The people who have the most direct and profound effect on our lives are not in government. They are the people who sell us everything we use, and who supply us with all the wages we need to acquire them.

This is not a bad thing. Actually, it is one of the benefits of living in a democracy, that who is in power really doesn't make that much difference; its where we work and where we shop that affects us most day to day.

Hello? You're supporting a system where the government heavily controls the people who "sell us everything we use." How does that fit into the above thinking? The environment you describe is what life was like in this country generations ago.

I can stop using credit cards.

I can't stop paying taxes, or openly break idiot laws telling me what size toilet I can buy, what lightbulbs I can use, what foods are healthy enough for me to eat, or every damn thing on a list of Nanny State crap that could go on for pages.

A lot of small businesses in my area were driven out of business by idiotic state regulations that were easily absorbed by the large corporations, and Sacramento, in the face of economic disaster, is dumping more of them on us. I liked the restaurant across the way, but it was ruined by a city government that didn't like the idea of card clubs in a neighborhood. The site of the restaurant has been a vacant weed-covered lot for years now.