My taxes were filed so long ago that I’ve already received and spent my “refund.”  I am in the process of gaming the system for another $1,000 or so from a credit that I didn’t claim last year, so I need to get that 1040X filed eventually.  Anyways, in honor of today’s unifying experience, here’s a quote from Etienne de la Boetie’s Politics of Obedience:

Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, “Long live the King!” The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them. A man might one day be presented with a sesterce and gorge himself at the public feast, lauding Tiberius and Nero for handsome liberality, who on the morrow, would be forced to abandon his property to their avarice, his children to their lust, his very blood to the cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering any more resistance than a stone or a tree stump.

Compare the quote, especially the boldfaced portion, to how most people feel about their tax refunds – they feel like they’re getting something from the Government, all the while forgetting that it was theirs to begin with. The rest of the caption, of course, still applies to parades, celebrations, and general governmental pomp & circumstance.

If you haven’t read it Boetie before, there’s a cached version online, or you can order it at Amazon.