Tax Day Rant

When people tell me, "taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society," do you mean the society where:

• the President, without even consulting with Congress, much less getting authorization from them, launches 66 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 JASSM-ER's at a cost of $119M at a country that does not threaten the national security of the United States?
• the government uses civil asset forfeiture to seize property of people who are never convicted or even charged with a crime?
• the government continues to lock people up for minor drug offenses, then prevents them from getting a job or from voting because they have a felony on their record?
• the government is projected to spend a TRILLION more dollars than it collects just this year?
• unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies write regulations, enforce those regulations, and then rule on those same regulations?
• the government (through the Federal Reserve) steals from you every day through inflation of the currency--a dollar in 1913 has lost over 96% of its value?

This is the same government that enforced the Fugitive Slave Act until the Civil War. This is the same government that rounded up Japanese American citizens during WW2 and a Supreme Court of the same government who said it was constitutional. A Supreme Court who also legitimized compulsory sterilization with the most infamous of words, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

When you tell me taxes pay for a "civilized society," those are the things I think of. What about you? I don't want any part of it. I'm sure you can come up with a list of all the great things government does for you. But if you want to claim those things you also get the baggage of mine.