I Don't Count

I'm sitting here looking at my Census form as the current events stream by on the television.  The government wants me to fill out my census form and send it in, under penalty of law, so that I will "count".  Let's be clear, I don''t count.  My tax dollars count, but I don't.

The government doesn't take my tax money and use it for me.  They take it and use it to buy votes from people who wouldn't dream of dragging themselves out of bed to earn their own money to support themselves.  That didn't sound very nice, did it?  Well it doesn't feel very nice to be used, either.  Right now I feel that I am being used by my government with no regard to my needs or my wishes.  Right now I feel that government is taking my money and using it to commit bribery.  Right now I feel that my government is taking my money and using it to fundamentally change the relationship between government and citizens.

As Dan Riehl reminded us earlier, our founding fathers had the foresight to envision a day when tyranny would once again come to this country and they addressed that threat:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience n to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

May God help us, it is time.