Category: Liberty

Why You Should Quit Politics

Longtime readers of my blog know that I slowly became more and more disenfranchised with politics. At one point I believed, naively, that the political system could be reformed and that liberty could be reclaimed if we could just get the right people into office. I’m over that now, I realized the achieving liberty by begging our oppressors won’t gain us liberty. This is why I’ve ducked out of politics and am focusing on economic solutions and I’m not the only one:

The whole prospect compelled me to re-examine the efficacy of the political process as a means to liberty, and I’m beginning to think that this state sanctioned mechanism for change may not actually be the most appropriate means for our desired end. Perhaps it’s time to rethink all this- to demote on our priority list the stopgap measures of the political process and to begin fervently pouring our talents, energies and monies into a ‘targeted capitalism’, if you will. Liberty lovers everywhere intentionally targeting state-monopolized resources and disintegrating those monopolies through the capitalist process. These means are by nature decentralizing and can be pursued while completely disregarding the will of power. Enough of this pleading with our oppressors not to oppress us so much! Let’s stop being depressed victims of the state and instead start imagining all the endless opportunities its incompetencies create! In the process, we can be around people we like, create wealth by offering real value for the masses, live adventurously, with a clean conscience, and most importantly, live free.

In order to remove the state’s interference from our lives we must make the state irrelevant. So long as they maintain monopolies on needed resources people will continue to falsely believe that those resources wouldn’t be available without the state. How many times have you heard the argument that the state is necessary to build and maintain roads, provide welfare to the poor, and ensure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink? Those of us that argue markets can provide all of those things are often doubted. Market skeptics don’t consider the fact that the state prevents such goods from being provided on a free market, they just know that those goods aren’t currently being provided by a free market.

If we want liberty we must step up to the plate and begin challenging the state’s monopolies. We must demonstrate that the state isn’t required to provide goods and services. Once the state has proven to be irrelevant individuals may finally start questioning why they’re paying great deals of wealth to it.

The history of the United States has demonstrated one thing: the political process isn’t an effective means of achieving liberty. In the 236 years this country has been in existence we’ve seen the state grab more and more power. The Articles of Confederation were quickly replaced by the Constitution, which granted the federal government the power to tax. When states tried to leave the United States they were forced back into the Union by a Civil War. In the name of fighting communism more and more spying powers were granted to the federal government. Now we face an almost all-powerful state that claims control over all social and economic issues. It cements its power by preventing others from providing wanted services or helping one another. The state claims it’s necessary to help the poor, sick, and hungry and then prevents others from helping the poor, sick, and hungry. It validates itself by preventing others from doing what it does. Time has come to say “Enough is enough!” We need to start challenging the state’s monopolies, we need to demonstrate that individuals are capable of helping one another. Honestly, we all need to start businesses (not state sanctioned businesses, just businesses).

The Most Frightening People

I’ve been reading through R. J. Rummel’s Death by Government, which is honestly the best argument against the state ever written. A common theme runs through the book, the most dangerous individuals are those who are so sure of their ideology that they’re willing to kill others in its name.

The Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Nazi Germany (among many others) shared a common trait, any dissidence was punished severely. One of the examples noted in the book is the fact that an individual could find himself in a forced labor camp for disrespecting Mao’s Little Red Book. That book was treated like a religious text, which is funny in a rather twisted way because Communism claims to be an atheistic philosophy (which isn’t true, they merely replace the god(s) of religion with the god of the state). Mao was so sure of his ideology that merely disrespecting the book he wrote was a punishable offense.

Statism is frightening because it gives these people a platform from which to inflict their beliefs on others. Let’s look at the healthcare debate (no, I’m not claiming that debate is anywhere near the scale of the atrocities inflicted on the people of the above mentioned countries so don’t bother making such a claim). Proponents of the Affordable Healthcare Act and universal healthcare are absolutely sure that their solution is the correct one. They’re so sure of their belief that they’re willing to use the state’s gun to inflict it on the entire population of the United States. Just look at the consequences laid out in the Affordable Healthcare Act for those who don’t buy health insurances, they’re taxed (or fined, use whatever word you want as they all mean the same thing). As with any tax, the tax collected for not buying health insurance isn’t voluntary, not paying it will result is punishment (in all likelihood the state will steal actual assets from you).

