David McElroy

Christopher Brosius is apparently an olfactory genius. He’s known for a line of perfumes evoking scents of childhood. (Among his perfumes are Clean Baby Butt, Green Bean and Baseball Glove.) But Brosius was ready for the ultimate challenge. He wanted to develop a perfume that no one could smell.

He tried all sorts of chemical combinations to get the non-smell just right. He says that his early efforts smelled terrible. Just the fact that you smelled them meant he was failing, didn’t it?

New York magazine had a long and respectful article about this a few months back. My first thought was that I kept having to check and see whether I was reading the Onion. My second thought was that this guy should work for the state.

Remember the kids’ story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes“? It was my favorite. It’s about an emperor who gets conned by a couple of crafty tailors who tell him they’ve created fine new clothes that can’t be seen by stupid or incompetent people. The emperor doesn’t want to admit that he can’t see the clothes — and neither do his other subjects — so he walks around without clothes. Then one boy speaks up to point out that the guy isn’t wearing clothes.

To me, that’s what this is. Nobody wants to admit how absurd it is to create a scent that has no scent. (Give me a cup of really clean water and I’ll sell it to you as odorless perfume at a good price.) But this is what governments do to us regularly. They control us. They take our money. They create various rules to help others — and they claim it’s all for our own good. They say it’s with “the consent of the governed.” When something is absurd and irrational, we need to be willing to say so — whether it’s about lies from the state or absurdist claims from perfumers who want to sell you perfume that’s designed not to be smelled.

I never agreed to be ruled by a state, yet philosophers and political scientists confidently speak of “the social contract” as though it’s something we voluntarily enter into. It’s a coercive fraud.

If a car dealer unilaterally parked a vehicle in your driveway and demanded that you started making payments for it — payments that he determined on a car that he chose for you — there’s little question that you would refuse.

“By what right do you make this choice for me?” you would ask. “What gives you the right to set the price and the terms? And why do you think I’m obligated to an arrangement I never agreed to?”

That’s exactly what states do, though. The idea of us all having a “social contract” with one another is supposed to make it legitimate and legal. It’s a justification that serves to keep you from demanding to be left alone.

I said something a couple of days ago about this so-called contract and I was planning to write something about it this week. But I just came across an article by Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute’s website that does a great job of showing what a sham this so-called contract is, so I’m going to ask that you read that instead. Would you sign this thing voluntarily?

Consent of the Governed?

Why do you hate people who disagree with you politically? Is it because you don’t want them to live in the way their ideas suggest? Or do you hate them because they want to force you to live by their rules?

You might protest that you don’t really hate your political opponents. OK. For the sake of argument, let’s grant the fiction that all of us here are kind-hearted and reasonable people. Let’s talk about other people. Why do you suppose liberals hate conservatives? Why do you suppose conservatives hate liberals? Why do you suppose everyone hates those weirdo fringe political groups? (I’m using “liberal” and “conservative” in their generally accepted public definitions here.)

There’s an underlying assumption in public debate today. The idea is that whatever rules the majority want, that’s the set of rules that should be imposed on everyone. What if we were free to live under different rules — whatever rules we chose for the people we chose to live with? What if the territory known as the United States, for instance, were more like a thousand little nations or cities or enclaves — whatever people voluntarily choose to make their property a part of?

That’s what some of us want. We want a thousand nations to bloom — instead of forcing everybody to live under the same set of rules that the monolithic majority choose.

My utopia isn’t the same as yours. There’s nothing wrong with that. I should be able to build my own or to live in someone else’s version of a perfect world. You should be able to do the same thing. There’s no reason for us to join with the shrieking talking heads and combatants on TV talk shows. We can choose to pursue something entirely different — where you and people who agree with you live your way.

It’s time to dream big about the future — and quit trying to force everyone to live life as we believe it ought to be lived.