They say, "If you need car insurance to own a car, then you should need health insurance because you own your body."
Also, "If you take drugs from strangers, or eat McDonald's, then you should have no problem taking what's in the vaccine."
Alternatively: "If you need a license to operate a car, then you should need a permit to operate a gun, because they're both deadly weapons."
To that, I say "fuck that shit". The fact that you are wasting your freedoms does not mean that I have to give up mine.
The idea that I should give one freedom up because I seemed to surrender another, is a false equivalency. In part, because it assumes that everybody thinks about rights, and connects them to each other, in the same way. It assumes that if they tolerate one thing, they should tolerate another. It assumes that people are ideologues who do and should behave predictably.
What you see as me "surrendering a right" might just have been me making a decision. The only right you surrender, in the act of making a decision, is the right to know what will happen if you make a different decision. It does not mean your future decisions all have to be consistent, nor that they all have to conform to somebody else's ideas of consistent logic.
The lines of logic used to justify this mode of thought do not even make sense. First, it's arguable whether we really "own" our bodies, or whether we are our bodies. Second, you can't avoid having a body as easily as you can avoid having a car or a gun.
Third, a person has the freedom to put into their body anything they want, as long as they don't harm others. So if a person's feelings about drugs, food, and medicine do not conform to your preconceived notions about how a person should make decisions about health, then just remember... that is somebody else's body you are talking about.
Mind your own business. If they want your advice on health or safety, then they will ask you for it.
Moreover, there are about eight hundred toxic chemicals which are inside of our bodies right now, many of which are legal and F.D.A.-approved. Some came into our lungs after we breathed polluted air; others came from cheaply made consumer products. And some of them are more common and thus more difficult to avoid than others.
Should the fact that I tolerate one toxic chemical (because I can't avoid it), mean that I should tolerate a second? What about a third? And so on, until I'm tolerating the fact that my body is full of 800 of them? Simply because I smoke weed, or take LSD at a festival, or eat Burger King every once in a while? Hell no! [I mean, if I'm smoking cigarettes, feel free to remind me that several hundred toxic chemicals are found in them. Especially if I started smoking near you without asking you if it's OK first. As Ron Paul has said, "Freedom is the right to tell people things they don't want to hear."]
The fact that you were recently exposed to a certain level of toxic chemicals, does not, and should not, mean that you ought to be exposed to more (unless that is your wish). If anything, it means that you have probably had all the toxins that you can take for a while, and that you deserve to take a break from being full of toxins.
Stop expecting people to go on suicide missions solely for the sake of appearing to remain consistent to you. Just as "the Constitution is not a suicide pact", neither is a friendship. We should build each other up - and say "I believe you and I encourage you if you say you're trying to quit this substance" - instead of knocking each other down and holding them to how "cool" or "chill" or "lax" they have been in the past.
Life is about more than chilling out, and tolerating other people's (or your own) bad behavior and moral back-sliding. It is about defeating evildoers, and overcoming the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals. We can't afford the costs of holding each other back.
The Obamacare mandate to purchase health insurance is not currently being enforced, because it's dying in the courts. So why not use this opportunity to say "If I don't need health insurance (to own my own body), then I shouldn't need car insurance either"?
We don't even really "need" health insurance, nor car insurance; we just think we do because people older than we are, made laws that require us to have those things. You don't die if you run out of money, or insurance; you die if you run out of air, water, food, and medicine, or if one or more of your major organ systems collapse.
If we don't need insurance or money to live, and alternative accreditation systems exist outside the state and yet are not in violation of its laws - then why not say "I don't need a license or a permit to do anything, because I was born free, and because of the content of the 9th Amendment"?
[Note: Amendment IX affirms that we have rights which are not listed in the Constitution. These are called "unenumerated rights", which is distinct from the concept of Congress having unenumerated powers.]
We rarely cite the fact that others are more free than we are, any more, to justify getting more freedom instead of less.
[Note: an important exception to this, is the 14th Amendment incorporation clause, which empowers people to have their freedoms recognized in their states, because other states have recognized their own citizens' freedom to do the same, and the federal government cannot logically say that something is a right in one state but not in another.]
In the Trump era, many of his supporters have used the fact that other countries are "shitholes" run by tyrants, who mistreat dissidents and people who try to come into their countries illegally, to justify gassing protesters and gassing people at the border. This is not acceptable; it is "what-about-ism". It is the idea that if somebody else did something worse than what you did, then what you did is OK.