Gun control is another example of an ideological belief whose proponents are so sure of that they’re willing to use physical force to make others comply. When somebody advocates for gun control what they’re really demanding is the state inflicting punishments on anybody who owns or manufactures a firearm. Once again the gun control advocates are demanding the deceptively named assault weapon ban be reinstated. What would that actually do? It would mean the state would punish, primarily through kidnapping and imprisonment, anybody in possession of a firearm that met the criteria set forth by the state to qualify as an assault weapon. Those who refused to comply with their kidnappers would find themselves at the receiving end of physical force; they may even find themselves shot dead by the state’s agents. According to the ideology of gun control I should be subjected to violence for merely owning an AR-15 even though I’ve never used it to commit an act of violence.

Individuals wanting to prohibit same sex marriages are also so sure of their ideology that they’re willing to use physical force to inflict it on others. The United States government grants married individuals benefits that single individuals do not get. What happens when two men or two women claim themselves to be married and file for taxes and benefits accordingly? In the case of taxes they’ll find themselves at the wrong end of an Internal Revenue Service (revenuers) audit and forced collection. In the case of other benefits they will likely find themselves facing charges of fraud. Both cases result in the state’s gun being pointed at the individuals.

What happened in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Nazi Germany was the epitome of statism. All three states claimed total dominion over the lives of those living within their borders and all three states were willing to inflict physical violence on dissidents. When somebody demands the state regulate the healthcare market, prohibit individuals from owning firearms, or ban same sex marriages they’re demanding the state claim more power and, as Death by Government demonstrates, the more power a state has the more people it will kill.

My opposition of the state stems from my fear of individuals who are so sure of their ideology that they’re willing to kill for them. The state not only gives these individuals a weapon to use but also masks them so that they can use the weapon anonymously and thus avoid repercussions. Nothing is as dangerous as a man on a crusade who has been availed of any consequences.

Perhaps I Have Some Influence

Walter Block said the pen is mightier than the sword because the pen is used to direct the sword. Part of the reason I write is to be another voice in the crowd. When there is one person exclaiming an idea it’s easy to claim that person is a kook but if there are hundreds or thousands of people exclaiming an idea others are more apt to listen. I consider myself another voice in support of gun rights and market anarchism, in effect I’m trying to help direct the hypothetical “sword” (which is really public opinion) against gun control and the state. It appears as though I’m having some minor influence on those around me because I’ve seen a few friends who I don’t believe were previously in support of (or, more accurately, aware of) market anarchism sharing the following picture:


Image obtained from Stateless Sweets Facebook page

Perhaps I’m having some influence.

We’re all Terrorists

When it comes to politics there are large perceived divides. One of the most notable today is the apparent divide between the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Members of the Tea Party movement accuse members of the Occupy movement of being godless communists who want to redistribute the country’s wealth. Meanwhile members of the Occupy movement accuse members of the Tea Party movement of being fascists who advocate violent solutions and hate the poor. What could these two organizations have in common? They’re both fall under the state’s criteria for potential terrorist organization [PDF]:

Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

Extreme Left-Wing: groups that want to bring about change through violent revolution rather than through established political processes. This category also includes secular left-wing groups that rely heavily on terrorism to overthrow the capitalist system and either establish “a dictatorship of the proletariat” (Marxist-Leninists) or, much more rarely, a decentralized, non-hierarchical political system (anarchists).

Religious: groups that seek to smite the purported enemies of God and other evildoers, impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists), forcibly insert religion into the political sphere (e.g., those who seek to politicize religion, such as Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists), and/or bring about Armageddon (apocalyptic millenarian cults; 2010: 17). For example, Jewish Direct Action, Mormon extremist, Jamaat-al-Fuqra, and Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) are included in this category.

Ethno-Nationalist/Separatist: regionally concentrated groups with a history of organized political autonomy with their own state, traditional ruler, or regional government, who are committed to gaining or regaining political independence through any means and who have supported political movements for autonomy at some time since 1945.

Single Issue: groups or individuals that obsessively focus on very specific or narrowly-defined causes (e.g., anti-abortion, anti-Catholic, anti-nuclear, anti-Castro). This category includes groups from all sides of the political spectrum.

