Nobody but me holds legitimate claim to my life, liberty, property, or possessions. Not government leaders, not Gods, not my parents, not the clubs I subscribe to, not any political party or religious organization; nobody but me, myself, and I.
However, there are illegitimate claims resulting in de-facto slavery.
"That we were slaves I had known all my life — and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold — but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves." ~Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Chapter 2 page 31
"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. ... To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." ~Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - Idée Générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle [The General Idea of the Revolution] (1851); quoted in The Anarchists (1964) by James Joll, Ch. 3, p. 78
That doesn't mean that I have to accept things as they are.
"I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." ~Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - chapter and verse unknown
"I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government." ~Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
"Government by the people for the people"and lo and behold the State was born!
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."" ~Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
Sales taxes are unavoidable, but all other supports of the state, I have withdrawn. And all while playing the game as it were. I have broken no laws in so doing.
