Recently I received an automobile emissions notice in the mail. $14.00 to have some government employees plug data cables into my car’s engine to see if it is giving out any emissions failure codes. What a racket.
That notice was a reminder to write this editorial and call to action.
It is amazing how people accept things “just because”. Or in this case, at the threat of losing their drivers’ license, having their property stolen and having to pay even more money to the gang of thugs that call themselves the government. I am talking about car registration. More specifically, car registration renewal.
I understand the need to identify vehicles. License plates are a good thing. So I have no problem with car registration. However, there is zero reason that you should have to pay $100+ every two years so that the department of motor vehicles keeps your vehicle’s information in their database. What they are doing is the very definition of extortion.
According to Google, extortion is the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats. The threat is that if you do not pay the DMV a vehicle registration renewal fee (money) then they threaten and will take away your ability to efficiently travel as well as take your property (force) if it is on a public road. For the record, public roads are paid for through gas taxes that you already spend money on…not registration renewal fees. Who knows what that $100+ renewal fee pays for!
So my question is, “Why have we allowed this extortion and grand theft auto to occur for such a long time?” The answer is simple: fear. We are scared. They have the guns. They have the resources. It is SICKENING and I for one am tired of it. That is why I will soon be waging a political war with my state’s DMV and I am calling on all PRL readers to do the same.
What is the agenda? To do the same thing they do to us. Let’s turn the tables on these scumbags.
First I will call the police so that it is on record that I tried to go through the “proper channels” to eradicate these criminals. The call will go something like this:
Non-emergency operator/dispatch: “Hello, how may I help you?”
Me: “I would like to report crimes.”
O: “Go ahead.”
Me: “There are people going around demanding money. If you don’t pay them they are threatening to take people’s vehicles. And they have taken people’s vehicles and held them for ransom.”
O: “Wow, that’s terrible. Do you have any other information?”
Me: “Yes. They call themselves the Motor Vehicle Administration and they’ve been doing this for decades. I would like to have them arrested.”
O: “Sir, don’t waste our time.”
Me: “I’m not wasting your time. Why is it a crime for a street gang to demand money from people at the threat of stolen property but as soon as I told you it’s a government organization magically the same actions aren’t criminal?”
When that no doubt fails (the dispatcher will probably laugh at me and hang up the line) I then plan on sending the DMV employees, including the head of the DMV, an invoice.
After they ignore the invoice I will send them a late notice reminder/fee invoice. When they ignore that I will show up and attempt to tow their driver’s testing vehicles that are easily identifiable. I would attempt to tow the employees’ vehicles but because I am not privy to DMV records, I wouldn’t know which vehicle belongs to employees and which do not. Like typical criminals, the DMV try their best to operate in the shadows under the cloak of anonymity. They know who YOU are and where YOU live but you don’t know their personal details.
As I am hitching their vehicles to my “tow truck” (a Power Wheels children’s vehicle) no doubt THEY will call the police on me and the police will actually do something, like put me in handcuffs and throw me in a cage. From then on the plan is to show the double standard hypocrisy and hopefully get this extortion/grand theft auto to end. Civil disobedience at its finest.
I’d love to do it with the help of an armed militia, like the founding fathers would have done, but people are too scared. People may think I’m crazy…all the while they reluctantly pay their registration renewals every year out of fear. And thus the cycle will continue, unless someone like you or me breaks that son of a bitch in half and helps put an end to the thievery.
This piece originally appeared on punkrocklibertarians.com.