One thing is for certain, if you’re not an obedient dog of the state you are a potential terrorist. This is something we all have to realize, it’s not about left versus right or conservatives versus progressives, it’s about us versus the state. According to the state the Tea Party movement are right-wing extremists while the Occupy movement are left-wing extremists. Are you a single issue voter or a member of a single issue organization? Then you’re a potential single issue terrorist. Do you strongly believe in a religion? Then you’re a potential religious terrorist. Are you an advocate for secession? Then you fit the criteria of an ethno-separatist terrorist.

Many people in the gun rights community have raged at the statement about individuals “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and/or “reverent of individual liberty” being a sign of terroristic potential but didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at the other groups. When I read through this document I realized that, according to the state, we’re all terrorists. It doesn’t matter if you’re left-wing or right-wing, a Tea Party member or an Occupy member, an advocate of individual liberty or a believer in collectivism, we’re all enemies in the eyes of the state. Anybody who rocks the boat is a potential enemy. To quote George Carlin:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.

Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it…

That’s what the state wants. Anybody who doesn’t fit their mold is automatically considered a potential threat. What really hurts is that the state is either brilliant, the majority of the human race is incredibly stupid, or both. Instead of fighting those who are currently taking our shit, putting us in cages for disobeying their decrees, and actively killing people they dislike we’re fighting each other. The state has us fighting each other instead of fighting them. They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in which case we’re all friends of the state because we’re all enemies of the state. The right accuses the left of wanting to take everybody’s shit while the left accuses the right of wanting to throw the poor out onto the street. While this debate about hypotheticals is waged the state is actively taking everybody’s shit and throwing the poor out onto the street while also convincing both the left and the right that it’s the only thing stopping their opponents from achieving their goals. It should come as no surprise that an entity built entirely upon violence and deception is so exceedingly good at violence and deception.

Perhaps we should stop fighting amongst each other and start fighting our common enemy, the state. One thing we can all agree on whether we’re anarchists, socialists, progressives, or constitutionalists is this: the current state of affairs is unsuitable. So long as the status quo is maintained our debates are hypothetical since we’re not free to enact the plans we believe are best.

Why Opponents of Capitalism Should Oppose Publicly Funded Healthcare

One of my friends who I would describe as Marxist made a post on Facebook exclaiming that yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling was a good step but the endgame is a publicly funded single-payer healthcare system. I found it strange that an opponent of capitalism would advocate for a publicly funded healthcare system.

Let’s consider for a moment one of the most often brought up criticisms of capitalism by Marxists. According to Marxism the laborer/capitalist relationship is exploitative. The capitalist is said to exploit the laborer by taking a portion of the laborer’s productive capacity, which is kept by the capitalist as profit. Under this criteria a publicly funded healthcare option must also be seen as exploitative. Instead of the capitalist taking a portion of the laborer’s productive capacity the state is. The only effective difference, under Marxism, between the capitalist/laborer relationship and the state/laborer relationship would be who is performing the exploitation.

This is one of those inconsistencies in Marxism that is usually overlooked by its advocates. Somehow a capitalist that takes a potion of a person’s productive capability is an exploiter while a state that takes a portion of a person’s productive capability is benevolent. I never understood this belief and no Marxist has ever been able to adequately explain it to me. Of course not all communists follow such absurdities, on the topic of healthcare I turn to an anarcho-communist (the only kind of communist I respect, even though I disagree with them) named Peter Kropotkin. Kropotkin wrote Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution where he correctly observed the generally cooperative nature of animal life, specifically humans. He concluded that humans beings are cooperative and that cooperation among a species is necessary for survival.

History demonstrates Kropotkin’s point as the voluntary solution reached by humans to help those in need was mutual aid. There was never a need for the state to enter the healthcare market and in fact their entering the market is what caused it to be the mess it is today. Before the state there were mutual aid societies that individuals voluntarily joined to pool their resources for the good of the membership. New members who were down on their luck were accepted into these societies without demands for payment as it was understood the members would begin paying once they got back on their feet.

Any state controlled healthcare system is exploitative because the relationship between the state and laborer, unlike the relationship between a capitalist and laborers, isn’t voluntary. If an individual fails to pay into a state controlled system they find themselves the victim of kidnapping or even violence if they should choose to resist. I’m not sure how a person who believes capitalism to be an exploitative system can support a publicly funded system of any sort.

