If "No one owes you anything," then you also owe nothing to a society that works against you, including allegiance, civility, or pacifism.

5 years in a pharmacy, so about the most vitriolic you can imagine. People with withdrawals mad you won't break the law for them, people lying to your face hoping you'll unknowingly break the law, and then people upset because theirs or their child's medicine cost more than they make in a month.

I get what life can do to people, or worse, what people can do to people. But if you just stop and look you'll find good people in this fight with you. And giving up on them is not something I'm going to do, it's why I even made my original comment. OP is (imo) misguided, but that doesn't make them a bad person and it doesn't mean they're beyond hope. And I like to imagine that most of the people they've seen that caused them to so harden their outlook are in the exact same boat that the OP is in. Simply misguided but not even close to being beyond redemption or belief.

This is a bit dated but shows that 41% of road upkeep on average is paid for by gas taxes (and other fees). So yes while they may have some tax paid on fuel (that they have likely negotiated down via bulk purchase), they're not even paying for half on average.

Edit - just to include given we've seen landmark inflation over the last few years it's likely the share of taxes on upkeep has gone down.

Realized while writing that it is spurring me into a textual diaherrhia so please note wall of text ahead, which probably veers off into a rant.

If I had to surmmarise into tldr:

The system(tm) feels exploitative, and unless you partake in the exploiting then one must feel like their value systems are useless because it is not bringing in value.

Also rant about personal country government that seem to be failing upwards

End tldr

I read what was written and somehow felt a need to express, so apologies upfront.

I am not an American, but I have lived a life trying to do what I thought is the right or correct thing. It has left me with more regret and resentment. And as an observer I think it is more a societal problem.

I mean doing whatever the fuck you want and not only getting away with it but be rewarded seems to be in the loop of positive feedback. Like why suffer and do the right thing when you can take advantage of another and get rewarded.

The whole corporate monopoly-type culture isn't only an American problem, just have to look at the world where a narrative or agenda causes so much suffering.

Lets just take my country for example. South African, we have been sitting with a electricity issue for going on almost 20 years because there is only 1 power supplier and that is government mandated monopoly. The power issue concerns were addressed to government before it was an issue and they figuritively sat and twiddled their thumbs until it got to a point where they needed to stick their thumbs just a bit out their asses.

Added to that, we had an ex-president that is mired is so much scandal to the point where one( of many) of his great " achievements " is participating in state capture by selling sub-substandard/ ghost electrical supply contracts to special interest individuals for personal gain.

And to this day is playing the lawyer-long game to avoid any consequence add to that you get politicians saying we should leave him alone he is an old man.

So in essence it feels like a big : fuck the country, i got my own, you people deal with the shit I profitted off, not my problem.

And although I cannot equate to the struggles of minorities, I can relate a bit as I live with the a country that enforces quotas and it is shit feeling knowing no matter how hard you work or how well you do you cannot advance when a company is pushing government agenda in a bid to say " Look we are doing the thing, we are empowering"

I mean things had to be done with the history of our country, I wish it could have been done with a broader and more encompassing economical structure to ensure that the majority could actually be empowered and be able to uplift the country to allow it to flourish to allow it to open opportunities for all. But unfortunately the current economic system and structure has it sitting in a country with 32 % unemployment.

I mean maybe the goverment is trying, but they have piss poor accountability as there is constant news of corruption, mafia-like intimidation, mismanagement, incompetence, never-ending joke of broken promises and lately seems a constant rise in prices - which seems to be a world problem too. I am honestly surprised the country holds itself together, I suppose that is because of the taxman is a functioning government entity that collects its due and guess there is enough competent people trying to keep the boat afloat in the background

It is like if you don't know someone or have some influence you are stuck to the whims of the system and I personally feel there is an attitude that those above will personally do as little as possible and rely on those below to pick up the slack. I don't want to harp about 'oh woe is me' just feel that almost everywhere there are problems and unfortunately the structure of power demands that those in power must exert power or coerce others to maintain it.

This is probably coming from someone who has been broken by a system coming in with naivete, so please take it as such, I am relatively fortunate to have what I have because of help of family so I cannot be a total victim to the system. But I still feel disillusioned by it and human nature because it is exploitative by design and I am too pigheaded to want to become a unfeeling husk and give into that base nature completely.

the actions of corrupt leadership decades ago are not the same thing as the entire populace being unredeemable.

Our political system pretty much ensures radical progressives can't get elected. Voting for someone who supports UBI could put a far-right extremist in office. This type of situation led to Trump. Pretending like people vote for what they want the most and not intelligently voting to stop something worse is extremely naive. If this is the foundation of your reasoning, it's 100% faulty. I'm not saying it doesn't have merit on certain points, but you can't build a house on a foundation of sand.

If you are from the USA perhaps it is less obvious, but in a European nation for example you can only accept to live in the society in which you find yourself otherwise you would not have education, healthcare and public services. if you don't accept it, you can change it with the tools they offer you or you can protest, emigrate or commit suicide.

I think I see where you're coming from - "I respect your property rights, you respect my property rights" might sound equal but in practice what does a person with no property have to gain from such a rule? As the saying goes, "the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." My answer is twofold:

First, I consider respecting property rights a moral obligation. (You might find it strange that I think it's a more important moral obligation than helping people in need, but I do. I suppose that's why no one likes libertarians.) I wouldn't take from someone who had more than me unless I sincerely believed that he obtained it by unjustly exploiting me, not in the abstract sense of "the rich have rigged society in their favor" but rather in the concrete sense of "that guy stole my bike so I'm stealing it back." I imagine I would violate this principle if I was in desperate need (e.g. stealing a loaf of bread to feed my starving family) but I would feel pretty bad about it.

Second, I think everyone (including people who don't share my morality) is better off if we don't resort to violence. It's not just a personal matter of people stealing from me and my attempts to stop them via violence - individual acts of violence add up to create a violent society. I used to work with a guy from Brazil - he was trying to get residency in the USA because he felt like his upper-middle-class income was putting him in danger. In Brazil, people with money run the very real risk of being violently robbed or kidnapped. But people without money are also subject to more violence! Compare a slum in the USA with a Brazilian favela. So maybe if I'm rich and you're poor, you help yourself if you mug me but you're contributing to the creation of a society where no one except brutal organized criminals would be better off than they are in the USA right now.