… the occasional advice column that’s taking the world by storm, one sovereign individual at a time.

This week’s question comes from a troubled teen, who wrote to us on the recommendation of long-time reader Chris Acheson. She wrote because she needs help with a question is about relationships and boundaries. How do you know when a concerned friend really has your best interests at heart—and how do you know when that concern crosses a line and endangers the friendship?

Dear Dr. Anarchy,

I have a friend who says he’s really worried about some of the bad decisions I’ve made in the last few years. He thinks that I’m acting out. I know I haven’t always made the smartest decisions, but now he’s following me around all the time to try and make sure I’m not getting into trouble! He even says he wants me wear a shackle around my ankle with a G.P.S. unit, so that he’ll always know where I am! I told him that sounded too much like Big Brother for me! But he says: You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.. I know he’s just trying to look out for me, but this makes me really nervous! Is he right? What should I say?

Sincerely,
Truant in Texas

Dear Truant,

If this guy were really your buddy, then he would respect your boundaries, and he would try to support you instead of trying to make you do what he thinks you should do. I know that he tries to cover up his controlling behavior by using euphemisms and acting superficially friendly. And I know that you want to believe that after all these years, he really does want what’s best for you. But you need to take an honest look at this relationship. The truth is that your buddy is acting like a control freak, even a stalker, and you deserve much better than buddies like that. You need to break off this relationship as soon as you possibly can.

Yours,
Dr. Anarchy.

That’s all for today. Just remember, folks: people are more important than power. And everything is easier when you reject the State as such.

Next week: Dr. Anarchy answers your romance and marriage questions!

See also:

• GT 2008-03-01: Perpetual state of supervision

… the occasional advice column that’s taking the world by storm, one sovereign individual at a time.

This week’s letter comes to us from a reader in the United Kingdom. The question has to do with a fundamental issue of trust. How can you rebuild your belief in someone when he’s let you down, over and over again?

Dear Dr. Anarchy,

The theft of a laptop from a Royal Navy officer which held the personal details of 600,000 people is being investigated by the police.

The laptop was taken from a vehicle which had been parked in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham.

It contains data including passport numbers, National Insurance numbers and bank details connected to people who had expressed an interest in, or joined, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the RAF.

Meanwhile, hundreds of documents containing sensitive personal data including benefit claims and mortgage payments have been found dumped on a roundabout in Devon.

How can we safeguard our data?

—Baffled at the BBC

Dear Baffled,

Stop collecting it. You don’t have secure data that you don’t collect.

I know that you want to believe that if you just had the right people, if you just had the right policies, maybe you could go on turning over all this data to the government and distributing it to all these different agencies and have it somehow remain secure from malice, malfunction, or human error. But you need to look at this relationship honestly and realistically. You may be fooling yourself. The government will go on doing what they have been doing, with all their usual vices and limitations. If the only way to get what you need out of this relationship is to change your partner into something that he’s not, then you need to seriously consider whether it’s time to just dump him and move on.

Yours,
Dr. Anarchy

That’s all for today. Just remember, folks: people are more important than power. And everything is easier when you reject the State as such.

Next week: Dr. Anarchy answers your health and safety questions!

(Story via Phil Wilson 2008-01-20.)

Femapsychosis, n. - a personality disorder characterized by grandiosity, narcissism, and an acute break from reality in the face of natural disasters. A femapsychotic often believes that he or she is the only one who is capable of saving thousands or even millions of people, and cannot conceive that anyone would not want or would not need his or her help. They create and fixate on plans, believing that the only way to help any individual person in a disaster area is to create and enforce a one-size-fits-all plan to cover every person affected. This fixation can become violent, sometimes leading to roadblocks and preemptive attacks on anyone who intends to offer help to individual victims of the disaster outside the scope of the plan.

For a case study, see the remarks by Ron, John, Jammer, and Dan T., in a Hit and Run thread on Kansas Mutual Aid and the Greensburg relief efforts, for example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

… the occasional advice column that’s taking the world by storm, one sovereign individual at a time.

Our first letter comes to us from a reader in the United States.

Dear Dr. Anarchy,

How should I reform immigration?

—Perplexed at Positive Liberty

Perplexed,

Stop shooting immigrants.

The rest is all details.

Yours,
Dr. Anarchy.

Our next letter asks what to do when you’re faced with a partner who’s out of control. How can you change his behavior? How can you get him to ease up on you? How can you convince him to let you live your own life?

Dear Dr. Anarchy,

How do we actually reduce the size of government?

