Other than the part where it's the government that runs the court system that enforces your having been forced to give the BBC money whether you want to patronize them or not.

What? It can't even work without the direct involvement in the government running the courts that are necessary for the BBC to collect their unavoidable TV tax.

Here's a way that the government could be even less involved: don't DO that. Let people who want to show programs to a large audience find their own way to fund the production and dissemination of that material. Say, by selling ads or attracting sponsors, etc. Remove the court system and penalties under law for not wanting to fund everything that's broadcast from the equation entirely. Why should someone who doesn't want to fund a given program be forced to, under penalty of being dragged through court? I have zero interest in watching our many all-sports programming options (ESPN, etc). You think the "best system we have" is for the government to be the enforcer in an arrangement where I'm forced to give them money anyway?

Ah, so in Britain the government isn't involved in tax collection and enforcement. They don't do the collecting, they don't penalize people who don't pay, and they don't get involved in picking and choosing who receives those funds, or have any say, whatsoever, over how that money is allocated. That is an interesting system indeed! Who handles all of that, if not the government?

Have you actually watched Italian television?

Wouldn't it just be easier to get the British government out of the news and entertainment businesses?

In the US, yes. It makes no difference if it's a 50-pound Octo carrying a Red Epic shooting a Mercedes commercial, or a 15-gram kid's toy. In places like all of the US's national parkland, rivers, and coasts administered by the Park Service, they are all 100% banned. Likewise for 30 miles around Washington DC, without any regard to size or range. And no, it's not about "drones," it's about all RC (or autonomous) flying contraptions of any type or size, period. And they're just getting started.

Not just the open source ones, either.

Right. Trained and licensed just like the millions of car drivers around you, who area also in their cars, with license plates that can be identified. That explains why we have so many more drone injuries and deaths than we do car-related injuries and deaths. Well, actually, it doesn't. Manufacturers are selling hundreds of thousands of small multirotors every month, and the number of deaths is ... zero. As opposed to thousands killed by licensed, tagged, trained, on-board car drivers. Now that you're re-thinking this, I'm sure you're going to be looking for ways to ban cars from driving past your property ... because any one of those cars could hop the curb and smash right into your house. This MUST be banned.

And that changes your privacy rights how, exactly? The FAA has nothing whatsoever to do with that.

Regardless: are you comfortable that none of the millions of trained, state-certified car drivers all around you will hurt you? Why not?

Sure, other than the part where that's pure fantasy on your part, and it's nothing like that at all in real life. And if someone IS behaving that badly in a real and public way, there are already a jillion statutes in place to make them stop, or make them pay for being jerks to other people. And yet, untold thousands of these devices are being sold every month - how many ACTUAL cases of anything even approaching what you're describing actually occur? Especially compared to the typical street harassment you're describing, which is as old as time? Some perspective here, please.

Sure, other than the fact that shooting at any aircraft - manned or otherwise - is a federal felony.

Of course you also think that a person flying a Cessna at a 1000 feet should have to check with every landowner below his flight path, too, right? No?

Why? Be very, very specific.

So you're also in favor of banning park tourists from using bicycles, right? Because far more people are injured and even killed in bike/pedestrian collisions every year than by 3-pound plastic toy multirotors. And you're probably also in favor of banning the noisy, smelly, routinely lethal motor vehicles that people use to get to and from those public spaces, right? Because those things - unlike drones - actually are involved in thousands of deaths every year.

Yeah, those tourists getting smashed in the head by drones - that's been a real problem. Other than the fact that I'll bet you can't cite actual cases of such things happening that come even CLOSE to the number of people who are killed in motor vehicle accidents going to, moving within, and leaving public spaces.

You don't like the noise? How about you make arrangements to make sure that my trip to a public space is in no way interrupted by screaming kids, barking dogs, music being played from rolled-down car windows, and the like? Thanks.

That's awesome. I think it would also be great to never have to worry about you sneezing, or having a stroke, or being momentarily distracted, or having a mechanical failure as you drive your car to wherever you fly your non-crap drones. Because unlike the countless deaths we're seeing by drones (let's see... essentially none whatsoever despite untold hundreds of thousands, even millions in use), people are actually killed for real dead in car accidents every single day.

Cars ARE DANGEROUS when they are large enough to carry self righteous operators of non-crap drones. A pedestrian collision at even 5mph could be LETHAL.

See how this works? The Nanny State pendulum can swing in several directions.