daverea.com

It takes a while to scroll back through the archives, but I can more or less remember when I decided I was a Libertarian. I was sitting in Mr. Donnegan’s Government class, in the front-right-hand seat, sucking up the broad-brush descriptions of positions on moral and fiscal and right and left. He coated the board with a diagrams and spectra, with a tendency to write downhill.

Despite my limited-government ideology, I ended up holding my nose this past November 2nd. I managed to convince myself that, at least for this four years, libertarianism just isn’t practical when there are 2-4 supreme court nominations up for grabs. I followed the SCOPE guidelines and “voted my issue” despite my dislike of government intrusion and our current crop of politicians who seem not to care.

Then, this morning, I called Meril Lynch to set up a new account. The lady on the phone politely informed me that she’d need to ask me some questions that are required by the US Patriot Act. Apparently they need to know my employer, and how much I make each year, and whether or not I have any peculiar rashes – before they can set up a mutual fund account.

Bullshit.

Once you grow that Libertarian gland, you can’t keep it from firing off at times like this. I felt my pulse rise as a burst of Libertarian adrenaline zapped through me. No, I don’t want to tell you these things. No, I don’t think the government needs to know what shampoo I use or how often I have conversations with inanimate objects. Of course, I wanted my mutual fund account, and I figured that the Privacy Invasion Act of 2001 (or, as Dubya likes to call it, the Patriot act) probably applies to all the other mutual fund companies too, so I coughed up the goods.

But I felt violated. Like a guy in a black suit and dark sunglasses had just rifled through my file cabinet, then spent a few minutes pawing around my safe deposit box too. And as long as I wanted my new account, I had to let him check me for rashes too. Full cavity search.

And this is how the cookie crumbles, and everyone goes along with it like so many pigs to the slaughterhouse. We answer the questions. We fill out the census bureau surveys. We pay the government “their share” of our income. We crank out the tax dollars to live on the land we own. And we always make sure we abide by the zoning regulations.

It only gets better when we start a business – we pay for the privelige to set up shop. We pay for the privelige to hire employees. We pay for the privelige to buy a big mahogany desk, set it up in a corner office and stand at the window, picking our noses and hoping the glass is tinted. Then we charge everybody else sales tax on behalf of the same people we’re paying for the privelige to do so.

This is the system that’s been set up for us – it’s been carefully crafted, time worn and proven so that there is no way to function in this country without giving in and doing it “The Government’s Way”. No, you may not open a bank account without a full cavity search. No, you may not own a car – or a gun, or an ATV, or a dairy cow, or in some states, a can of pepper spray – without registering it. No, you may not ride in an airplane without your papers – ahem, I mean your ID card. No, you can’t even buy a piece of property from another private citizen, build a house on it and live there without giving us our piece of the pie.

So much for freedom, I guess…