Red Flag Warning: The Role of Government - Intrusion into Everyday Life

Our founding fathers way back there at the end of the 1700s could not have possibly ever envisioned what their government has turned into. It seems as if at every turn today's patriots are shackled to more and more taxes that our founders would find appalling. My God, those guys went to war over a stupid stamp tax required to be paid for every legal document created, and required by the crown itself! Today citizens are taxed by government at every level and for nearly everything the government can think of to tax. What it can't tax, the government then creates fees. At most levels of government, fees have become the de-facto tax, and requires only a bureaucrat to create the fee. Like sheep we meekly bleep and write checks to the tax collector.

My mother passed away recently, which is part of the reason for this rant. I discovered I needed a government death certificate to tell me she was dead. I couldn't get the doctor and maybe two other witnesses to certify her death on a common piece of white copy paper, print it out on my laser printer and have it notarized? No. I had to pay $17 for the first certificate and $10 for each copy there after. Big deal you might say. But it is a big deal when the information of her death is provided by the doctor and myself with her birth certificate. The government knows squat about my Mother. They are certifying her death on my and the doctor's word! The government wanted to know too other information such as where she was born, by whom, and who her father was. Again, information I provided. I suppose they could cross check this information, but somehow I seriously doubt they have the staff or the ability to do so. So again, why did I have to write out a $207 check to the government, who knows only what we've reported. They made a dang good profit too: about $205.50 by my figuring.

And what business is it of the governments? Ah...by requiring a government death certificate they can enter the information into the IRS database and come looking for me to pay all the multiple double taxes on the assets of her estate. The tax man cometh again! Before the modern so called "progressive" income tax system, families could leave something of their hard work behind for their kids. Today, despite paying tax once on the dollar bill laying in my mother's IRA, she via her estate will pay the tax man again. Then when what is left comes to my family, we will pay once again an income tax on that same dollar that was previously taxed as 'income' to us! When it is all said and done, the government will get most of the estate and very little will go to simulate the economy.

So our government, at all levels, is sucking the people dry every bit as much as the ancient king of England. It intrudes ever more oppressively and insidiously into the daily life of us lowly peasants. Fear of crossing the government has risen to near panic state in many citizens and that, my friends, is no way to live in liberty.