"They have no right to tell me what to do."

As Allahpundit noted in his post about CPAC booing the speaker who condemned the gay conservative group, there was another issue that caused tension.

Gambling.

The tensions didn't end [with the gay issue]. Along the back wall 2004 World Poker Champion Greg Raymer stood waiting for a talk radio interview. "Focus on the Family considers poker immoral," Raymer said, gesturing towards the Focus on the Family booth down an aisle. "They have no right to tell me what to do." Raymer is at CPAC representing the Poker Players Alliance, which is lobbying to have a 2005 ban on Internet poker lifted - literally one of the last bills passed by the GOP before they lost control of Congress. "In the privacy of our own homes, consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want," Raymer said. "Gambling is legal in America. They shouldn't be mandating how we live. If they consider it a sin, they shouldn't do it. But don't tell me I can't do it."
I couldn't possibly agree more with the proposition that "They have no right to tell me what to do." I don't like people telling me what to do, and I like to think that because I don't tell other people what to do, I ought to be able to expect the same thing from them, except the Golden Rule does not work in reverse. (So, while I won't tell them whether to own guns, they'll tell me, and while I won't tell them what kind of dogs to own or whether they should cut their nuts off, they'll tell me!)

This topic touches on a problem that has long vexed me, namely,

Who are they?

In general, there are more of them on the left than on the right, and there are more of them inside government than outside. But it this, this personality type, the kind of person who wants to tell other people what to do, is hardly unique to the left. People who want to tell other people what to do are the ones who want the jobs that are there to do just that. OTOH, people who don't want to tell other people what to do don't want such jobs. (Although it should hardly surprise anyone that authoritarians want authority and anti-authoritarians don't want authority.)

Which is why we end up being ruled by people who want to tell us what to do.

They might not have the right, but since when has that stopped them?

And how do you fight them without becoming like them? I ask this not to be argumentative, but because recently I have seen that an activist with whom I've argued over such about issues has now moved from merely advancing arguments about what people should do in their personal lives to actually being in a position of authority to tell people what to do. ("An opinion enforced at gunpoint has ceased to remain merely an opinion.") Public policy schools and the like crank out people who want to tell people what to do in assembly-line fashion. I think it is patently immoral to use government power to tell people what to do in their personal lives, yet the only way to stop people from doing that seems to be by doing the same thing. Go out and work until you too get the power to tell people what to do. What if you not only don't want such power, but you don't think it should exist and do not trust those who have it?

Write blog posts, I guess.

But writing blog posts has not stopped the people who have no right to tell me what to do from telling me what to do.

AFTERTHOUGHT: While it often seems that there is no solution to this problem, actually the solution involves the simple (IMO) recognition of the proper role of government. It is not there to take money from person A and give it to person B, or to micromanage lives and tell people what to do, because when it does, the problems it attempts to solve get worse.

Ronald Reagan put it simply when he said,

"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."

Contrast that with Jerry Pournelle's explanation of today's world (this was in 2008):

The purpose of modern government is to take money from the folks who save and pay their bills and live within their means, and use that to hire government workers; and to keep their power by using the money to buy votes from those who do not save and pay their bills and live within their means. And of course the money comes from those who work and save and pay their bills and live within their means -- who else will have any money for the government to take?

Or am I unduly cynical? But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Via Glenn Reynolds who remarked (in July of 2008),
Stay tuned.
Well, I have.

And I'm ready to change the channel!

posted by Eric on 02.20.10 at 02:55 PM





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Comments

Well, a person who doesn't want to tell other people what to do isn't going to apply for the job of telling what to do, now, is he?

People aren't running for the position of 'calm, collected, moderate', they run for the position of 'leader'. That means they want to tell people what to do and where to do it.

John Burgess   ·  February 20, 2010 06:46 PM

Absolutely right. And I think it's also a major reason libertarians don't want to serve on school boards, as committeemen, etc. They do not want (and do not like) power.

And it often seems that the only thing people who don't want power can do is complain about those who do want it. Government power exists to be used, not to be eschewed or done away with.

Eric Scheie   ·  February 20, 2010 06:58 PM

I suppose if you're telling people not to tell people what to do, your're telling people what to do. You're philosophy probably hinges on the assumption that people have control over their fate in life, when actually they have at most control over 10% of it. Much of the rest if determined by other people, so government must provide order by and aid. But if you don't believe this, I suggest you move to Somalia for a while, where the Government has as little control as anywhere.

DrTom   ·  February 21, 2010 06:14 PM

if you're telling people not to tell people what to do, your're telling people what to do

First of all, I'm talking about government and self-appointed busybodies who attempt to affirmatively run my life. Saying "LEAVE ME ALONE!" to people who have bothered me is not the same as telling people what to do, for the simple reason that it's defensive in nature. They started it. (If a guy comes up to me and holds a gun to my head and tells me I have to give him money, and I tell him to leave me alone, that does not constitute telling him what to do with his life in the sense I am complaining about. A rapist has no right to tell a woman she has to have sex, but she has every right to tell him to leave her alone.)

So, while it is true that defending one's personal rights against intrusion may technically be a form of telling people what to do, I think it's pretty apparent that it has nothing to do with my point.

Eric Scheie   ·  February 22, 2010 01:18 PM

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