World War Z - Analogy

***Spoiler Alert***      ***Spoiler Alert***        ***Spoiler Alert***

Kat and I went to see 'World War Z' this weekend.  It is not normally a movie that I would choose to see as I am not big into the zombie genre.  I tend to get wrapped up in the logical fallacies such as:

• The very definition of dead is immobility, therefore ...
• Dead people can't walk
• Dead people can't see or hear
• Dead people especially cannot defy the laws of physics.  (The zombies in this film must have run 40 miles an hour)

But it is fun to sit back and watch infinite bullets in the actors' guns in video game like violence.

But, I did think of at least one analogy from the movie. Now to talk about the analogy, I will have to reveal the zombie solution.  But don't worry, it wasn't like it was full of plot twists or something.

In the movie, the main character, a former UN investigator, notices that the zombies do not attack sick people.  So the solution was to inject himself with a fatal but curable disease.  This "camouflage" effectively allowed him to hide in plain site from the hoard of zombies.

For my comparison, the zombies represent ever encroaching government interference.    In the movie, the zombies were 'targeting' the healthy and ignoring those who were not.  This is much like all governments that target the earners, using the teeth of the IRS and ignore those who do not have income.  The difference is that the government actually drains the life from the earners to redistribute (very inefficiently) to those that choose not to earn.

 Notice that I did not say the government targets the wealthy, because it does not.  The wealthy and well connected are the ones that can hide their income and use the force of law to direct the threat away from themselves.

***What is the difference between zombies and government wealth redistribution?  One is a brain dead mob and ever increasing threat that seeks to devour the life force of the living and the other are fictional un-dead characters in a movie. ***

 In the United States, we pride ourselves with over-achieving and increasing our income as well as have the lavish lifestyles that go along with it.  Unfortunately, this puts you on the radar of the IRS.  It is so engrained in our psyche that before we realize it, we graduate from high school, go to college and amass 50 to 100 thousand dollars in student loan debt.  So we need the big income to pay back that debt and maintain that lifestyle.

Over time, the tax burden keeps increasing and you realize that you are working so hard that your life and years have slipped away and there is nothing you can do about it, so you work harder to have that annual vacation.  Then you wake up one day to see that your kids have graduated high school so that they can amass huge amounts of debt and you see the cycle going on and on and on.

So, what do you do?  What happens if you refuse to pay those "voluntary" taxes?  The government seizes your property, that's what happens.  There is no escape as long as you stay in that cycle.

So what is the cure?  The cure is to stop.  Stop being dependent on that large salary.  Get rid of your debt.  Quit your high paying job.  Go live life.  If you do not have an large income, the target is removed from you.  That is what we are doing.  Those that follow this blog know that we sold most of our material possessions (including our house) and bought an RV.  I am in the process of leaving my 40 hour a week IT job to live less lavishly, but more richly as we experience the country one day at a time.

So, the movie has a lesson.  Put on the camouflage.  Stop working so hard for that corner office.  It really isn't that satisfying anyway.  Take the power away from the zombies.  Hide in plain site.

See you on the trail - Kit