Civil Disobedience

Bailout BS is right.

Thoreau wrote:

All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.

Washington is saying to itself, "Kick this GM CEO out because he hasn't turned his sorry corporation around." In an economy like this, who has?! One of the pundits this morning called him the sacrificial lamb; that's exactly what he is, and I'm sure he knows it.

Imagine if we could use this method on the politicians in office. "You haven't turned this sorry problem around, so you're out -- starting MONDAY."

The foreclosure rate has spiked yet again, layoffs are continuing unabated, and even a cursory glance of the classifieds or the online job listings reveals in seconds that practically nobody is actually hiring. Public anger is profound and seemingly intractable.

In Civil Disobedience, the author also wisely noted the following:

I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year -- no more -- in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it.

Imagine the joy of being able to live out a year of one's life and having to interact with the State only once -- at tax time! Of course, things have sure changed since Thoreau's era. Our days are chock-a-block with dull, frustrating, unjust interaction with the long tentacles of the government. Just now, we're losing our jobs in droves, losing our homes, losing the money we've been saving for retirement. And what are they using our taxes for? A growing number of private-sector companies to stay in business -- regardless of whether we have any direct business with those companies or not. I don't want an American car. I haven't driven an American car since the first car I ever drove (a Buick Skylark). I just don't want a car from GM, or Ford, or Chrysler. It's my choice because it's my money. And I don't want to be forced to prop up, with my money, another company. That goes for all the government subsidies and corporate welfare plans of the past fifty years or more, too.

I'm just about inclined to do what I think Thoreau recommended: Stop paying taxes. As he discovered, the friction has overtaken the machine, and the mechanism is utterly out of control.