A Bargain

Some thoughts on what a lifetime of paying taxes has purchased from staghound

You know what it bought?

Not once did I hear the march of an occupying army.

Never was I (when at home) more than an hour away from fire fighters or police officers who would protect me, even at the risk of their own lives.

And ambulance drivers and doctors who would have treated me, without first questioning whether I could pay.

I never saw servants of my government turn me out of my house or take my property without lots of chances to legally protect my rights.

Blue lights in the mirror never meant extortion or a beating.

If my government turns tyrannical, I can use the same tools for defense against it that I can use to defend myself from private predators.

I work in government, and have never been asked to do something wrong.

Power companies trust enough in the courts and laws that they will give me electricity on demand and on credit.

I can go to a library and get any book ever written for the price of a sandwich, if I can't get it on the government internet in my own house.

If I can't work, I might live rough, but I will never starve to death.

I've never faced conscription. No warlords. No ethnic cleansing. No streams of refugees. No vanished friends.

No midnight knocks on the door for opinions or religion or race, not for me or anyone I knew.

No running and hiding when governments change.

For most of my life, and maybe still, nuclear weapons were pointed AT MY HOUSE and they never went off.

I spent my taxes on exemption from the ordinary, natural state of mankind.

Deal.

Those who say we in the Tea Party don’t like government don’t understand the roll of Good Government.