Yes well in addition to not paying to register my vehicles, I don't pay income, property or capital gains taxes either so I guess that makes me, I don't know...the government would say something quite vulgar but I say...free, a non-slave. 

    Of course it's about money, from top to bottom!

     Here's the thing: If you buy a car or truck or motorcycle, you are pretty much mobile and can travel just about anywhere within the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Central or South America. Most "Americans" have come to expect mobility; and, most "Americans" are mobile.

     In the 1950's, folks moved out to suburbs, they did so because they had transportation that would get them to and from the urban world they wer foresaking. When they hit suburbia, most didn't even notice that there were fewer and fewer sidewalks - until their kid was killed by some a--hole who couldn't be bothered to drive slowly enough to avoid a pedestrian. They still didn't get it.

     Buy a vehicle and you will pay sales taxes, dealer (con) fees, interest rates, mandated insurance, vehicle registration fees, license fees, operator license fees, extreme state and federal gas taxes, criminally controlled high fuel prices, parking(meter) fees, and most likely some form of "unrepresented tax in the form of a traffic violation - the most critical of revenue-gathering devices known to municipal managers and law enforcements social control and abuse darling.

      All of this has become almost "mandatory" if one is to function in today's U.S. culture. Even if you utilize "public transportation" you  are forced to pay dearly for streets, equipment, and personnel that you have already paid for through taxation, and that you must continue to pau for if you choose to work and live in the town of your choice. try walking on the Interstate highway system or riding a horse or pedaling a bicycle: you will be ticketed or arrested or both. The sole purpose of all this is revenue gathering, followed by physical control of travel and commerce, and topped by the actual "knowledge" of where people are in the world and control of their potential for unfettered movement or interaction.

     There isn't enough time to tell the whole story. However, if you think about what it costs you to move about in the world using a vehicle, or how much of your personal information and control of your life is relinquished to Big Mother through vehicle ownership and use or, finally, how resricted your movements are by the government use of travel (interstate commerce) and access as "crowd control" and retraint of trade devices - not to mention the ever-present potential for police intrusion, invasion, abuse, incarceration, or sudden death, you'll begin to appreciate how and why there are so many regulations, and the government guards its monopoly so zealously.

     (This is a personal observation: Next to driving amongst our fellow sociopaths, coming into contact with an armed cop is likely the most dangerous event that any citizen will ever experience - outside, perhaps, armed combat. I know this is very likely to fall on "deaf ears", but don't screw up while you are driving. You might just be murdered for something as ridiculous as a bad license plate bulb. So many, many of us are killed, with impunity, by misfit thugs with guns and badges, little or no valid training, or respect for the rights of any of us. the only way you can win against the new Gestapo is to avoid it!)