I’ve received an overwhelming amount of responses to my article last week: “I’m tired."

I seem to have struck a nerve.

A lot of different reactions, responses and suggestions: some friendly souls have offered me asylum abroad if the need ever arises. Others have offered to house me domestically, help me financially and join the fight. One even offered to lead the legions on the northeastern front! You guys are great.

But it’s not about me, it’s about our country; it’s about my children’s future, so I won’t leave the country. Right here is where we need to be in order to fight the government.

I remember when I was growing up in the 70’s. My father was a retired enlisted man from the Air Force with a $600 a month pension. He went to work at age 40 as a maintenance man at the post office for about $15,000/yr. All together his income wasn’t more than $22,000/yr. My father bought our house for $18,000 on a 15-year bank note. It was on a quarter-acre lot and had: 3 bedrooms, a living room, a Florida room (this was in Clearwater, Fl), a den, a full kitchen and dining room, a large back patio and a garage. We took a family vacation every summer. And I mean cool vacations: visiting relatives up north, Disney, Sea World, Cape Kennedy, even Las Vegas one summer! We had 2 cars: my mom drove a Ford Granada and my father a Ford Pinto. My father played golf every weekend. He always had a boat; he loved to fish.

My parents drank beer, whiskey and my mother smoked (all very expensive vices). We kids were in Boy Scouts, little league, and other social activities. We got new bikes for Christmas twice and one Christmas even got a T.V. We had great health insurance (which I put to the test on many occasion with broken bones). My parents had only gas credit cards. My father had no 401(k), no stocks or bonds or any of that crap. My father even managed to work 6 days a week and paid for my sister’s college costs out of his own pocket! Can you believe that? My mother was a homemaker and yet they retired in 1985 at the age of 55!

Where has that life gone? A man w/o a college education was the sole provider for a family of 4 like that; unbelievable.

Now as the sole provider for my family of 4, with more college education than any one man needs and thousands of dollars in debt for that education, I can’t even come close to providing that kind of life for us. My father sold that house in 1985 for $85,000. Its current market value is over $200,000 and my salary is far below that.

We have no house (I can’t even get a mortgage), only one car (a Ford Focus), my 401(k) has become a 201(k) and it looks like I’ll be working till the day I die. Our summer vacations are not much more than visiting family in Florida. We simply don’t have any money to save anymore. No college funds for the kids. No money for a rainy day. My wife stays home to raise our kids like my mother did. Oh we pay the bills with the occasional movie or dinner out but that’s a far cry from the America I grew up in.

I remember everyone talking about “mortgaging our children’s future” back in the 70’s and 80’s when we were running such outrageous budget deficits. We’ll that future is here! We’re the children and I certainly feel as if I’m paying the debt on that mortgage now, as I’m sure other’s do as well.

So what do we do? Well we just work harder. We work more. We skimp. We’re Americans which means we are convinced that these are uncontrollable hard times that the government will pull us out of with absolutely no thought as to whether they really were uncontrollable or not. No thought as to the cause, just what we need to do to weather it and let the government do “its job”

My point in my last article was a revelation actually: it’s completely within our power to actually shut the government down with our actions. According to factcheck.com personal income taxes account for some 45% (2007) of the government’s revenue stream. It’s actually quite liberating. If they twist and finagle the democratic voting system so as to keep those in power, in power, then we’ll find another medium through which to vote: money. Every tax dollar withheld is a vote of “NO Confidence” in this government. How simple is that? Think they’ll listen to us now? Funny how hitting the pocketbook seems to get their attention so quickly in Washington.

If everyone did what I and others are doing then the government would come to a screeching halt, AND it would come to a halt with minimum violence. Oh sure they would try to prosecute the first offenders and fund their endeavors by printing more money or borrowing but that would lead to a rapid devaluation of the dollar which would lead to a violent revolt rather than a more peaceful one.

Remember what happened when record labels tried to sue people who were illegally sharing music files? That lasted about a year at most. There were just too many people doing it and the record labels just threw up their hands in defeat and said: if you can’t beat ’em then join ’em, and that’s what they did. The people spoke; the people voted with their actions, they voted by withholding their dollars and they voted for a new age of selling and distributing music. The music industry had no choice but to completely revolutionize the way they do business, its pricing schedule and how they distribute music. It was a beautiful thing.

We need to do the same thing with the government. We’ve seen that it works; it just needs to be orchestrated and done.

I don’t want to find ways to not pay taxes legally. I want them to notice. I want others to notice. Since I can’t vote for whom I choose and I can’t count on my congressman to do the right thing then I’ll represent myself and vote for what I know is right for me and other American citizens.

My position is not about the 16th amendment or the legitimacy of the income tax but rather a patriotic act. How can I, as a law-abiding American, support an illegal government? Isn’t that illegal? Isn’t that unpatriotic? Supporting people that, if they were not in such high offices, would be in prison themselves.

I refuse to acknowledge that these morons are smarter than me. If the cretins in their infinite wisdom feel the need to lock up an honest man, then I’ll be freer than I’ve ever been and freer than they’ll ever be. My conscience will be clear, my character, integrity and honor intact and my mind and my soul will be free. How easy will it be to look at the pathetic puppets of the system: the prison guards, the prison warden, the court lawyers and judges, the cops and the squirmy little IRS agents and feel pity for them not envy that they are outside while I am inside. They live in a self-imposed prison of ignorance, fear and self-doubt and feel comfortable and safe because they go along with everyone else.

I’ll get out of prison one day. They’ll die in theirs.

Many have asked me to show them what my "Personal Declaration of Independence" will look like. I’ll be more than happy to have LRC post it when I’ve written it.

The Best of Don Cooper