Doing what the government tells you not to do can be exhilarating. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:
(This post was written by my friend, Sandy Sandfort. It’s an important glimpse into an historical event.)
Inertia is a human frailty. Too often, we go along to get along. We conform. Because of this, those who claim authority can get most of us to do their bidding if it comes with a plausible justification and is only incremental. We get nickel-and-dimed to death, the death of a thousand cuts.
Back on April 5, 1933, His Majesty, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), had a pen and a telephone. So he issued Executive Order 6102, which made it a federal crime for Americans to own or trade gold anywhere in the world. There were some minor exceptions for some jewelry, industrial uses, collectors’ coins, and dental gold, but the vast majority of the gold had to be turned in.
My father instantly understood what was going on and he didn’t like it. “They’re going to devalue the dollar!” he predicted.
Roosevelt didn’t give much time to comply either. The deadline was May 1. And if Americans did not comply, they faced criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. Scofflaws were looking at a fine of up to $10,000 (1933 dollars, about a third of a million dollars today) and up to ten years in prison.
My parents made the conscious decision to become outlaws.
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your f**kin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.
George Carlin
Breaking From The Strikers:
Inch By Inch (Garage Funk Version)
I was once detained at the border for a “custom’s officer training day” search and was informed that my organic blueberries were’nt allowed across the border. However, the custom’s officer simply handed them back to me saying to eat them as I drove on.