Just a bitter note to celebrate yesterday, tax day. I was discussing it last night with a good friend who had to send in money. I got money back, on net, but that's not the point. Getting back a few hundred is still a small fraction of what I paid. And what I paid is going almost completely to buy things I don't want, things that are actively bad for the world. Welfare, warfare, and pseudo-savings, all of which crowd out productive activities, disturb peaceful people, and/or give people incentives to act antisocially. This is wrong.

And please, don't give me that social contract crap, or any of that "we" did it so it's right. You may feel your own taxes are in some sense voluntary. I don't.