The United States has an all-voluntary military, so why not an all-voluntary taxing system? Aren’t liberals all about freedom of choice? Their sloganeering includes the operating premise “My body . . . My choice!”

So why not expand the notion of what’s mine you can’t touch to property. “My land . . . My choice.” My money . . . My choice.”

And since so many people say they should be paying more in taxes, let’s give them an opportunity to volunteer in big ways. Volunteerism is a good thing. Charities are based on volunteerism.

I propose that we start a national lottery. If you believe that big government is good for America, then you can show it by purchasing more lottery tickets. The people who really believe this nonsense that the spending is not the problem, then they can act on that belief by buying more lottery tickets and encouraging their friends to do the same.

Make the lottery international. Let anybody purchase lottery tickets. If people in China or Japan or Albania want to get in on the game, let them do it. Their voluntary contribution only helps us.

The use of lotteries to raise money for government expenditures has a long history in the United States. We see them being used at the state level with great success. People love to gamble, and all the money will go to a good cause – the Leviathan State.

You may think that it’s un-American to raise revenue by lottery.

Lotteries in colonial America played a significant part in the financing of both private and public ventures. It has been recorded that more than 200 lotteries were sanctioned between 1744 and 1776, and played a major role in financing roads, libraries, churches, colleges, canals, bridges, etc. In the 1740s, the foundation of Princeton and Columbia Universities was financed by lotteries, as was the University of Pennsylvania by the Academy Lottery in 1755.

During the French and Indian Wars, several colonies used lotteries to help finance fortifications and their local militia. In May 1758, the State of Massachusetts raised money with a lottery for the “Expedition against Canada.”

Benjamin Franklin organized a lottery to raise money to purchase cannon for the defense of Philadelphia. Several of these lotteries offered prizes in the form of “Pieces of Eight.”

George Washington’s Mountain Road Lottery in 1768 was unsuccessful.

At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used lotteries to raise money to support the Colonial Army. Alexander Hamilton wrote that lotteries should be kept simple, and that “Everybody … will be willing to hazard a trifling sum for the chance of considerable gain … and would prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a great chance of winning little.” Taxes had never been accepted as a way to raise public funding for projects.

At the end of the Revolutionary War the various states had to resort to lotteries to raise funds for numerous public projects.

What was good enough for George Washington and Benjamin Franklin is good enough for me. Gambling is preferable to theft.