Citizen

Why is it that people can't decide to be citizens of a place or not? Here's an alternate system:

Until a person is of age (the age is sort of arbitrary, here I'd say 18) they are taken care of by their parents government or the government of the place of their birth. At 18 they are offered to join that government as a citizen. Everybody has to be offered this, no discrimination. And if the person doesn't want to join, they don't get the special benefits package: voting rights, health care, &c. Perhaps there could still be a place for taxation (tho I'm still going to assume that that can be offset by sales taxes and assorted other taxes-property or whatever).

What I'm thinking of here is citizenship as a choice. One that comes with requirements and with benefits. Obviously there is a serious danger here of setting up a system in which people are denied rights, but I'm thinking perfect world scenarios in some respect. That is, it is easy for people to be a citizen if they'd like to and beneficial to the government to have them. But also that people who wanted to could opt out, could go their own route. And here's the kicker, still be allowed to stay in the country and do almost everything anyone else would do too. Within some limitations. Obviously the non-voting. And I assume other ways that are less than good as well. Point being, there'd be a choice. A non-national option that allowed you to be on the earth in some specific location without a particular governmental affiliation.

Anyways, clearly this could be exploited and made bad. But so can anything. Just a different model. And one I might like a little better.