The Paradoxical Philosophy of Obedience

As a general rule if your philosophy involves paradoxes then it’s not a good philosophy. Supporters of authoritarian philosophies have this problem, they preach that we must followed a strong leader in order to be free. What these people don’t see is that one cannot be free if they are following mindlessly, which is why this New York Times column is nothing but dribble:

These days many Americans seem incapable of thinking about these paradoxes. Those “Question Authority” bumper stickers no longer symbolize an attempt to distinguish just and unjust authority. They symbolize an attitude of opposing authority.

The old adversary culture of the intellectuals has turned into a mass adversarial cynicism. The common assumption is that elites are always hiding something. Public servants are in it for themselves. Those people at the top are nowhere near as smart or as wonderful as pure and all-knowing Me.

There is a reason the common assumption is that elites are always hiding something, because they are. Public “servants” are in it for themselves. All actions are based on self-interest and politics is the art of force. Politicians are people who have decided to use the means of force to achieve their end of self-interest. Since people generally respond poorly to being forced into action the politicians must hide their intentions, they must wrap their political interests in a layer of “greater good” and “public service.”

You end up with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties that try to dispense with authority altogether. They reject hierarchies and leaders because they don’t believe in the concepts. The whole world should be like the Internet — a disbursed semianarchy in which authority is suspect and each individual is king.

What? Both groups believe in authority. Occupy Wall Street generally believes in authority of the masses, commonly referred to as democracy. The Tea Party generally believes in the authority of the republic and representatives (otherwise they wouldn’t move to get desired representatives elected). Of course, according to the author’s beliefs, I can see why he would think both movements oppose authority altogether:

Maybe before we can build great monuments to leaders we have to relearn the art of following. Democratic followership is also built on a series of paradoxes: that we are all created equal but that we also elevate those who are extraordinary; that we choose our leaders but also have to defer to them and trust their discretion; that we’re proud individuals but only really thrive as a group, organized and led by just authority.

I don’t know if America has a leadership problem; it certainly has a followership problem.

In other words we should all learn to be good little slaves and shut the hell up. I’m curious what this man would have been writing before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. It’s obvious that he would have supported the “just authority” of the British king but I’m curious how he would justify it. Now that I think about it, I’m curious how he justifies supporting “just authority” now. For all the talk the author makes about “just authority” he never actually says what kind of authority is just. Is devine authority just? Is a person elected by popular vote granted just authority? Is the most heavily armed individual a holder of just authority? The author never says, he only says that we must obey just authority.

Just authority can only be voluntarily granted on an individual basis. You can choose to delegate authority over aspects of your life to another. I cannot choose somebody to rule over your life though, just as you cannot choose somebody to rule over my life. This automatically means democracies are not just, just because the majority of people agree on something doesn’t mean it’s right (a majority of people once believed the Earth was flat after all). Likewise, just because a larger group voted to grant a man authority over a geographic region doesn’t make it right. The people of Iceland had the right idea during their 300 years of statelessness. Individuals could voluntarily agree to recognize the authority of a godi and if that godi was no longer to an individual’s liking they could seek another (and his choices weren’t restricted by geographic regions). That form of authority could be considered just as it was voluntarily granted and could be reclaimed at the granter’s choosing.

I will give the author credit on one thing, he’s one of the few authoritarians who actually admits that paradoxes exist in his philosophy. He doesn’t properly identify them or realizes that the existence of paradoxes should indicate one reexamine their beliefs, but he at least acknowledges they are there.

Eventually People Tire of Abuse

I belong to a rather small club. While libertarians are rare enough in the United States I’m a member of an even more exclusive club, voluntaryists. Unlike constitutional libertarians or minarchists, voluntaryists oppose the state in its entirety. We don’t want a small state or a minimum state, we don’t want any state at all. This obviously makes me sound a little kooky to a majority of the population (and probably a great deal of my readers) and it would seem I’ve set myself out for failure as ridding civilization of the state appears to be an insurmountable task. As they say, nothing worth doing is easy. I do hold out hope because history has demonstrated that people will only allow themselves to be pushed around for so long before they fight back.

