Government Family in anticlimatic

I’ve always had enormous contempt for government. Not for the taxes they steal, as I’m not particularly greedy and never spend much time on my own financial details, but just on the amount of hassle they introduce into my life. Filing taxes is obnoxiously confusing. Trips to the DMV are onerous in all regards. Building inspectors are largely buffoons no one would suffer voluntarily. Police, instead of protecting and serving me, seem to just deliberately hide on specific parts of road in which the rules beg to be stretched and broken, to entrap and extort me. The petty (and sometimes not so petty) tyranny is a running theme. Every year there’s some new stupid rule some public leech thinks up to justify his or her existence.

I was raised with ample freedom to explore and experiment. When I was 12 I had a bicycle and a paltry means of income (wishing wells/dumpster diving for bottle returns), and I found some truly remarkable things in the early 90s that I would have missed if I had to wait until I was older. It was a lifestyle that prioritized freedom for me ever after.

But I had a good family. They took care of me, took me to the doctor when I needed it, kept a roof over my head, and personally guaranteed my safety. I think it’s a privilege I can forget when I question why everyone doesn’t share my governmental contempt. For some people, the government is their family. It’s all that’s there for them, after human beings fell through and failed. Can’t blame them for sticking up for government, for that.