January 17, 2004
Quote of the Day
...you might say you don't have a choice, but by your own criterion (someone who chooses to take it rather than die), you most certainly do have a choice. Nobody's FORCING you to drive down that gummint road. You're free to barricade yourself in your house and never come out again. How is that less of a "choice" than dying?
Do you pay for that government road? Sure you do. You also pay for that government health care. How is it less moral to accept what you paid for in the latter case than it is to accept what you paid for in the former case?
The real horror of the state is that it has made it effectively impossible to live without becoming an accomplice to its thefts and other depredations. The answer to that dilemma is not to cease living -- but to get rid of the entity which makes it impossible to live morally.
I don't necessarily advocate that anyone accept any particular "benefit" that the government offers. At one time, I also swore that I'd die rather than accept Medicare or Medicaid. I don't think there is anything WRONG about drawing that line and refusing to play their game on that field. On the other hand, when I realized that I was taking money from EXACTLY the same source when I went to the VA hospital to be treated as a veteran, I finally decided that I'd rather concentrate on smashing the state than concentrate on trying to figure out, and avoid, every possible trap that the state lays for people to turn them into accomplices. The former may be impossible -- the latter definitely is.
Thomas L. Knapp
on the smith2004-discuss list today
