Why I Refuse to be Numbered
by Anonymous
Number 116 - 1st Quarter 2003
Counting by governments has been going on for many centuries. However, it
is only in recent decades that individuals in the United States have been faced
with being given a government number. One historian of the public health movement
observed that it was not until the federal government began disbursing Social
Security checks that there was any financial incentive to have a state-issued
birth certificate and federally-issued number. (1) Under the Social Security
Administration rules it became important to be able to prove when you were legally
entitled to receive benefits. It was not until the early 1960s that federal tax
returns were required to carry an identification number. The point is that as
citizen-numbering has evolved, the government has used the carrot and stick approach:
get a number — receive government largess; refuse a number — be penalized
and be ineligible to receive government benefits; refuse a number — be
excluded from many activities which may only be described as government-granted
privileges (issuance of a driver's license, access to licensed-physician medical
care, access to state and federally-chartered bank services, etc.). To the normal,
obedient citizen receiving a number is as innocuous and innocent as being inoculated
against certain diseases at birth. It also automatically puts each and every
productive citizen into the position of being tracked and spied upon as the government
makes sure that the citizen pays his or her taxes.
I refuse to be numbered because I want no part of paying taxes or receiving
any of the benefits that government bestows. I want to be responsible for myself
and my family. America was built on that attitude and will survive only as long
as that attitude persists. It is impossible in the nature of things, as described
by the law of the conservation of energy, for more energy to come out of a social
system than goes in. Someone has to produce goods and services, in order for
there to be goods and services to be distributed. History is replete with examples
of economic systems dying when there is no longer enough incentive for the producers
to produce any more than they need for their bare survival. Although government
bureaucrats may assume that goods and services automatically replicate themselves,
like fruit on a tree, I assure them that the tree will eventually wither and
die if it is mistreated or abused. The high standard of living which Americans
enjoy will disappear if the economic inputs of the producers are not encouraged.
Although we have been taught that the whole purpose of government is to protect
us from criminals and foreign invaders, in reality the purpose of government
is to conquer and control us. There are benefits to be found in wide-spread social
cooperation and the social division of labor, but benefits can only arise if
trade and exchange are voluntary. By the very nature of things, if someone must
be forced to trade or exchange with me (or I with them) it must be obvious that
they (or I) do not see enough advantage to the trade to willingly engage in it.
This analysis applies as much to groups that provide security from criminals
and foreign invaders as it does to buying food at the store or buying shoes for
your children. Government is the only organization in our society that regularly
and legitimately obtains its money from compulsory levies — what it euphemistically
describes as taxes. What happens to those who refuse to pay their taxes? Their
bodies are put in prison or their property is seized by the government, or both.
As much as the government tries to disguise it, taxation is robbery and violates
the common sensical and moral dictum against stealing. (If everyone stole, eventually
there would be nothing left to steal.)
The underlying premise of government taxation is the idea that you and your
property belong to the State. You are its slave. Whatever the government allows
you to keep is simply a result of its generosity. What you produce is not yours
by right, but by sufferance of the government. I do not want to be a slave; nor
do I want to participate in a social system which enslaves others. I do not want
to give my sanction to government. I do not want to support any coercive institution.
I do not want to steal or be stolen from. I do not want to put others in jail
for refusing to trade with me; nor do I want others to put me in jail for refusing
to trade with them. Stealing (taxes) and coercion are not activities that lead
to social harmony or prosperity. They are not activities that can be universalized.
My objection to government (however good it may appear, or however many benefits
it may distribute — which illusion can only be maintained by refusing to
consider how much property it has first stolen, for government has nothing of
its own) is to its coercive nature. I object to the compulsory manner in which
government operates — regardless of how beneficial it appears — regardless
of how necessary it considers itself — regardless of how many people embrace
it. If government is so good, let it prove itself on the free and open market;
let it depart from the coercive arena in which it now operates.
It might be argued that I consent to be numbered in many voluntary transactions.
Every receipt I receive from Wal-Mart has a transaction number; every insurance
policy has a contract number. While that is true, it ignores the main point of
my objection to government numbering. I am not Wal-Mart's slave; I am not Hartford
Insurance's slave. I may or may not choose to trade with them. I may or may not
use a number to identify myself to them; but I do not have that option when it
comes to dealing with the government. Slavemasters desire to control everything
they can and numbering systems which allow no activity to be untaxed, unrecorded,
or unnoticed are important to their success in controlling their slaves and expropriating
their property.
It should be more than obvious now: I refuse to be numbered because I refuse
to accept the badge of slavery. To be a number is to be a slave. I refuse to
be a slave.
Footnote:
1) "The national Social Security Act proved to be a great stimulus to accurate
birth certification. Many people never considered a birth certificate to be of
any importance until old age assistance, unemployment insurance, and other ramifications
of the Social Security Act demonstrated to them that it was necessary to have
this official proof of their existence." Wilson G. Smillie, Public Health
Administration in The United States (3rd ed.), 1947, p. 191.
[Editor's Note: This article was submitted for my forthcoming anthology Trademark
of Totalitarianism : Opposing Government Enumeration.]