Let’s take a look at some groups that finally had enough and decided to oppose the status quo. One of my favorite examples is this very country I live in. At one point the United States wasn’t the United States, it was a British colony. The British king wasn’t a very smart man. A smart man that ruled over vast territories would have contented himself with mostly leaving people alone. Instead he kept pushing the colonists. Wanting to bleed the colonists for more money the British kind decreed that all published material in the United States carry an official stamp that had to be purchased. From there things just kept getting worse. The powder keg really started smoldering with minor acts of civil disobedience, such as throwing ship loads of tea into the sea. Eventually the colonists got fed up with the king and decided to toss him and his people out.

All was not well in the newly formed United States though. Regardless of the claims made by some during the early days of this country, all were not created equal. Slavery was still legal and women didn’t have the right to participate in political matters. Needless to say women eventually became sick of having all political decisions made by men and thus began the women’s suffrage movement. Members of the suffrage movement held massive demonstrations. Although it seems rather absurd today there was actually a very strong anti-suffrage movement during the time and opponents to women’s suffrage went so far as to physically attack demonstrators (it should go without saying that the police did little to prevent such attacks). In the end the nineteenth amendment was passed.

African Americans had a longer fight. Even though slavery ended after the Civil War the newly freed African Americans found themselves treated like shit. Jim Crow laws were passed that dictated public facilities could be separated based on race so long as they were “equal.” In reality facilities for blacks were seldom, if ever, equal to facilities for whites. Other laws dictated that blacks sitting in the front of the bus had to surrender their seat to any white person wanting it. Even interracial marriage was restricted. Like the American population and women before them, eventually the African Americans got fed up with the inhumane way they were treated and began the Civil Rights Movement. Though massive acts of civil disobedience the Civil Rights Movement eventually overcame the obstacles put in their way by the state. The Jim Crow laws were wiped from the slate, blacks were no longer required to surrender preferred seats to whites, and blacks were allowed to marry whites.

Speaking of marriage, we’re currently in the middle of another battle that revolves around the state’s control of the institution. Much like Jim Crow laws in the past attempt to treat blacks like second class citizens, bans on same sex marriages are attempting to do the same for homosexuals. The gay community has come a long ways over the years. Gone are the days when brilliant minds who reshaped the entire world were chemically castrated for being gay and police routinely harassed homosexuals. Things didn’t come this far because the state became benevolent and decided to stop harassing homosexuals, things came this far because the homosexual community decided they had enough. In 1969 the police decided to raid a gay club and the people at the club rebelled. They pelted the police officers with anything at hand and a riot broke out. Thankfully their battle is concluding and I suspect the idea of prohibiting marriage based on gender will become as an absurd a thought as banning marriage based on race.

My point in this post is that every battle, no matter how insurmountable it appears, can be won in the long run. Whether the battle for true liberty will be one by quick destruction of the state or through a slow and deliberate movement is unknown to me (although I’m guessing the latter). History demonstrates that people are only willing to take so much shit until they finally declare that they’ve had enough. Eventually people will tire of having their shit taken and violence brought against them when they violate random state decrees and will fight back. My desire is that when the fight comes it will be peaceful with counter-economics and civil disobedience being the primary tools. In fact part of the reason I write about such tactics is because those are the ones I want to see used. Violent revolutions seem to turn out badly in the long run while revolutions that take place through education seem to turn out well for everybody.

The Task at Hand

We’ve all heard the phrase “The pen is mightier than the sword.” The reason for this is that the pen directs where the sword is pointed. Beyond my own amusement, the primary reason I write this blog is to be another voice of liberty. Today libertarian ideas are generally considered fringe, kooky, and unworkable. This is the reason, as Henry Hazlitt explained, libertarians need to propagate their ideals:

From time to time over the last 30 years, after I have talked or written about some new restriction on human liberty in the economic field, some new attack on private enterprise, I have been asked in person or received a letter asking, “What can I do” — to fight the inflationist or socialist trend? Other writers or lecturers, I find, are often asked the same question.

The answer is seldom an easy one. For it depends on the circumstances and ability of the questioner — who may be a businessman, a housewife, a student, informed or not, intelligent or not, articulate or not. And the answer must vary with these presumed circumstances.

The general answer is easier than the particular answer. So here I want to write about the task now confronting all libertarians considered collectively.

