Duane Gundrum Business,Economics,Memoirs,News,Politics Government Indifference to the Common Folk

Government Indifference to the Common Folk

About five years ago, I left California and moved to South Korea to work as a debate instructor. At the time, it was a stupid choice to make when it came to employment, but the recession had just started up, finding a job was extremely difficult, and I was doing anything to survive back then. So, I packed up everything I owned, sold most of it, and set off for a new adventure in a far off land. Okay, Heminway aside, one of the last things I did before leaving was sell my car to a colleague in graduate school, pretty much giving her a really great deal on a 2000 Saturn. Firing off a bill of sale on my computer, I gave it to her so she could turn it into the DMV, and I ventured off to new horizons.

The trip to Korea didn’t go well. A year into the trip, I was seriously cheated by the company that was paying me, and to avoid another long story for another article, I ended up barely getting out of a very bad situation, ending up back in the United States with a little more than the shirt on my back. Customs took all of my luggage, and for reasons that to this day have never been explained to me, never gave it back. As it was all clothing and paperwork, I finally gave up on ever seeing it again, and then started a brand new life in Michigan.

Well, at the beginning of 2011, California sent me a bill for $140, stating that I now owed them money for parking tickets not paid on that car I gave up five years ago. The tickets were racked up about four years ago.

I sent California’s DMV a letter explaining the situation, and then sent me a form letter back, indicating that I had to produce paperwork proving I had sold the car to a graduate student I had lost contact with shortly after I left the country. I had to prove it by providing paperwork that her full CURRENT address, and I had 15 days to do it.

OR THEY WOULD SEND ME TO COLLECTIONS.

Seeing as I have absolutely no way of producing this particular form of paperwork that does not exist, I’m at a loss as to what I should do. Principle tells me to go tell them to go fuck themselves, but in the end, I’m still going to get turned over to collections, and no matter what I do, some debt collector is going to make my life miserable because he’ll want $140 (probably jacked up to about $300 by the time he gets the account), and there won’t be any conversation that changes the outcome. The debtor is ALWAYS guilty.

This reminds me of when I got out of the Army. I had been out for a few years, and it dawned on me that I didn’t actually have a copy of my honorable discharge. So I wrote the government and asked them if they could supply me with it. Their response was that somehow I owed the government $212.42. Thank you for your service to this country, but you owe us $212.42. Please pay up today or we’ll make your life a miserable hell. And thank you for using our service.

This is the problem with government in how it deals with the common person. During this whole big budget debate lately, there’s been a lot of talk about how the government NEEDS more money, and that the American people are responsible for fixing the problems that the members of government have caused. When it comes to delivering money, it’s always our fault, and our responsibility. When it comes to actually getting something back from the government, it’s “please take a number, sit down, and be happy if someone actually gets to you.”

So, I’m left in another quandary with government. I’m shit poor, and I’ve always been my whole life. I’d like to say that I took a vow of poverty, but there really wasn’t a vow involved. It just sort of happened, and my life choices are generally not the kind that leads to mass wealth and fortune. So, when government wants another $140 from me, it bothers me a lot. You see, I’m one of those guys who parks his car where I’m supposed to park it, putting money into the coin machine to make sure I’m parking legally. When I error, I pay my bills immediately, even though I make it a point not to error in the first place. Yet, here I am having to pay for the foibles of some other person who probably didn’t even register the car in the first place. I couldn’t control that. I wasn’t even in the fucking country at the time.

Yet, I’m going to be the one held responsible. Because that’s supposedly the American way.

And people wonder why the country has problems. If this is how you treat the members of your society who go out of their way to the do the right thing, good luck on winning over the other 98% of the population.

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