and attainable for super fans who can save up the cash - just getting there and in is only part of the overall costs.
For burning man, food, drugs, and supplies for 8 days will add up quick, and for comic con, Mt Dew, Food, and exclusive Boba Fetts also add up quick.
I’m sure that when they attempted to enforce those rules, that they obviously never discussed with their lawyers, on the next gun convention, the results were interesting.
Oh, what’s that? They somehow forgot to do that? How could that be?
What does it say about me that one of my first thoughts was a sarcastic, “Oh, won’t someone please think of the real victims of systemic injustice, which are mostly white dudes with disposable income?”
But yeah, I wouldn’t know enough about the region to know whether the claim that it’s happening on tribal lands is valid, or if the Bureau of Indian Affairs even has jurisdiction. I also don’t know to what extent the Constitution applies wrt the sovereignty of various tribes. I would guess that if it’s due to tribal law, a Federal court would make short work of that.
Heh, could it have anything to do with the white people powwow Chase Iron Eyes hosted? Did y’all piss off the locals?
Absolutely. It’s no small expenditure on a typical salary; for most people it’s a vacation you save up for. It’s just that there’s this meme that it’s exclusively for wealthy hedonists, and people support that by saying “it costs three hundred ninety dollars!!!” as if they think every other festival or con or whatever is a free charity event.
So, several years ago, there was a lot of gruff coming from attendees about a handful of super-rich jagoffs treating it as their own personal drug party, ignoring the rules and communities standards and pissing off everyone else. BoingBoing and others reported those stories, and a bunch of people who’d never heard of Burning Man before and weren’t really paying attention somehow jumped to the conclusion that everyone there was a rich jagoff. Even though they only knew about it because a bunch of the people there were complaining. It’s like if you told me about a racist getting kicked out of a local bar, and then I went around town saying everyone who drinks there is a racist.
And now it’s this self-sustaining meme. I have good friends who save all year to go to Burning Man and it’s basically the highlight of their year, so this annoys me.
Camping is a rich man’s hobby now? When I was a kid, spending a week in the wilderness with nothing but what we packed in was what we did when we couldn’t afford a real vacation.
That is not even remotely what “there are no spectators” means.
All the “special skills” you need to survive Burning Man are in a 20-page PDF. It’s on their website.
It costs $1400+ just to get a hotel room at Comic-Con. You think camping in the desert for a week costs more than that? There are people who hitch-hike to Burning Man.
[edited for extra civility]
On the plus side, the federal attorney that has to prosecute these cases in Nevada really hates these grey area traffic stops, and tends to plead any trivial drug possession charges down to a moving violation of some sort.
And, in 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that officers cannot, without reasonable suspicion, prolong a traffic stop beyond what is necessary to write the citation, in order to wait for a K9 unit to arrive to search for drugs (Rodriguez v. United States).
So, this is really mostly just police harassment of people who go to things like Burning Man.
Targeting the Burning Man crowd does seem a bit short-sighted. They appear to include a fair number of tech-savvy types who will be able to document their interactions with the Bureau.
Wait, Fordyce? I mean, I know John Addison Fordyce was a seminal figure, but I had no idea he’d lent his name to anything but awkward medical conditions.
Oh, OK, different Fordyce. Glad we got that cleared up!
Well, for one thing, it got promoted that way by a bunch of rich dudebros.
For another, for much of America, well, let’s look at this:
http://time.com/money/4459656/how-much-burning-man-costs/
- Right off the bat, you pay $390 for a ticket, and another $80 for a parking permit.
- If you fly there, it’s going to cost more because Labor Day.
- If you rent an RV, it’s going to cost. If you own one, ditto; if you buy a used one, you might be able to get one for $15,000, and it still needs fuel, maintenance, and insurance.
- If you rent a car, it’s going to cost, especially if your rental company decides you’ve been “off-roading”.
https://www.thebillfold.com/2017/08/the-cost-of-my-first-burning-man/
This person says a little over $2000. When you figure that median personal income in the US is around $32,000, that’s 6% annual income spent on going to the desert for a week.
OK, so everything is going to cost. A tech dudebro is going to be able to absorb that $2k a lot easier than Joe Rando.
So this then?
Roadblocks that stop mostly innocent drivers with no warrants and no probable cause to believe that any particular drivers have done anything wrong are an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment against improper search and seizure. The Supreme Court case that permits stopping mostly innocent drivers on fishing expeditions that find only a tiny percentage of violators was decided wrongly and needs to be reversed. I have lived and worked in countries with the hated and offensive “Papers Please” police roadblock system. We should NOT permit any form of it in the United States.
James C. Walker, National Motorists Association
