Its really simple. If you no longer love what you do, or the conditions that doing what you love to do are impossible to uphold, or you have to sell out to do it, then you need to do something else. At that point, it's not only morally right to shrug, it becomes a matter of personal survival. Otherwise, you will never be able to look in a mirror, point a finger at your own face, and say "What you do... is good."

There have been several events that clued me in that something was rotten. Roughly in order:

a) Gulf War I was achieved without any tax hikes.
b) Analysis of Social Security continually showed the program would go bankrupt, but the masses of Americans clearly would not accept its disbanding.
c) The Congress and the public at large viewed President Clinton's scandals as unworthy to merit their attention until semen entered the picture. Clinton's second election.
d) My company opening a gym and offering its use to employees for a fee. How much was the fee? That depends on how much money one made. When I replied "This is Marxism", I got mostly blank stares. One person commented that it seemed fair because that's the way Planned Parenthood operates.
e) Digitization and harmonization of drivers licenses among states. Setting up of traffic cameras everywhere that could decode a car's license plate. Discovery that vehicles could be tracked via OnStar or via toll transponders that in many areas became manadatory.
f) The move to drive as many financial transactions as possible away from cash and checks, in favor of debit/credit cards. The erecting of FINCEN which made banks file federal paperwork every time significantly large cash withdrawals were made.
g) Supposed at-the-moment drafting of the 300+ page US Patriot Act within a month after the Sept 11 attacks, and subsequent passage with just one representative voting against it.
h) Echelon, TIA, PRISM
i) Obama's second election.

I could go on. These are just the highlights that pop into my head given five minutes of thought.

In the real world, you have to find the best Shrug you can.
Find another state with an equal educational establishment. One of the other seven states that doesn't have a state income tax. One that
doesn't have Fla's corporate income tax..
Take up a new endeavor. Investing. Where the capital gains tax is much less than income tax.
Harry M

" I think my tipping point was when the Obama administration "offered" them $225 for $100000 of GM bonds back in 2009 during the Cash for Clunkers union bailout at bondholder expense."
I'm not knowledgeable about the details of the bailout. Would bondholders have received more in a standard BK? I know bondholders are pretty high up on the list of people to get paid, but I don't know what GM's situation was.

I found AS at a time when I was a junior executive at a household moving corporation. The finding of the novel combined with these factors at the time:

1. The company had “unofficially” adopted a compulsory charity donation system for all salaried people in which the amount paid increased the more you made. They even called it a “fair share” donation.
2. My wife was practicing infidelity with members of her own sex with the attitude that she was being brave in living out “who she really was” regardless of the fact we had a child.
3. I realized that society as a whole was beginning to agree with her.
4. I was bringing home less money than hourly people who, on paper, made less than me due to taxes.

I left that life and wife. I live now in a different state, am married again, make a third of what I did, and paid less than 2% in annual taxes.