The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

I hosted a "thank you and farewell" dinner in Moscow last night for three gentlemen who were my first major clients here. They are experienced Russia hands and were reminiscing about the petty restrictions of old. 

In those days, if you couldn't produce the currency exchange receipts on exit, the customs officer would smilingly "confiscate" any unspent roubles. An American to whom this happened, on having the rules explained to him, apologised and said that of course he would not take his roubles out of the country if that was against the law. Then he took out his cigarette lighter and set fire to them. His travelling companions saw what he was doing and passed their roubles to him to be burned. Then they smilingly set off to board their plane. 

That's the spirit a Welfare State kills, and the world would be a worse place without it.