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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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Sane people change systems with ideas, not by murdering people

By David McElroy · June 10, 2014

Jerad-and-Amanda-Miller

Every fringe movement attracts crazy people. Libertarians are no exception. The married couple who murdered two police officers and another person in Las Vegas over the weekend are a perfect example. They’re not people to embrace or defend. They’re nuts whose actions damage the cause of individual freedom.

I’ve written a couple of times before about people I don’t want to be associated with, such as conspiracy cranks with no interest in facts and those who are just plain bigots. There are a lot of very intelligent, sane, interesting and responsible people who have come to libertarian or anarchist positions for moral reasons, but there are also people such as Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller who are mentally unstable people who are looking for an outlet for their anger at the world.

Many of us want to change the world. Many of us see a coercive system of government as immoral and standing in the way of individuals being free to live under the rules they might voluntarily choose. But changing the world in a positive way is about influencing hearts and minds through art, ideas and culture, not about killing people and tearing down institutions. You don’t change the world by adopting the tactics of an oppressor.

In the last couple of days, I’ve seen some libertarians and anarchists defending the Millers’ actions. I’ve seen others who won’t quite defend their murders, but they say the killings weren’t murder and that killing police is justified simply because they are the people who enforce the immoral rules of the state. And I’ve seen a new tack on Tuesday in which some people are trying really hard to say the Millers were government plants or maybe they didn’t really exist. I’ve been really surprised at some of the denial I’ve seen.

Many people are willing to consider what you have to say as long as you’re discussing ideas and making a moral and pragmatic case for freedom. But killing people who aren’t threatening you at the moment is a dividing line between discussion and thuggery. Nobody takes you seriously once you cross this line. Once you cross that line, you also make it very difficult for others to hear anyone with a vaguely similar message. And you no longer have any moral authority once you’ve passed that line.

Many libertarians strongly condemned the actions of the Millers when the news started coming out. When I posted something about it on my Facebook page Monday morning, I had a lot of strong feedback agreeing with my view that the murderers should be strongly rejected. I think many of those people were as surprised as I was at the ambivalence and tacit support that some other people were giving to the murders.

It seems as though the support and lack of condemnation centers around the idea that because police support the work of the coercive state, they’re automatically the enemy and make themselves legitimate targets just by becoming cops.

I detest much of what’s going on in police culture today and I strenuously object to many of the immoral and anti-individualist laws that police enforce, but I think it’s ridiculous to believe that murdering random police officers is moral or pragmatic. We need people to enforce laws and protect us from criminals. There’s a serious problem today because a good portion of police have become a different breed of criminal — and some of the laws they enforce are evil — but the function of policing is one we need. There’s just a serious question about who gets to make the rules and who gets to choose how the rules are enforced in a given place.

I’ve said many times that I don’t want a “one size fits all” system. For those who want to live under the current system, I have no objection to that — as long as they’re willing to tolerate those of us who want out taking our land and wealth away from their control. I have no objection to people living under any system they choose, as long as it’s voluntary for the people living under it. I want it recognized that anyone can opt out of the existing system if he chooses — to live as a lone wolf if he pleases or to join with other people to put their land together to establish cities under the rules they voluntarily agree to.

The fact that we are not allowed to withdraw from this coercive system is morally wrong. The fact that another system exists for those who want another system is perfectly acceptable.

Most people today are living quite voluntarily and happily in a system that I believe is wrong. Most people would be scared to death by the kind of fragmentation that I’m talking about. They want a coercive government to enforce one way for everyone. If they had a choice of living under the existing system or in one of my proposed independent cities with its own rules, most of them would prefer to stick with what they’re familiar with.

I think they’re mistaken not to see the existing system as the moral and pragmatic evil that I see it as. But I’m not going to impose my views on them. I can’t. And even if I could, it would be wrong for me to tear down the system that most people choose. It’s not my business to choose for them. I don’t want to change their world. I only insist that their system has no right to hold me and my property — and that of others who want to withdraw. I’m saying the system has no right to stop us from withdrawing. Others have every right to continue living with their system as long as it doesn’t coerce those who want to withdraw.

If you think it’s your job or your right to destroy the state everywhere and impose your rules on the entire world, you’re no better than the people who are currently imposing their rules on us. It’s not our right to destroy the system that they want to live under — and it’s murder to kill police who work for that system.

We need a legal framework within which we can withdraw our property and ourselves from the state’s control, but that doesn’t mean we need to destroy the system that other people voluntarily want.

There are a lot of people today who are angry at government for a variety of reasons. I’m among them. I see its control over me as immoral. I want to figure out a way to separate myself from that system, but murdering police will only harden public and political attitudes against anyone with such “radical” desires.

Murdering people in the name of individual freedom is immoral and it’s counterproductive as well. We need to reject those who are simply angry at the world and are looking for a way to go out of this life with a bang. They’re crazy — and we need to be clear about that.

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I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

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