Likewise, when someone tries to tell you "You should put up with Y injustice because you put up with X injustice in the past", just tell them either "I was wrong" or "I could tolerate X, but I can't tolerate Y, and that's my decision." Unless it affects them directly, they have no right to interfere in your decision. They can complain all they want, because they have free speech, but they cannot rightfully interfere unless you betrayed them or harmed them, or your decision will harm them.
You do not get to tell others that they have to accept ever-declining standards, just because they have made several poor or inconsistent decisions in their lives. You do not have the right to berate someone who changes their mind, unless you have signed a contract with them.
We do not have to do jack shit. The only thing we need to do is stop writing laws that make it harder and more expensive for us - and more profitable for the government - for us to exercise our rights.
If you respect me and my rights – and want your own rights respected – then you will respect my boundaries and the fact that I am an individual (and the fact that individuals, alone, make decisions), and you will leave me alone to fix my own problems, and refrain from giving me unwanted advice or pressuring me into accepting unwanted assistance from you or the government.
If you want to respect my boundaries, as a libertarian – that is, as a person who values the need for informed consent above all else – then you will not aggress against me nor threaten me, you will not pressure me to spend money that I do not have or haven't earned yet, and you will not tell me that I have to sacrifice my boundaries or my needs in order to hang out with you.
This includes my right to safety, and to peace and quiet, and to staying out of handcuffs!
If you respect me, and my right to be informed about what's going on around me, then you will not steal or commit other crimes while you are around me without notifying me first. And that should go whether the crime or infraction has victims or not.
I can't tell you how many times I've been shopping with friends, only to discover at the checkout line that they intended to steal. It creates a huge imposition on me and puts me in a dilemma! It is not fair to spring something like that onto somebody with little notice.
It's not that I think someone shouldn't consider shoplifting if they're desperate, and I am certainly not trying to defend the police or wealthy sellers and big corporations. If you are my friend, and you need something so badly that you're considering stealing it, then I will buy it for you! Just ask me. I don't want either of us to go to jail!
If you have a child or a pet to take care of, and you're in public holding on to them while committing crimes, then you are not a responsible person. Whoever you're with, while you're stealing or getting arrested, is going to have to figure out what to do with your dog or your kid while you're in jail.
The level of carelessness that some people make excuses for having in their lives is really astounding sometimes. Not that I am entirely blameless. I can't tell you how many places I've possessed marijuana without getting the permission of the proprietor. But I at least know well enough not to use my family and friends as getaway cars after buying marijuana. You have to think about the consequences of your actions, from the perspective of the worst possible way it could potentially affect someone.
You may say, "Yeah, but it's not wrong." So what? Something "not being wrong" is not a good enough reason, in and of itself, to do something. You should want to do things that are right, not just things that are "not wrong".
Who do you think pays for the losses from shoplifting? Insurance companies, if the stores are insured. But those costs don't come out of the C.E.O.'s pocket; they're borne (like the majority of the company's costs) by the company's lowest paid employees. Those are the people who get shafted in order to pay for other things the company thinks it needs.
But do companies really need security, and on-premises detention of shoplifters? No, they need to lower their fucking prices to something we can afford, so the markets can clear, so the foods aren't left rotting on the shelves, necessitating toxic preservatives that harm our health, in order to keep them "fresh" and marketable.
So if we're at a store together, please, don't make me into your unwilling accomplice, and risk me going to jail, just because you want an extra item in your pantry. Even if it's a gift for me! I didn't ask for it.
Don't fucking do things to people without their consent and knowledge, whether it affects them positively or negatively! [Unless, of course, you're giving them a surprise gift and you know they like surprises, and aren't bothered by the attention involved in having their birthday celebrated, etc..] Do this for the simple reason that "one man's trash is another man's treasure".
In economics, affecting people positively or negatively without their awareness and consent, is called externalizing transaction costs. You are imposing a cost upon them, as the price of hanging out with you. That price takes the form of bullshit surprises that you spring on people, which make them uncomfortable, and pressure them into helping you over helping themselves.
This is called being interpersonally exploitative. In each transaction and social interaction, we should make sure that the interests of everybody involved, are aligned; but that doesn't mean that each person should feel empowered to shamelessly take advantage of every situation to ensure that they benefit the most.
More reasons not to give people gifts for which they didn't ask, include the facts that: 1) what you think will help a person, might be something they think of as causing them to become more dependent upon you for that thing; and 2) they might not know whether and how to get you back for it.
