I love paying taxes. I love forking out cash to the government. I get a deep sense of satisfaction doing so.

When I send my tax check away, I am joining with my fellow citizens to pool our resources to help ensure the security of our borders and the administration of justice.

I also love paying taxes because I am helping to fund government agencies that keep tabs on people and regulate their behaviour.

I love paying taxes because quite a bit of the cash goes towards the suppression of the sale and consumption of weed, cocaine, heroin and methyhydratoximethylatedbromide.

I also love the fact that my tax money is used to think up ways of governing what we eat and what we smoke and how much sun we are exposed to. I am also starting a letter writing campaign to encourage the federal government to begin a program that controls sexual behaviour among consenting adults.

I, Bleeding Brain, with a long tradition of libertarianism and small-governmentalism, have found that I must change horses in mid-stream and begin the advocacy of total government control over our lives.

As you can tell, I have gone quite mad.

You are asking why?

I will tell you in one word.

Pillage.

What do I mean by pillage you ask?

I mean pillage and loot as in I am being pillaged and looted.

Every day, more and more people are discovering how to take funds out of the public treasury or are discovering how to use the apparatus of the government to take money from other people.

Some people have discovered that if they claim that they are sick, old, a minority of some sort or just historically disadvantaged, the government (and by extension, I) can be compelled to fund their treatment , aid or compensation.

I am a generous man. If I had dead presidents lining my bed, I would gleefully fling handfuls of green at whoever looked like they wanted it more than I did but because I am slightly unable to do this, I compulsively seek to ensure that my scarce dead presidents are ladled out modestly among those who need it.

What brought this mental burp to the foreground of my bleeding brain was the prescription drug bill that is winding it's way through the halls of the legislative branch of the United States.

Several tonnes of cash a day will be given to seniors to keep them in the drugs that ease their varied ailments.

I am not against helping granny get some relief from her hacking cough. The miracle drugs that ease that constant tickle at the back of her throat are expensive and because they will be out of her price range, I will have to send some tax cash to help her out. Bless her long-lived soul.

Here, however, lies the problem.

Granny, in the sixties, discarded the social taboo that frowned on female smokers. Nobody was going to tell her that she couldn't smoke. She was Ms. Independento. This was all wonderful except for one thing: At age 80, with a nasty smoker's cough, she ain't no Ms. Independento any more.

She needs me, Mr. Slavo Cubicularis, (e.g Dilbert) to help pay for her drug requirements. If I am to be compelled to pay for Granny Dependento's drugs, could I not pipe up and say "no smoking" for women since I am the paying the tab later. I don't mind men smoking because they die off rapidly and save me a pile of cash by doing so. Women, on the other hand, can live forever even with a hacking cough.

Here is another example. A man, reaching adulthood during the sixties, laughs at his bespectacled parents as he abandons home for the wildly exiting Woodstock adventure.

The young man, embroiled in jungle fever and other forms of self-expression, finds himself bequeathed with herpes and several strains of syphilis..

Our young man is now old. He still needs to keep his recurring herpes under control or else his skin breaks out into saggy oozing sores but wait....now that he is older, I get the privilege of paying for his prescription drugs along with the poor granny sucker he gave his genital infections to at the prom.

If I am going to be paying for all this fun down the road, can I not pipe up and say, "Stop, in the name of love" before they break my wallet?
Should I not walk into the next Woodstock music festival and pry apart the gyrating bodies with a crowbar to save myself some dead presidents down the road?

I love freedom but freedom is a two way street. I have to use my freedom in a way that does not cause you a loss of freedom down the road. If I am working late into the night and miss my days off so that I can make enough money to look after my family as well as pay the heavy taxes it's going to take to look after the fruits of freedom (abandoned children, prescription drugs, abortion), I have become a slave to the groups who demand to be cared for by the state.

With all these pressures coming on my tax dollars, I would not mind some of them going towards the programs that might curtail some of the impending costs of freedom.

No smoking, drugs, sunbathing or sex allowed without my express written permission.