Cash In, Check Out
Sam Aurelius Milam III
In the article Can't Quit The Game (September Frontiersman, page 1), I asserted that the government and the corporations have combined to form a regulatory complex that controls the people.  I suggested some seemingly easy ways to oppose that regulatory complex.  Actually, they're not as easy as they seem.  Here's an even bigger challenge.  Deal only in cash.
People give plenty of reasons to avoid cash.  Some say that if you carry cash you might lose it.  Maybe, but people lose hundreds of dollars because of the fees associated with using checks, credit cards, ATMs, etc.  You aren't likely to lose that much just by carrying a few dollars in cash.  Some people will say that cash is too easy to spend and that if you carry cash you'll be prone to spend too much on impulse purchases.  That's easy to answer.  If you make your purchases with cash, you won't spend more than you have with you.  When you leave home, don't take more than you can afford to spend.  However, if you leave home with your checkbook or your plastic, you'll be able to spend a lot more than just the cash in your pocket.  Some people claim that if you carry cash you might get robbed.  Maybe, but you can try to be careful and minimize the risk.  On the other hand, check and plastic transactions are more visible to the government than cash transactions.  It's more difficult to avoid the government than it is to avoid the muggers.  You'll probably never lose as much to muggers as to the government.
You can spend cash in most places, but some places refuse to give it to you.  They insist instead on giving you checks or making electronic deposits into an account.  These places are usually corporations and government institutions — the regulatory complex.  I believe that I know the reason why.
We've all been told that there's no difference between cash and checks.  We tend to use the terms interchangeably.  However, there is a difference and it is fundamental.  The integrity of a cash transaction doesn't rely upon the identity of the parties to the transaction.  That is, the value of cash doesn't depend upon who gave it to you.  Therefore, cash transactions can be anonymous.  However, the integrity of a transaction using checks is utterly dependent upon the identity of the parties who wrote the checks.  Therefore, check transactions demand and justify an ID requirement.  I believe that the ID requirement imposed by the use of checks and plastic is the real reason that the government discourages the use of cash.  Cash doesn't require ID.  Every alternative to cash does.
Why does it matter?  Because the government controls the ID.  If you use checks or plastic, the government can terminate your ability to function by canceling your ID.  It can impose any prerequisite on providing the ID.  The use of checks and plastic is a privilege, controlled by government.  The more important that privilege becomes, the more power the government has.

Totalitarianism doesn't need armies.  It only needs to control a couple of things.  The media, and the ability to dispense privilege to some and to withhold it from others .... — the last President of the United States in the miniseries Amerika

Gresham's Law
An observation in economics:  when two coins are equal in debt-paying value but unequal in intrinsic value, the one having the lesser intrinsic value tends to remain in circulation and the other to be hoarded or exported as bullion.

Or as Poppa used to say, "Son, bad currency will always drive good currency out of circulation."