Michael Mitchell: Archive

You don't have to be smart, just honest. Banning something, like guns or drugs, doesn't make it cease to exist, and forcing behavior doesn't erase free will, the power to choose disobedience.

The real error is the Utopian mentality. It leads to smug, holier-than-thou, morally superior leadership, which is ultimately no different than rulers or kings, the idea that a select group of individuals can know God or tap into our collective, generally-accepted, traditional, conventional, democratic beliefs and somehow control every individual's thoughts and actions simply by writing a rule or law down on paper somewhere or whatever and enforcing them by means of arbitrarily created punishments.

The fact that most people say they agree with that shit, whatever some perceived authority indoctrinates, it doesn't necessarily make them dumb, it makes them weak, which is the whole point of indoctrination and why it's been successful since the dawn of civilization. The separation of powers written into the Constitution was intended to save us from authoritarianism, but even if we follow it to the letter, nothing can save us from our own beliefs.

What do people really believe, though? Do all religious people, for instance, truly believe in God or are they just relenting and resigning to the psychological pressure of cultural standards because it's easier to conform than to rebel against or even question them? No one knows what's really going on in people's minds.

I think that if everyone were completely honest we'd discover very few of us fully agree with any of the major religious and social systems. We all fight and argue for our sides, but we don't really believe in them. I don't even think we can, because it's not merely an abstract, purely theoretical discussion or argument anymore. They've all been tried and they've all failed and everyone knows it, but radical change, eliminating all forced social standards, any moral or economic regulations, and simply protecting individual rights, establishing total freedom without regard for "social justice" or the "public good", is more personal responsibility than we trust each other to manage.

"Smart people understand this." No. "Smart" people usually exploit this, historically speaking, but anyone can understand it. Elitism is precisely what the world needs to be saved from -- still.