When we shop together, I don't want you to get arrested, but if you act like an idiot, and it's either you or me, the fact that you are my friend does not obligate me to cover for you. Certainly not instead of myself. Certainly not when I would have to make up a lie and put myself in danger for a friend's stupid thoughtless decision. Shoplifting is not always wrong, but that doesn't make it a good idea that's worth going to jail for! If you're going to steal, and there's nothing I can do about it, then at least let me know ahead of time, so I can run, or else be prepared to sock a security guard in the face.
Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to have to consider asking your friend, "Hey, uh... You're not gonna steal from Wal-Mart, are you?" before there's any indication that they would, because of their past history? Do you know how awkward it is to ask someone, "You paid for that, right?" or "You're gonna pay for that, right"? and hear them shush you?
I don't play that shit. That creates an imposition on me to shut up about your bullshit. You do not have the right to get your friends in trouble and then pass it off as harmless fun. Some people are trying to work and maintain normal jobs and have families and avoid jail. That's different from being a buzzkill. If you have a child, then you shouldn't be stealing in front of them, unless you're prepared to defend that decision with force.
Not that I don't have sympathy for people who steal, or for my friends. If you're reading this and you're thinking, "Just don't hang out with people who steal, or are likely to steal", then to that, I say, "Easier said than done, asshole." At least half of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. Nobody has any money. Shoplifting is the least of my concerns, morally. But that doesn't give people the right to make me into an unwilling accomplice of theft without my consent or knowledge.
Consensual transactions and interactions require informed consent, which requires knowledge of the choices available, and a total lack of external pressure, and the right to make your decision final without others continuing to ask you a question you have answered over and over again.
Don't ask me if I want to do something until I say yes. That is "not taking 'no' for an answer". That may be acceptable in sales, but it is certainly not acceptable in the bedroom, and it shouldn't be acceptable in public social interactions.
Not taking "no" for an answer sexually is what a rapist does; so take "no" for an answer socially, or you will be the social version of a rapist.
Voluntary exchange requires mutual benefit, in addition to consent. If someone is sacrificing in order to participate in a social interaction or an economic exchange, then it should be asked: “Why is that person sacrificing, while others are not?”
But this should be asked, not in order to punish those who are not sacrificing, but rather, in order to make sure that nobody is sacrificing (unless it is necessary and they genuinely want to).
If a social interaction, or an economic transaction, does not benefit all people involved and affected, then it should not occur, and the people involved should go their separate ways. That is how you produce free decisions that are also fair.
Decisions which don't harm anyone, but do benefit everyone involved (or at least they don't harm anyone involved), are called Pareto improvements, after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. These are the necessary conditions for mutually beneficial voluntary exchange.
We must end the culture of pressuring others to accept lower standards. We must stop brow-beating each other into prioritizing consistency over self-growth and self-improvement.
We must also stop tolerating people who we reasonably believe are deliberately ignoring our boundaries just to mess with us or to test us.
It's time to start respecting others. It was always time to respect others. But if we don't bother to find out what each other's boundaries, limitations, and needs are, then we aren't going to understand how to respect them.
People need to communicate with each other. We can't just have people committing crimes around their friends and having awkward conversations in the middle of the store about whether we'll be paying for this.
We can't have protesters and counter-protesters coming up to each other and trying to quash each other's right to be there while they're right there on the sidewalk and there are no police officers around to resolve the dispute.
We can't go on just not coordinating with each other. We must deliver on our promises. But we also must find away to avoid punishing people too severely for changing their minds, and one of the ways to do this is to make sure we are not pressuring the people around us to set unrealistic goals.
And we must not expect others to allow their moral standards to slip just because they have agreed to hang out with us.
This is how we stop the back-slide, and the regression, of freedom. This is how we stop a society desirous of freedom, from collapsing into a "slippery slope" to tyranny that refuses to recognize that freedom is (almost) free, and doesn't require any trial by fire. We are born free and innocent, so why should we come into the world owing anybody anything?
The only cost of freedom is the effort we expend respecting others' freedom. The only costs of freedom are self-responsibility, self-control, humility, and adequate communication with others.
This is how to respect me. What about you? Does this sound unreasonable? Or just familiar?
To read a more in-depth discussion of Ninth Amendment issues, and how license and permit systems limit our freedoms, please read my 2015 / 2016 article "Papers, Please!?: Freedom vs. Permission", which is available at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2015/12/papers-please-freedom-vs-permission.html
Based on a post published in early January 2021
Edited and expanded on January 7th, 2021
