Don't ask government – you be the criminal

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for June 25, 2025)

If you aren't willing to do something yourself, you have no business asking government to do it for you.

If it's something which will violate someone's rights- the only true definition of a crime- you have no right to do it. You can't delegate a right you don't have; a "right" that doesn't exist.

If you want people caged for using a substance you feel they shouldn't be allowed to use, kidnap and cage them yourself. You be the criminal.

The same goes if you want government employees to break the law by taking guns from people, in defiance of their right to own and carry weapons. If you are in favor of this, you do it. Since anti-gun rules are enforced with guns, it's clear people who cry about "gun violence" love gun violence. They're fine with government having all the guns and don't want anyone able to effectively resist government when it commits crimes. Criminals stick together.

If you want people rounded up and kicked out of America, you should be willing to do it yourself. You can face the consequences if they fight back when you violate their natural human rights. Self-defense is never wrong.

If you want people to be confronted and robbed by an armed bandit for not wearing a seat belt or for going slightly faster than some arbitrary speed, why don't you be the bandit? Some people have done this, but the competition makes the establishment's bandits angry- turf wars, and all that.

If you want government to send its people to a foreign country to kill people and break things, I assume you'll be first in line for a one-way ticket there. You have a right to defend your property, but no right to violate the property of others.

The only way to make these crimes worse is to tax the victims, forcing them to pay their violators to violate them. It's adding insult to injury and is worse than someone simply going freelance and being a criminal on their own. At least freelance criminals take all the risk themselves. Government reaps the rewards and accepts none of the risk.

Paying others to commit crimes on your behalf doesn't absolve you of ethical responsibility for the crimes, even if you've been taught otherwise. If you want others committing "legal" crimes you're in favor of, at the risk of their lives, you should embrace any consequences alongside them.

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