Since we’re being forced to not drive, surely we’re entitled to a discount on the car insurance we’re forced to buy?

In fact, why should our “obligation” – as it’s euphemized – to send the mafia (which is what insurance-at-gunpoint is) a cent hold any water at all, given the government is forcing us not to work?

I’ve decided not to – and we’ll see what happens.

The mafia wants another couple hundred bucks from me to “renew” the “coverage” on a truck I am now told – ordered – by the government to only drive to and from the grocery store and for other “essential” reasons.

The mileage I’m driving is thus much less than it was pre-Corona and so, presumably, is my “risk” of incurring a loss. Especially in view of the fact that everyone else is driving less – or not at all – having also been so ordered.

Well, except for government workers – who have not been ordered to stop working because of, course, government workers are “essential.” To themselves.

At any rate, the amount I am ordered to pay – or else – to be “covered” is based on Pre-Corona Life, when there were no restrictions on when and where I’m allowed to drive. It seems – it is – unreasonable for that “coverage” to be priced Pre-Corona.

And it seems inevitable that we’ll soon be ordered not to drive at all – or else.

Well, why should we pay for what we’re no longer allowed to do?

Using money we’re longer permitted to earn?

I’ve decided not to. For as long as the “lockdown” lasts, so is my checkbook. I took a pen and wrote on the envelope that arrived the other day from the mafia – which I didn’t even bother to open: Government says I can’t work. I say I can’t pay. Corona! (Sacrifices must be made).

It’s snarky – but serious.

Unless you’re a government worker, you’re probably not working – or working less. And being paid less, if at all. This is not because you’ve gone lazy. Most of us want to pay our way. But what do we do when the government makes this – literally – a criminal act? Threatens us with jail if we dare to try?

People are already being Hut! Hut! Hutted! for not “sheltering in place” – and for keeping the doors of their business open.

For trying to transact business with people who want to do business with them, Corona or no Corona. Free association has been killed by Corona – and that’s a death all of us ought to be mourning.

My business is writing – and speaking. I was scheduled to speak in New York City this month – a paid gig that would have paid for the insurance the government insists I buy in order to be permitted to drive. Plus left me some to pay for things like food.

Now I have the choice to buy food – or pay the insurance mafia. Guess what I chose to do?

I think I have a right to do so – and that you do, too.

I expect millions of other Americans will soon be making the same choice – out of necessity as much as outrage. Unlike “essential” government workers – who get to define their own essentialness and have the legal power to force us to pay their bills – our ability to pay is limited by our ability to work. That has been taken away from us and therefore, our obligation to pay for mandatory-sez-them anything is null and void as a moral matter, if there ever was morality in forcing people to pay for anything other than the harms they’ve actually caused.

As opposed to the ones they might.

There is a queasy irony here, too. The government is imposing very actual harm. Catastrophic harm. Possibly more harm than anything any American currently living has ever personally seen.

It’s time to hold the government – i.e., those “we’re-in-charge” control freaks with titles and badges who regard themselves as our owners – responsible for this. One way we can do so is by refusing to hand over whatever money we still have, which we have a moral right to use for our needs.

It being our money, after all – unlike the money “the government” has, which it only has by taking from others.

The mafia – which operates on the same principle – can do without.

It most definitely will with regard to my money. Perhaps you will agree and decide not to send the mafia your money, either. At least not until we’re allowed to earn it again. And to drive again.

This isn’t just about saving money, either. It is about salvaging our freedom.

If millions of us refuse to pay because we’re not allowed to earn it might provide an incentive to lift the “lockdown.” As things stand, the government has every incentive not to lift the lockdown – as the lockdown serves to increase its power in exponential proportion to our diminishment. But the government and its rent-seeking “partners” (aka the insurance mafia) need our money . . . in the same way that a tick needs blood.

What have we got to lose, anyhow?

They’ll fine us?

They have practically made us prisoners in our own homes already and – if this continues much longer – we will be destitute (and hungry) prisoners no longer in our homes – having been evicted from them for nonpayment.

The words of Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface come to mind. I won’t write them because we all know what he said.

It felt good dropping that unopened envelope back in the mail, return to sender.

. . .