I talk to many people and there always seems to be people who defend this program the government has or that program that 'helps' people out, well to these people I say sure sounds great but I don't want to pay for it. The only moral way to continue in my opinion is to have an opt out option. Personally I would opt out of pretty much most of the ‘system’. I’m not interested in paying for or receiving benefits for the following and this by the way is by no means a complete list.
• Welfare
• Warfare
• Medical Coverage through the Canadian Govt.
• Social security
• CPP (which I already don’t pay into)
• Foreign aid
• Workers compensation
• Employment insurance
• The list goes on…
I could go into my specific problems with all of the above listed items but it would take up a number of pages, maybe I’ll get to it at some other time. Suffice to say all of the above are paid for in two ways. 1) We are taxed and our tax money is used to pay, or 2) the govt. prints up the money out of thin air, thus debasing our currency and pays for the above programs. In my humble opinion paying into any and all govt. schemes should be a personal choice. What if I take offence at bombing people I have never met or done me any harm into the ground? Am I ever asked if undeclared wars are at odds with my personal ethos, no I am not. What if I also take offence to the fact our medical establishment supresses cures for diseases and refuses to let patients try alternative and less invasive cures, sometimes under the pain of imprisonment (does marijuana ring a bell with anyone?). Again am I asked if I agree with these practices, no again I am not asked. But, people say “you voted for your elected representative, so you did agree to these things.” Now this statement is untrue on a number of levels. First off, who’s to say I voted at all. Maybe on voting day I decided screw it, none of them are worth my time and I went for a nice walk instead. Second it is just legal mumbo jumbo, I gave person X my proxy and he now has the power to make decisions for me as far reaching as deciding whether or not I can ride my bike with or without a helmet. Of course I didn’t give person X this authority when I may or may not have made a mark on a piece of paper. But alas whoever did get the most marks on the most pieces of paper can now write new laws into effect enforced by thugs in uniform with guns. In any kind of rational society it is insane to think I would willingly surrender my personal franchise to live as a free individual to anyone, let alone have it coerced and bribed away from me for the above ‘services’ which again I never asked for in the first place. “But” people say “We all need to ‘pitch in’ for the greater good.” To this I say the ‘greater good’ according to whom? I can tell you for a fact that my idea of the greater good is far different from the govt. idea of the greater good. Yet the fact remains that to pay for all of this greater good provided by people I didn’t/don’t elect/hire/agree with the government forces me to pay taxes under pain of imprisonment, on the fuel I use, the home I live in, the food I eat, the services I provide to others and the list goes on. The tax code alone is now so large no one person can comprehend it’s sheer enormity.
I want an opt out option, I want to use my opt out option and I want my money back. If I didn’t have my money stolen from me through taxes for everything from sex change operations, previously available at the tax payers expense even if you were incarcerated. To money for any and every bonehead foreign aid scheme, I would have plenty of money to have private health coverage, to save my money for a rainy day, to invest money in ways I see fit for my retirement, to not live in a society burdened by grinding debt and being regulated to the point of being treated like a child. I also understand that there are those in our society that do agree with all of this insanity and wild spending sprees, and that’s fine too they can ‘opt in’ and have it all, all the services, benefits and entitlements and while they’re at it all the taxes, fees and regulatory hurdles as well. As we have demonstrated above the idea that the person who got elected actually has no franchise, from me at least, to run roughshod over my rights and freedoms, it seems that the opt out option is the only moral way to continue to run our society. It will be interesting to see how many people opt out, compared to those who stay within a deeply flawed system. The proof in the end will really be in the pudding either the system will carry on as most people see this as a better course of action for themselves and the opt outers can live alongside happy and content. Or the amount of Opt Outers will reach huge levels as people realize how much more wealth and for that matter freedom they have, when it is not being siphoned away from them in ever greater quantities. When this happens then we will see societal change as the system implodes under it’s own dead weight.