‘Self government’ means you govern yourself, not obey your neighbors

By David McElroy · April 26, 2012

How did so many people ever fall for the fiction that “self government” means being governed by the majority of one’s neighbors? Being governed by some powerful elite is bad, but being governed by the “non-powerful masses” is just another brand of poison. Self-governance means just that — governing yourself.

Of all the national myths in this country, perhaps none is as nonsensical as the notion that there is a collective “genius of the American people” insofar as governance goes. It’s a myth that’s discussed in almost religious tones — and it leaves otherwise intelligent people acting in foolish ways to try to bring about things that aren’t possible.

I started thinking about this Wednesday because of a Cato Institute policy forum I listened to called “Citizens v. the Ruling Elite.” (You can watch the video of the forum at the end of this article. Or click here to subscribe to Cato’s audio podcasts via iTunes. Many of them are excellent.) The theme of the discussion was finding ways to elect people to Congress who would “represent the people” instead of elites.

One of the speakers was a co-founder of one of the Tea Party groups. Another speaker was with an organization working to get more people to run in party primaries to challenge incumbents. (On the pragmatic side, the group working for more primary challenges is just plain wrong to believe that this is a good way to defeat incumbents, but that’s a different story entirely.) The overall theme for all the presentations is that the people in office now represent “the elites,” but that if the right candidates would just run, “the people” would suddenly be represented and everything would change.

Since these people believe this, I wonder what other fairy tales they believe.

We get the government we do because it’s a representation of what the majority want — not what they say they want, but what their actions indicate they want. To believe that there’s some magical “genius of the American people” — to use a phrase from the policy forum — is to believe in fairy tales. There’s absolutely no evidence of any such thing. Even if you think you see it in history books — which I believe is an illusion brought about because of somebody’s narrative — there’s no reason to believe “the people” are suddenly going to want what you want.

When you get right down to it, there’s no serious difference between being governed by “the elites” and being governed by “a majority of the people.” In either case, you are handing sovereignty over your life to someone else. What’s the difference between a war because some elite wants it vs. a war because “the people” want it? What’s the difference between a tax or a regulation covering you if it’s passed by an “elite” and one that’s passed by the majority of your neighbors? Are you any more free because your oppressor is one group instead of another?

As long as you support “the people” ruling over everybody, you’re going to keep getting more of what we have right now. You can lie to yourself and claim that it’s going to magically change if we sprinkle democratic pixie dust all around, but the results aren’t going to change.

If you want to be free, real self government is the only way. You have to rule yourself. You have to have the freedom to choose what rules to live under. If you’re not free to do that, you’re somebody’s slave. If that makes you happy, that’s your business. Just don’t pretend you’re free. And don’t pretend that your neighbors are going to collectively wake up and become the benevolent rulers that the utopians believe they can be.

Real self-government — individuals ruling themselves — is the only form of political freedom. Any other type is slavery. Any other kind that promises freedom by giving others power over you is a lie, even if it’s a well-meaning lie.

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When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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