Do I oppose rulers because I hate rulers — or because I hate rules?

By David McElroy · October 16, 2013

I’ve always been a rebel at heart. I’ve never dealt very well with authority. I chafe at having to obey orders. And I delight in small acts of rebellion. (That’s me on the right touching where it says not to touch in a restaurant a few years ago.)

I also oppose coercive government. I say it’s because of my reasoned principles — and I can explain the principles easily — but I wonder sometimes how many people who come to oppose government (to one degree or another) are really just acting out their dislike of rules and authority.

I believe that the system we have — by which a majority imposes its will on the rest of us — is immoral. But the immoral thing about it that’s wrong is the imposition of rules by force. When I listen to discussion among a lot of people who consider themselves libertarians or anarchists, I get the feeling that many of them aren’t just opposed to rulers. A surprising number seem to hate rules, too.

But when I think about the kind of world I want to live in, I realize that I want rules. I want order. Most people do. So how do we resolve those two — and is it possible that we need to be more honest with ourselves about our psychological feelings about rules themselves?

At the heart of many individualists who oppose coercive government is a personality that believes — deep down, whether it’s spoken or not — that “I know better than other people.” As a group, these individualists are very, very smart and can also tend to be very, very arrogant. We don’t always play well with others.

But I want rules. I simply want to live with rules that make sense to me.

When I drive, for instance, I get irritated with other drivers who don’t obey certain rules that make driving safer and more convenient for everyone. I don’t want an “every man for himself” attitude. I want order and I want drivers taking turns in ways that are set out in the accepted rules. I’m angry with those who ignore the rules in ways that encourage a breakdown of the order that makes the experience better for everyone.

I don’t want to live in a city where people randomly ignore rules and where people make up their conduct as they go. That’s why I favor different groups or companies setting up cities and managing them according to the rules agreed upon in advance. Different cities can be set up with different rules. And other areas — with other ownership — might be set up with few rules or even no rules other than respect for property boundaries.

My goal in getting past coercive government isn’t to live in a place with no rules. I don’t want to live in a place where my neighbors randomly fire weapons right next to me or play really loud music out in their yards. I don’t want junked cars in the yards of my neighbors, either. I like rules that give my neighbors and myself better quality of life — in ways that matter to me — but I want us to agree on those rules before we move into a place. I don’t want politicians having the power to change rules simply because they want to.

In order to have a higher quality of life, I have to agree to certain rules for all of us. But I want rules — not rulers. I don’t want some majority (or any other group) to have the ability to impose rule changes on me. I don’t want a group deciding that I have to hand over more money than I’ve agreed. I don’t want politicians or bureaucrats deciding what I can do with my property. I want the rules to decide those things — rules that I have agreed to.

I’m afraid that too many people who call themselves individualists or libertarians or anarchists or voluntaryists have a personality-based idea that rules are always bad. I obviously have a bit of a tendency in that direction too. But we need to remind ourselves that rules we agree upon are good. Rulers who impose rules are always bad.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

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?

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