Are you sure you don't owe the city of Pittsburgh money?

Can you prove it?

Because, if you can't then you'll probably have to pay up.

Because I only lived in the city of Pittsburgh for half of the year in 2008, I owe them a full year's worth of taxes. It may sound illogical to us intellectual types, but you see, I'm a lying bastard, and the only way to get out of paying a full year's taxes to the city is to get a letter signed and sealed from the borough I lived in for the first half of the year attesting to the fact that I paid their taxes.

As a result, the rest of you better get letters from your local municipality. Otherwise you owe the city of Pittsburgh for a full year's worth of taxes in 2008.

It may sound like I'm bitching about nothing. I mean, the borough was more than happy to sign and seal my letter. And I was hardly the first person they'd had to do this for. But it's the principal of the thing.

Most people don't care about principals. It's a lot of work to care about principals. I mean, if someone rips you off for $2, how much time are you willing to spend tracking them down to get that money back? Not very much. However, that criminal is counting on that, and as a result, the most successful criminals make millions a year -- $2 at a time.

Of course, the city of Pittsburgh isn't stealing from me. I legitimately owe them tax money and I'm more than willing to pay it. What does turn my irritameter to 11 is the assumption that I"m a criminal and the requirement that I prove otherwise!

I mean, if I say I only lived in Pittsburgh for 6 months, then that's the truth. But it's not good enough, I need to get an official authority to certify it in writing.

As many of you know, "innocent until proven guilty" is a concept that's only adhered to when the law specifically states that it must be. Like in a court of law, where it's specifically required.

In the rest of our dealings with the government and society at large, it's guilty until proven innocent.

Isn't that a horrifically fucking shame? I mean, it's nice to know that trusting in your fellow man is something only to be done after a careful background check. If the television says that he's guilty, nobody cares what the jury says. If the IRS says you owe money, it's on you to prove otherwise.

Makes me wonder why I work so hard to stay out of trouble. I mean, if someone decided that I was causing trouble, it wouldn't matter much if I wasn't now would it? As a result, I'd be saddled with all the disadvantages of trouble making, like lawsuits and mean stares -- but not get to experience any of the joys of trouble making, like sleeping with the neighbor's wife or pouring sugar in the cop's gas tank.

And that's how our society will end. After a while, nobody will see any reason to be decent or honest, and the only way to keep people that way will be the secret police. It won't be the governments that bring about a dystopia, it will be our own distrust of each other.

It would make me happier if some things were less predictable.