[…]

We libertarians cannot content ourselves merely with repeating pious generalities about liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. To assert and repeat these general principles is absolutely necessary, of course, either as prologue or conclusion. But if we hope to be individually or collectively effective, we must individually master a great deal of detailed knowledge, and make ourselves specialists in one or two lines, so that we can show how our libertarian principles apply in special fields, and so that we can convincingly dispute the proponents of statist schemes for public housing, farm subsidies, increased relief, bigger Social Security benefits, bigger Medicare, guaranteed incomes, bigger government spending, bigger taxation, especially more progressive income taxation, higher tariffs or import quotas, restrictions or penalties on foreign investment and foreign travel, price controls, wage controls, rent controls, interest rate controls, more laws for so-called consumer protection, and still tighter regulations and restrictions on business everywhere.

We must become knowledgeable and use that knowledge to combat the falsities spread by collectivists. As Hazlitt said, there are simply too many areas where specific knowledge is needed and thus we must each choose areas of focus. My focus was first on gun rights and self-defense and is now on the fallacy of the state, economics, and environmentalism. Environmentalism was one I chose because there simply aren’t enough libertarians focusing on the subject. I’ve seen people join the libertarian camp in all aspects besides environmentalism, they still feel the state is necessary to regulate environmental issues. The reason for this is because most libertarians fail to explain how free markets can actually protect the environment better than statism.

I dabble in other areas but do not consider myself anywhere near an expert. What about yourself? Do you feel you have an understanding of libertarianism? Can you articulate practical libertarian solutions and/or libertarian philosophy? Perhaps you could start a blog of your own, write a book, give speeches, or work in some other manner to propagate libertarianism.

We have our work cut out for us.

The Failure of Centralizing Power

I live in a country where power is becoming increasingly centralized. More and more decisions are being made on the federal level while fewer and allowed to be made at the state, county, city, and individual level. The banning of gay marriage in North Carolina demonstrates the flaw with centralized power quite effectively:

Earlier this month, Amendment 1 — an amendment to the North Carolina state constitution that precludes the state from recognizing gay marriage, among various other kinds of domestic partnership — was passed by voters. Much has already been made of the bill’s discriminatory content, the former need to “vote against,” and the current need for repeal, but much of this looks more like an exercise in missing the point than anything else.

In the end, the problem with Amendment 1 is not so much that this election was decided in one direction and not the other, but rather that we live in a society content to employ statewide voting as a means of collective decision making in the first place.

One of the problems with a statewide referendum on the issue of gay marriage, or any domestic matter, is that it implicitly assumes that the state — as opposed to the county, city, neighborhood, place of business, or any other pool of people — is the appropriate unit for collective decision making. It suggests that state residency is a common denominator fundamental enough to bind 9.7 million people to one another’s opinions, interests, and backgrounds — complex, diverse, and contradictory though they may be. It contends that it is morally acceptable for 93 counties to decide an issue not only for themselves but for the remaining seven as well. And it denies a man — or two, or several — the opportunity to lead his life as he, and not as his distant neighbors, sees fit.

The larger the collective decision making group is the worse things get. Most countries define decision making groups on arbitrary borders. In the United States decisions made on a federal level affect over 300 million individuals. Decisions made on a state level in Minnesota affect 5 million people. Any decision made by the city of Minneapolis affects almost 400,000 people. To many this doesn’t seem like a bad thing, after all they wish to push their morals onto as many people as possible. There are many religious individuals who would love to pass a law that established their religion as the state religion on a federal level. They don’t care about the, likely, hundreds of millions of individuals who don’t share their religious beliefs.

Collective decision making fails due to the fact human beings are not insects, as much as the collectivists wish we were. There is no human hive, individuals do not mindlessly follow the orders of a queen be. We are each rational beings capable of making decisions independent of one another. As a group of individuals becomes larger the chances of successful collective decision making decreases.

It is the epitome of arrogance to believe you know what is best for another individual. That arrogance doesn’t go away simply because an arbitrary number of people agree with one another. Every person who voted on Amendment 1 in North Carolina was saying, “I know what’s best for everybody in this state.” When somebody advocates for collectivist philosophies they are saying the previously mentioned arrogance goes away when decisions are made by groups. If the group decides to ban gay marriage then it must obviously be the correct decision, right? No, in fact making an argument on such grounds is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum.

The United States needs to wrestle power from the federal government and return it to the hands of the individual states. Once the individual states have the ability to make decisions that power must be wrestled away from them and returned to the counties. This process needs to continue until decision making power is put into the hands of individuals.