Going Cashless Means Losing Control

Gather around boys and girls and I will tell you a scary story that begins a long time ago in a land far, far away…

Once upon a time, people went to work, and at the end of the pay period the employees lined up and the employer paid each person in cash. Yes, believe it or not, there was a cashier who counted out the money. The military did the same thing and there was a paymaster who doled out the cash. Then sometime during the 20th-century companies gave people the option of getting paid in cash or by check. By the early 1980s the military made everyone switch over to direct deposit.

Back in the olden days, if you wanted cash, you had to go to the bank and write a check and cash it. Or some merchants, like grocery stores, would let you write your check for a little over the bill and they would give you the difference in cash. ATMs did not exist in the U.S. until 1969 and they were generally located at, you guessed it, banks. They weren’t located in every convenience store, grocery store, and airport like they are today. Everything was generally purchased with cash or check. Credit cards were not used, as a rule, for everyday expenses and debit cards didn’t really take off until the late 1980s. If you were going out on a date you ran to the bank on the way home and got enough cash to cover the night.

I have an important point to make so please bear with me.

Fast forward to 2023 and I have six $1 bills in my wallet that my grandkids gave me from their allowance as a birthday present. (Yes – I know that wallets are archaic too) Nearly all our transactions are now done online or with a card. We still use paper checks, but only for a very few items. 

My kids are 98% wallet-less, cashless, and checkless and most of their daily transactions are done via virtual wallet and Apple Pay. There is a trend of moving towards a cashless society, and that brings me to my point.

Over the past few years, there seems to be an increasing interest in going cashless. After all, there is a generation who rarely uses cash and finds it to be archaic and a hassle, and the older generations are using it less and less. So why not just get rid of it and do everything digitally? At first blush, going cashless might seem attractive, but it’s imperative that we consider the possible consequences and ramifications of doing so.

During the winter of 2021-2022, there was a trucker strike in Canada which was in protest of the border closures due to Covid. The truckers peacefully blocked border crossings and descended on Ottawa near Parliament. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared the protests illegal and as part of his actions, used the police to keep the truckers from getting fuel and supplies at the protest sites in the dead of winter. Additionally, he had their bank accounts frozen and fellow citizens were arrested for trying to bring them fuel and food. A GoFundMe was set up and Trudeau intervened and had GoFundMe shut the account down. In essence, Trudeau created a modern-day siege. Starve and freeze the truckers out. They couldn’t use their cards to buy food because their accounts were shut down. They couldn’t get cash from ATMs because their accounts were shut down. Friends were arrested for trying to bring them food.

Do you now see the problem with a cashless society? Let me paint a little scenario for you.

Let’s just say that you post something very unflattering on FB about someone very high up in our government, but it’s not illegal in how it was said. But it is a bombshell, and that person can’t approach you directly without giving credence to your accusation, but they want to put pressure on you. So, some quick calls are made to the FBI, IRS, and Federal Reserve, and your bank accounts and 401k are all frozen. You get to work, and accounting tells you that your direct deposit pay didn’t go in because your account is frozen. They offer to cut a paper check but that takes a few days, and it’s really no good to you because – you’re in a cashless society!

On the way home you notice the gas gauge is low, so you stop, but the pump won’t take your card, because it’s suspended. Your car sputters through the last gas and dies in your driveway. At first, you just think you can take an Uber to work and then it hits you. Your accounts are locked, and cash doesn’t exist. Maybe you can barter your watch to get a ride? But what about the next day? The electric bill needs to be paid, but your accounts are locked. Lights out! You need food for the kids. Nope! And nobody will bring food because they are afraid of getting their accounts locked. Your employer eventually fires you because you aren’t coming to work. No benefits mean no healthcare for the family and no way to get them to free care. You decide to plant a garden but have no way to buy seeds and winter is coming with no heat.

Do you see the incredibly frightening power the government could wield in a cashless society? Especially in a society that generally can’t grow their own crops, let alone forage for food.

Of course, this seems a little far-fetched that they would do this to one person, but Justin Trudeau did it to a few hundred Canadian truckers, and he’s still in office.

What if there was a particular group that the government found to be just a little too pesky? Maybe someone like gun owners? The government decides it’s the last straw and this group won’t surrender their firearms. In a cashless society, they could just freeze the bank accounts of those who had undergone background checks for legal firearms purchases. They could also do the same by harvesting credit card info for gun and ammo purchases. People would have to submit to home searches and surrender weapons to get their bank accounts unlocked.

Yes, there are ways around this, precious metals, gems, and bartering to name a few. But does anyone really want to risk going in that direction? And admittedly there are laws that are supposed to protect us from such abuses by the government.

Just ask the Canadian truckers how well the laws protected them. Go cashless and you are giving other people too much control over your life.

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Dave Chamberlin served 38 years in the USAF and Air National Guard as an aircraft crew chief, where he retired as a CMSgt. He has held a wide variety of technical, instructor, consultant, and leadership positions in his more than 40 years of civilian and military aviation experience. Dave holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA, as well as a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Science. He currently runs his own consulting and training company and has written for numerous trade publications.

His true passion is exploring and writing about issues facing the military, and in particular, aircraft maintenance personnel.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.