I have discovered my true political identity

[LMNO]

The government does not exist, unless it benefits me.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Spoken like a man who never wants to be allowed on an airplane again. May as well go ahead and grow that beard now, eh.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The government does not exist, unless it benefits me.

This is probably correct.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Id like to agree with this except that the federal government ultimately pays me through grants which not only not benefit me (except for insurance) but actively work against me ( i am budgeted for 20 hrs/wk) and of course i have family in europe so xray my junk whenever i see them. I wont complain. Last time i went was for a funeral so by necessity it set a precedent that i just needed to get through as quickly as possible without protest.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Funny enough i was profiled once by one persona and laughed off without a search by another. This was when i had long hair and a big ass beard. American citizen got me the laugh through with a hearty welcome home (i was coming from iceland)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Id like to agree with this except that the federal government ultimately pays me through grants which not only not benefit me (except for insurance) but actively work against me ( i am budgeted for 20 hrs/wk) and of course i have family in europe so xray my junk whenever i see them. I wont complain. Last time i went was for a funeral so by necessity it set a precedent that i just needed to get through as quickly as possible without protest.

That pretty much exemplifies recognizing a government which benefits you.

The opposite of which is the way I spent most of my adult life, which is paying a lot of money into a government which, essentially, gave me nothing back which I could not have afforded for myself. However, I was not reluctant to pay that, because (at the time) there was a reasonable expectation that the monies I paid in were educating and maintaining the people in a society I expect my children and myself to participate in. It turns out that that expectation was a giant lie.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The thing that pisses me off a LOT is that there were years when my taxes were far more than I make now in a year. And I was all, yeah, lalalalala, I am a small business, my contribution is a good thing! I am helping other small businesses, and schools, and people who are struggling!

But no. It turns out that my hundreds of thousands (some of which holy fuck I could use now) of tax dollars paid for military actions, and corporate bailouts which my business would have been too small to qualify for.

This country HATES small business, BTW. As much as it pretends it promotes it.

[Cain]

Matt Taibbi made that point a while back.  In fact, he thought it explained much about the Tea Party - that they mistakenly thought small businesses were the way all businesses were treated.

Also, I think pretty much everything tries to ignore government unless it benefits them.  See: small government conservatives who nonetheless use government to pass legislation about who you can form contractural relationships with.

[LMNO]

I call it: Objectivist Anarchism.

[East Coast Hustle]

I call it: Objectivist Anarchism.

[Doktor Howl]

The government does not exist, unless it benefits me.

Neither does that locomotive coming down the track, unless it's here to give you loads of unicorn snot in an ice cream cone.

The government may not be able to interfere in the free market, it may very well be a social fiction...But it can still do the two step on your gonads.

Just saying.

[Doktor Howl]

The thing that pisses me off a LOT is that there were years when my taxes were far more than I make now in a year. And I was all, yeah, lalalalala, I am a small business, my contribution is a good thing! I am helping other small businesses, and schools, and people who are struggling!

But no. It turns out that my hundreds of thousands (some of which holy fuck I could use now) of tax dollars paid for military actions, and corporate bailouts which my business would have been too small to qualify for.

This country HATES small business, BTW. As much as it pretends it promotes it.

This is why I make a distinction between capitalism and free enterprise.

[LMNO]

I admit that was a troll post, by the way.  I wanted to see how it flew before I started making demotivation memes and posting them on Libertarian's facebooks.