Like most members of the Congress that passed it and, undoubtedly, the president of the United States who signed it, I have not read the entirety of the ill-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Yet there is one aspect concerning that legislation of which I am certain: I will not comply.

I will not comply because I am a free citizen of the United States, not a subject of its government.  I consider non-compliance with this monstrosity and the tens of thousands of pages of regulations that are to be enforced by an unelected bureaucracy, and that have left a gigantic carbon footprint on our environment and the United States Constitution, a duty.

Non-compliance is my executive order, and that order reads in part that I do not recognize any government's claim on my action or inaction in the marketplace, nor upon any personal information I am unwilling to divulge.

I will not submit to a cabal who read George Orwell's 1984 not as a terrifying warning, but as an instruction manual.  Nor will I submit to the dictates of those who attempt to trample the right of free speech of others in the halls of government who are warning us about the looming tyranny.  I refer to those sons of liberty who, as Camus wrote, "are not all legitimate or to be admired. Those who applaud it only when it justifies their privileges and shout nothing but censorship when it threatens them are not on our side."

If (when) the IRS or HHS or any other such entity attempts to extort a tax or fee of any kind for not participating in mandated commerce, they will be met with resistance.  I will not pay any such tax or fee.

I live in Massachusetts, where, once upon a time, a spirit of resistance and independence animated much of the citizenry.  But many here have devolved from the shot heard round the world to sheltering in place.  Not I -- nor many of my fellow Bay Staters, who are outnumbered but undaunted.

Refusing to comply with the dictates of an illegitimate law that is selectively enforced, and from which the privileged few are exempted, is not, in the annals of American history, brave or difficult.  Those who refuse to comply are not barefoot in the snows of Valley Forge, crying out in agony at Gettysburg, or rushing the cockpit of Flight 93.  While there will be consequences to civil disobedience in defiance of oppression, any difficulties can be and will be overcome.

We are, however, drawing a line that the forces of repression, socialism, and tyranny must not cross.  Some might even color the line red.  Yet unlike a certain other, this red line is immovable.  I yield nothing on the plane of freedom.  I will not take any small step that is, in actuality, one giant leap backward to the darkness we thought we had vanquished.

Who is with me?

Matthew May welcomes comments at may.matthew.t@gmail.com.