I buy civilization

I saw Mister Silverado on the road a number of days ago. Full disclosure: I didn’t actually see the driver, but I’m highy confident it was indeed a, ‘Mister’. The window sticker, ‘TAXATION IS THEFT‘ is what made the encounter noteworthy.

There are some trivial times in one’s life that a person fantasizes about having a magic wand. As I was driving behind this guy, I wish I could magically have pulled back a veil to show him life without the items and services that his taxes procured for his ignorant benefit.

• Poof! The road he is on either disappears or becomes a private road that requires tolls.
• Poof! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disappears and it is anyone’s guess if his tires are safe for highway speeds.
• Poof! With the disappearance of the Environmental Protection Agency the yellow smog makes it hard to see the road.
• Poof! In a society without law enforcement, a Mad-Max style driver swerves in front of him with a cobbled together tank that has treads bigger than his entire Silverado.
• Poof! The Silverado is no longer manufactured by an American company because the lack of basic public education has resulted in a workforce too untrained to assemble it.
• Poof! The United States is no more. Without a public government and armed forces, the lands are a warlord-run style state.
• Poof! Without the Food and Drug Administration the driver ate a fecal and poison laden meal that results in traumatic sickness. He could try and take medication for his illness but there is no mechanism to monitor or studies carried out on the drug and there is a good chance he’ll have an adverse reaction to his other meds causing his dumb-ass self to black-out whereupon he and his truck are prayed upon by the local pirates. If the barbarians opt to burn his body, no one will put out the fire because there isn’t a fire department.

I could go on. But either you get it or you don’t. Taxation is not theft: either legally or morally. Can taxation be more equitably shared and put to better use? Absolutely.

Few of us cheerfully pay them but taxes are still part of the contract of our society and I shiver at the notion of losing the boon that they have bought to this country. And Mister Silverado? Well, he literally got nowhere in this world without the benefits of taxes.

“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.