Now let me shift tone a bit.  Now I’m not talking to you, the reader.  I’m not talking to you – my equal, my fellow American, my friend and neighbor.  Let me speak plainly to power.  I have a question for you, the selfish, smug, and corrupt elite in power and all of the obscenely wealthy funders who support you.  Here it is: people often say “America, love it or leave it.”  The thing is, you have an important role here.  You have a job to do.  Maybe you didn’t even know this, but actually it is your job to make it possible for us to get to the “love it” part!  You have the power!  You run the country, remember?  How are we supposed to love it when you have built up a country that is run by a government that does not get anything done for us or reflect any of our values?  How could you have stripped away each of the ideals we hold dear not just as Americans, but as humans, and then ask us to feel like proud Americans?  How can you do this without even offering us the option of freedom?

This is my idea.  This is my request.  This is my plea.  This is a simple thing that you could do to restore America.  I’m not even asking you to give up your power!  I’m only asking for you to recognize my right to be a free human being.  If it isn’t too much trouble, you might get around to allowing me the dignity of becoming the rightful owner of my own self!  I’m tired of being forced to fight a losing battle in a rigged game.  I know that my side will not win.  You win!  You own the casino and the house always wins.  Now please, can we have at least the option of freedom?  Can we have the option of walking out the door of the casino when we’ve had enough?

Why in the hell are you encouraging people who believe in less government or no government to get involved with the mechanisms of government?  They want freedom!  They don’t want to become part of your corrupt game!  They want to free themselves from government.  Get it?  You are making a mockery of these people.  In your rhetoric, you are dangling a “government is the enemy” carrot out in front of them and laughing at them as they vote for your people and follow your government around the track.  But this is a race that you’ve already rigged on a racetrack that you own.  They want you out of their lives!  So take a hint!  Sometimes it seems like you are some kind of an abusive husband in a horrible marriage.  She doesn’t need you!  She wants you out of her life!  Give her some basic level of human dignity and let her be free if she so chooses.  It is the right thing to do.  That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s going to leave.  Don’t be so insecure!  Let her have the option so that, if she stays, you know you actually have her loyalty.

I’m asking only for the option to completely opt-out.  That means the option to have nothing to do with you.  That means the option to pay you no taxes and to submit to none of your laws other than those protecting others who continue as tax-payers.  In return, those who choose to live under the Total Freedom Act will not use any of your services.  They will not send their children to your schools.  They will not drive on your roads.  They will not take advantage of your courts.  They will not work for any organization receiving any money from the government.  They will certainly not ask for unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs.  They will not ask for Welfare.  They will not expect Medicare or Medicaid in their old age.  They will not call the police departments or fire departments during a time of trouble.  They will not use the post offices or any other service that is funded by the government. 

Should they be allowed to use the dollar as currency?  I guess this is a difficult question because the US government did create the dollar.  My opinion is that we should allow everyone to still transact business in dollars because, these days, management of the money supply is not really a function of the government anyway (you put this into the hands of the Federal Reserve a long time ago). 

People who do choose to live under the Total Freedom Act are fair-minded and will have no intention to take advantage.  They simply believe strongly in the power of the free market.  Let them live their dream by choosing a life where they are part of a completely free market that the government does not interfere with.  Do you not believe in freedom?  Do you not believe in the free market as most of you say you do?

If you do allow us this option then you will have to respect that, when individuals choose this option, you will have no right to touch them – these brave and idealistic people who opt-out from paying tax into a system they disagree with and morally oppose.  This is a simple exchange: you grant us the possibility of choosing the most real kind of freedom and human dignity.  Those who choose this option promise not to demand anything back from you.  We cut our ties.  Please know that we do understand, and we accept fully, that of course we have no right to demand anything back when we are not paying-in. 

There is still more I have to say to those of you in positions of power and influence, those of you who actually do have the power to grant us this request.  Why on Earth would you not give us this option?  Are you afraid that we would actually use it?  Are you so insecure that the life you offer us, the system you set up and force us to submit to, the entire way of life that you have created and fight so hard to maintain…are you really so insecure that we would choose not to take part in your system?  Then, I ask, what legitimacy do you have? 

To not allow us the option to opt-out as active citizens and tax-payers is to rule us illegitimately.  I thought this was supposed to be a government by consent.  Funny, I don’t remember formally agreeing, at any moment in my lifetime, that I do consent.  Do you not think we get adequate return on our tax investment?  Your failure to grant us this request can be taken only to mean that you doubt your own value and legitimacy!  Just as governments have done throughout the ages, you feel that you have to rule by force.  But, in truth, the starting point for democracy is that place where the people understand the value of government, choose to form one, and choose to take part in a system that is legitimate.  They do this not out of fear or obedience, but as free, rational people who clearly understand why they want government.  In doing so, they also have some idea what kind of government they would like to have.  Do you not see that Americans are losing this fundamental faith in, even desire for, government itself?  Do you not see how the Total Freedom Act can so quickly restore it?

If you haven’t noticed, the country is in a state of fundamental crisis.  I think it is time to go back to the basics.  Give us a choice.  Give us the option of freedom.  When people say “love it or leave it,” give us something to love or give us a real way to leave.  For some of us, that option might involve moving abroad to some other country.  In that case, I beg you, let us completely opt-out (which we currently can’t do) so that we no longer have to report our annual income to the US Government even though we are not living there and not using your services.  You require this for the purpose of making us pay double-taxation on anything over $80,000, but what right do you think you have to take anything from me when I earn my money outside of your borders and do not burden you in any way?  Let me be.  Let me be free.  Leave me alone!

Others, who do not want to seek a better life in some foreign country, should have the option to do just as I have explained: to opt-out as a taxpayer, to live within America’s borders but to be left alone.  In return, they will not vote, will not ask anything from you, and will leave you, the government, alone.  You may not understand what these people are asking for, but it isn’t your role to understand it or to decide whether or not this makes any sense for them.  Maybe these people simply believe in real freedom, in self-sufficiency, and in independence.  Maybe they believe in the free market.  Maybe they are crazy…who cares?  But why, when the crazy hippies went far off into the mountains on private land to live exactly as they wished and smoked whatever they wished in privacy, why did you send the police to harass them?  Why couldn’t you have left them alone?  What right did you have to tell them what they could or couldn’t do when they weren’t harming anybody?  And why, in Waco, Texas, when a few people wanted to practice their own religion freely and behind closed doors, why did you attack them with the full force of the military?  Stop the abuse!  Give us a way to be left alone if we want to be left alone!  And please, don’t take it personally.  These are our lives and we live just once.  You go on and live your dream and we’ll live ours.