Mises Wire

What They Really Mean When They Say “Do the Right Thing”

As a senior in high school, I ran for class president with “Do the right thing” as my campaign slogan. Though I realized years ago how utterly pretentious that message is, I’m often reminded that it’s good politics, which proves the point that politics is poison. To vote for someone else is to “do the wrong thing,” and you don’t want to be a bad person, do you? It’s a sinister trick that comes in many phrases—all of which are highly effective in duping the majority—yet democracy is still deified. Just as “the science” insults the scientific method, “the right thing” has the capacity to reduce peaceful interactions. How can “the right thing” be peaceful if it isn’t consensual? If the “right” thing is imposed, the thing is wrong.

Why would “the right thing” require blind obedience? If the thing were right, dissenters wouldn’t be punished. Accepting that I was arrogant to tell my senior class what is or isn’t right, imagine the hubris required to dictate morality to a third of a billion Americans. The US president recently chastised certain governors who “aren’t willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic,” but why does the Biden regime presume to know what’s right for, say, Texans? First of all, pandemics are “beaten” only when they become endemic. Yes, involuntary (read: “political”) action can hasten that process, but at what cost? Those who answer that question with “at any cost” are the same people who would be mortified if vaccines were banned. These people see the horrors of depriving choice only when the choice is their own, illustrating why politics brings out the worst in people. Their childish and violent aspirations, if acted upon, are punishable by imprisonment, but through politics, “the right thing” is legal and enforced. Democracy tends to legalize immorality, which is bolstered by the inability to discuss tradeoffs—the best indicator of mass hysteria.

When I “served” in Afghanistan, my boss would occasionally invite the religious to pray with him prior to executing a mission. He would ask God to help his men and to hinder the enemy—whom he deemed “pure evil”—without ever appearing to think that the Taliban were likely saying the same prayer and calling us evil. It’s as if both sides were begging God to do the right thing, and over a decade later, the absurdity still bemuses me. Who can argue that twenty years of imposing democracy on a country that doesn’t want it was the right thing to do, especially after twenty years’ worth of resources were nullified in a week? War crimes or crimes against humanity began with those committing them first rationalizing them. Though the murderers might not have deemed their actions “right,” they acted anyway, because they were “just following orders.” But what of those issuing the orders, the sociopaths who believe they can define “the greater good” without the knowledge of the greater population? History repeats itself, and that too many have dismissed that fact as “pessimistic” is one of the reasons why we can’t wake from this dystopian nightmare. Is it not reasonable to expect something catastrophic to unfold when the demagogue defines the right thing?

I argued in April and November of last year that top-down edicts render useless the levels of government between the rulers and the individual. Due to proximity alone, the governor can better “serve” the individual than can the president, the county commissioner than can the governor, and the mayor than can the commissioner. Has the Biden regime forgotten that this country was founded by people who didn’t take kindly to distant rulers? American defiance is a thing of the past, but isn’t it in the parasites’ best interest to keep it there? Consenting individuals can best agree on the right thing, and the politicians lording over them are supposed to prohibit others from interfering; however, as the ongoing (and worsening) mass psychosis makes clear, each level of government only partitions, persecutes, and parasitizes individuals. It’s as if the Biden regime and every governor and bureaucrat suffering from the same delusions are doing all they can to foment violence. In October of 2020, one political party thought that the right thing to do was to refuse the then upcoming vaccine, but today, that same political party openly and sometimes joyously declare their disdain for anyone who decides what’s right for themselves so long as “right” counters the prevailing ideology. If that won’t convince you that politics is poison, I don’t know what will.

Here’s what doing the right thing actually entails: do whatever makes you feel comfortable so long as you aren’t imposing your will (or cowardice) on others. And for fans of brevity, I’ve heard that “mind your own business” is tried and true. Every American who wants to be vaccinated has the opportunity to be. The vaccinated have no moral authority to protect the unvaccinated from themselves. Every parent who wishes to abuse their child by forcing them to wear a mask has that right, but no one will force me to muzzle my three-year-old. If masks are as effective as the staunch covidians claim, why does the sight of an uncovered smile enrage the masked? That it does is the problem of those who obsequiously muzzle themselves, not of anyone else. Labeling the unmasked and unvaccinated “selfish” is nothing but pure projection. Have you noticed that those who might as well have “inclusion” tattooed on their foreheads are the same people who wish to exclude anyone who doesn’t buy into the hype? “Conform to the insanity or else!” After all, “the right thing” is “for your own good.” That’s not compassion; that’s totalitarianism. Bullies don’t grow tired of bullying; they stop bullying only when shown that ceasing their antisocial behavior is in their best interest. It’ll get uncomfortable, but if you hope to ever pursue what you deem right, it’s well past time to stand up to the vicious mob.

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