Why do we accept ‘one size fits all’ rules that force us to fight each other?

By David McElroy · October 21, 2011

Why is it that most of us can come to perfectly logical conclusions about philosophy or politics — with airtight logic that nobody could possibly disagree about — but other equally intelligent people can come to radically different conclusions about the same things?

This happens to me all the time, and I’m sure it happens to you. If it happens about which car to buy or which computer is best or which smartphone to choose, it’s not that big a deal, because we can each make our own choices and let everybody else do the same — even if we argue about it along the way. (The correct choices, by the way, are Acura, Macintosh and iPhone. Just in case you were wondering.)

When we disagree about things in the market, we might sometimes assume that people who make different choices from us are wrong, but it doesn’t generally affect our own choices. As long as enough others share our choices to keep a company viable, we can all have what we want. (My condolences, though, go to those who preferred the Palm WebPad or the Amiga computer or even the Buick, because they’re all dead due to lack of market demand.)

Even with philosophical and theological issues, there’s no reason we can’t all stick to our ideas and assume that others are just blind to the obvious rightness of what we believe. But all that changes in one key area today — in our choices for how the society around us should be governed. When it comes to our “one size fits all” rules for society, if a majority accept socialist ideas, I’m stuck being forced to live a socialist life. If a majority want to strip our right to be free from warrantless searches, we’re stuck with that, too.

Does it really have to be this way?

I started thinking about this Thursday night because of a disagreement I had with a very bright and reasonable friend of mine. He took issue with the point I made Thursday about the woman at Occupy Wall Street who talked about wanting to be taxed more on her inheritance. He’s involved with the Occupy LA protests, and he thinks it’s very reasonable to require everyone to pay taxes (determined against their will, of course) in order to pay for things that “the public” somehow decides it wants.

I tried to explain my point of view, of course, that it’s a matter of coercion — that taxes are really nothing but force or threat of force for the majority to get what it wants paid for by someone else. But he honestly can’t see my point about force. My discussion of the guns held by the agents of “the majority” seemed like hyperbole to him. He said he pays his taxes voluntarily and concluded with, “I don’t see the gun behind the tax; you seem to be focused on nothing but….”

I seem to be focused on the gun held by those who coerce us because that is the whole point. Forcing people to do things against their will — and being prepared to use violence to get their compliance — is one of the ultimate evils in my book. To my friend, it was merely a small price to pay to get the society he wants.

I think I’m right on the moral issue. My friend certainly thinks he’s right. Why aren’t we each free to choose which set of rules we want to live under?

It’s because society is currently set up in such a way that almost everyone agrees that there can be only one set of rules — so we’re forced to fight over which rules those will be. With little variation, the rules of civil society are the same everywhere in this country. Even though most of us claim to believe in freedom, nobody is free to set up his own city or enclave with its own rules. (Yes, the rules can differ at the margins, but the basics have to be pretty darned similar.)

As a result, my friend and I can’t both live in the kind of society we want. If I get my more-free society, he can’t have his society that takes money from people to pay for the things he thinks are good. If he gets his more socialist or communitarian society, I can’t have the freedom from coercion that I crave.

Why can’t we agree to allow real choice? Why can’t he have his communal paradise while I have what I want? Why do 300 million people have to live with such similar rules and so little real choice — all because the majority of voters favored some particular party or candidate on election day?

There’s no moral or practical reason we shouldn’t allow competitive governance. Until we do, we’re going to have intelligent, well-meaning people being forced to fight each other for dominance — instead of allowing everyone to choose different areas with entirely different rules.

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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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