—Flummoxed at Freedom Democrats

Flummoxed,

Secede. I did, and now the size of my government is one (1) person.

Politicians are never going to change. They are never going to stop acting irresponsibly. That is their job. You need to face the facts: it’s time to dump them.

Yours,
Dr. Anarchy

Dear Dr. Anarchy,

What would you do if you had absolute power? If you were God?

—James Pinkerton

Dear James,

I’d resign.

Yours,
Dr. Anarchy.

That’s all for today. Just remember, folks: people are more important than power. And everything is simpler when you reject the State as such.

Next week: Dr. Anarchy answers your retirement planning questions!

Past columns

• GT 2005-02-25: Dr. Anarchy answers your questions: The Great Divorce edition
• GT 2004-12-11: Dr. Anarchy answers your mail

A week ago over at the Mises Institute, Lee Wishing ran into a touchy ethical dilemma: it turns out that this year he will be netting $646, transferred from other people’s pockets to his, courtesy of the behind-the-scenes number juggling of TurboTax and the IRS’s refundable child tax credit for his family’s four children:

Line 43 of our 1040 shows that the tax on our income is $3,354. Line 51 notes that the child credit is $3,354 making the total credits, line 55, offset our tax liability.

But my zero tax liability isn’t the point of this story. I really have a negative tax liability. The federal government will not only return the money I had withheld during the year, they’ll be kicking in another $646, which is the difference between the total of the child tax credits on line 55, $4,000, and my tax liability of $3,354 on line 43.

Believe it or not, the federal government is going to give me $646 of your money. The formula on Form 8812—the Additional Child Tax Credit form—that determines I get an extra pile of dough is complex. I checked the calculation and it was correct. I called a tax accountant and he said it was correct.

But is it right?

My six-year-old daughter, Mary, asked me what I was writing about.

I explained the concept: I just filled out our tax forms and I learned that the federal government will be giving us money that doesn’t belong to us. They will be taking it from other people and giving it to us.

That’s not right! said my first-grader.

Eight-year-old daughter Sarah was listening. I don’t like that. I mean, I don’t like that the government is going to take money from other people and give it to us, she said sadly.

Gosh, that’s clear thinking. But the tax system blurs clear thinking.

—Lee Wishing, Mises Institute (2005-04-05): 1040 Plunder

Blurs it enough, I guess, that Lee doesn’t come to any resolution by the end of the article, even with young Mary and Sarah’s prodding. However, I wrote my friend Dr. Anarchy for advice, and she pointed out that there is a simple solution to Lee’s problem. Lee’s worried because the federal government took money from other people against their will, and now they’re giving some of it to him. What to about the double burden of a guilty conscience and $646.00 he doesn’t deserve?

Simple. I’ll take it.

I am one of those unfortunate taxpayers out of whose pockets Lee’s $646 was taken. He can solve his problem by sending $646.00 to me, Charles Johnson. I’d be glad to send copies of the 1040s to prove my net liability to the Feds over the past few years: this year I’ll be coughing up $156 in taxes and fees. Last year I paid about $350 all told. My forms for 2002 are back in Auburn, but I am sure that I rendered at least $140 of tribute to the federal government. So by sending me, Charles Johnson, $646, Lee can not only solve his ethical dilemma and save face in front of his young daughters, and help out someone who (as you might guess from the low bills) would be glad to get the money back, he can also make his own contribution to rectifying the injustices of Leviathan.

You might say that any other taxpayer has just as good a claim to Lee’s $646 as I do. True, but Lee can’t afford to pay them all, and $646 is all the restitution he’s on the hook for—the rest of his tax refund is just getting his own money back. Why not try to distribute it evenly between all the net tax recipients? There’s hundreds of millions of them; trying to split $646 between all of them would mean that, effectively, no-one gets any of their expropriated money back on the margin. But by giving it all to me, Charles Johnson, Lee can ensure that two people are restored to a state of libertarian justice: he won’t have his expropriated gains anymore, and by giving the block of money to me I’ll be set back to where I was before I paid out taxes for the past 3 years. What’s so special about me specifically? Well, I could use the money, and it was my idea. The rest of you can find some other net tax recipient with a guilty conscience and homestead a claim to your money from their surplus.

What an opportunity for Lee: he’s just $646 away from libertarian justice. I’m glad to help him out. It won’t take any ballot boxes and it won’t take any political parties; all he needs to do is join a nonviolent direct action against State expropriation. I gladly accept credit cards, cash, or electronic funds transfers.

Happy Tax Day.