I have no tolerance for bureaucracy

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 9, 2020)

This week I was reminded how intensely I dislike bureaucracy. People who impose bureaucracy on the rest of us are as useful to society as plague-spreading fleas. You might believe bureaucracy has a place and is beneficial, but you'd be mistaking government for society; its opposite.

I have no tolerance for bureaucracy or authoritarianism. My preference doesn't threaten anyone; yet those who thrive on bureaucracy and authoritarianism can't leave the rest of us alone. We must be assimilated and forced to comply with their petty demands.

Everyone has a different temperament. Leave room for everyone who doesn't harm others.

Those who value and understand liberty respect individual differences, but this doesn't work for people who lust for control through bureaucracy. If someone doesn't go along, it threatens their entire house of cards.

When bureaucrats are empowered by an authoritarian system I find myself wishing misfortune on them.

I have met people who love bureaucracy; as if they get a thrill from dotting i's and crossing t's. Fine, but keep it to yourself. It's not alright to impose this on the rest of us. Forcing bureaucracy on people who don't want it is as antisocial as holding someone down and forcing them to drink your minnow smoothie.

Unwanted bureaucracy steals your time as surely as taxation steals your money. Bureaucracy and taxation usually go together.

Still, my temperament is such that I'll stay out of your way and let you engage in all the bureaucracy you want, even if it involves using authoritarian power against others who want to play your game by the rules your club has agreed to. Just keep it inside your club and don't try to force it on the rest of us or on the whole society.

I have no responsibility to cooperate with being numbered, categorized, or tracked. I feel no sympathy for those who try to force this on me.

No one needs to accept the numbers assigned to them, nor to remember or share those numbers-- as if they are valid-- with anyone else. No one has an obligation to pay for the freedom to exercise their natural human rights. No one is responsible for incriminating themselves by filling out forms to government specifications, to satisfy any record-keeping agenda. No one has done wrong if they refuse to answer questions which are no one's concern. If you imagine otherwise, you're part of the bureaucracy and a part of the problem.

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