Great Equalizer

There's nothing like a trip to the State Coercion Office...er, State Revenue Office...to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You receive your letter via the government mail system to drive down the government maintained roads to a government office to hand-over a portion of your earnings so that you can have the privilege of continuing to possess and operate your motor vehicle. Walk in, take a number, and try to get comfortable in a 39-year-old rickety metal chair. You are #70; they are currently stealing from...er, serving...#50. There are at least ten government employees walking around behind the counter, three of which are actually "helping" the people who are waiting. No one seems to be in a hurry, though 90% of the others waiting are probably screaming on the inside like you, wondering how the government can get away with running things in this manner.

Suddenly you realize, as you look around the room, that there are only two classes of people in this office: The State and its lowly servants. All of us servants are there in obedience to The State, and The State makes no distinctions among its servants and gives no care as to the opinion of its servants.

"You're rich? You're poor?...We don't care."
"You're black? You're white?...We don't care."
"You're on a lunch break from your job? You don't have a job?...We don't care."
"You think we work too slowly? You don't like being here?...We do not care."
"You're a mother with three children here? You're an eighty year old man in a wheel-chair?...We don't care."
"You take your number and sit there. We'll call you up when we're ready to take your money."

So you sit there and try not to grumble in your own mind, and you realize that there is no room for pride in this circumstance. You get called up; you hand-over your money; you get a nice little sticker to place on your government issued license plate. You drive away hoping for a miracle to occur in the next 364 days such that The State would actually humble itself before the God who grants it authority, so that next year humility and obedience will be a slightly easier task and maybe The State will have decided to be reasonable in the exercise of its limited dominion.