Don't be puppet for government

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for October 1, 2025)

If you change your behavior strictly because of what someone you dislike thinks you should or shouldn't do, you are their puppet.

Last week, when government came out with the cautionary advice to not take Tylenol (Acetaminophen) during pregnancy- advice which actually agrees completely with Tylenol's published advice- there were reports of pregnant women on the political Left going against this advice and taking the medicine to spite Robert Kennedy Jr. and President Trump. Some made videos of their act of defiance, just to do the opposite of what the current regime told them they probably shouldn't do.

Again, advice that Tylenol's manufacturer has been giving for years.

That's not rational behavior.

I've also seen people on the political Right do dumb things as a reaction just because the Democrats in power advised them against doing it. Or mandated them to do it.

I knew someone who littered because the "environmentalists" on the Left told her not to. Truthfully, I've known two people who did this- and I picked up after them when I could, because I'm not an irresponsible idiot who is easily manipulated by politics. It's not smart to soil your own nest, even if someone you dislike tells you it's a bad idea.

There are people on the Right who now refuse any vaccinations just because the sketchy Covid shots made vaccinations a Democrat virtue.

This is no more rational than what the Left was apparently doing last week. Truth is truth, no matter who says it.

Long ago, someone pointed out to me that if I alter my behavior for no reason but to defy someone, they are controlling me as surely as if I were obeying their every command. I don't want to be a puppet.

Wouldn't you feel stupid if you ended up damaging your health, the health of your child, or costing yourself extra money simply because you wanted to do the opposite of what some politician told you?

It's smarter to weigh everything someone tells you to do. If it makes sense and is good for you, do it. If it seems like it would be bad for you, do something else. Check with sources you trust- the less political, the better. You might even be wrong sometimes. Make your choices and accept the consequences. Never put yourself in danger for no better reason than to figuratively spit in the face of a politician. Be smarter. Think for yourself.

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"... similar to Communism in how it ignores reality"

Statists love to equate libertarianism and anarchism with communism. They believe this comparison gives them an automatic win. Far from it.

Some guy got upset that I said "ALL government is The Ancestral Enemy" (in response to an eye-patched political criminal). He thought he had squeezed out a gotcha with his quip that "Libertarianism is anarchy with extra steps", and went on to try to associate it with communism, as they so often try to do.

I asked him to explain. This was his attempt.

"When you decentralize a society and implement what is de facto mob rule, you will always have chaos and crime. Libertarian principles will never save the day, because order must be enforced. The solution is centralized authority, which is why it always comes back in the end."

That's an awful lot of straw men and assumptions in one paragraph.

Let me break it down bit by bit.

"When you decentralize a society and implement what is de facto mob rule, you will always have chaos and crime."

How odd that he believes decentralization is "de facto mob rule". What, like v*ting leads to? He's the one promoting someone ruling others, not me. I want everyone to rule himself. I know some wouldn't, just like they don't under government now. There's an ethical solution to that: defense of life, liberty, and property from all violators.

No matter what, there will always be chaos and crime. Always. Regardless of the "system" you implement. I've never seen an example of a government that doesn't have (or promote) chaos and crime. Not one. An argument that fails this hard shouldn't keep being dredged up. But it's one of their favorites, so they can't let it go. I’ve never heard of even one libertarian who expected liberty to result in Utopia; this is strictly something statists demand of it. And something they would never expect of their own “system “.

"Libertarian principles will never save the day, because order must be enforced."

Non sequitur, and it's wrong anyway.

Libertarian principles save the day all the time. Without them, there's no such thing as society. They provide just the right amount of order- not too much and not too little. 
They work for me every day, in every way. I've never encountered a situation that could be improved by violating libertarian principles.

Do they make life perfect? No. Nothing does. Including government. This is an attempt to excuse violating others just because the alternative you don't like isn't perfect.

Some order must be enforced, yes. Within limits. Too much order is just as deadly as too little. There is a balance, and that balance is anarchy- or libertarianism, if you prefer. Why does he believe a criminal organization that exempts its members from the rules it imposes on the rest of us is the proper way to enforce order? Why is he so addicted to order? It is each individual's responsibility to protect life, liberty, and property- to enforce ethical order. That statists try to abdicate this responsibility to government doesn't change anything. Not a single thing. 

"The solution is centralized authority, which is why it always comes back in the end."

That sounds an awful lot like the communism he was trying to smear libertarianism with. When I mentioned this, he claimed it is a "false equivalency".

"Authority" is The Most Dangerous Superstition. The reason it "comes back in the end" (or has so far) is that humans are superstitious and have been brainwashed to believe in it. But your superstitious beliefs don't obligate me. You do what you want, but I know your "authorities" are nothing more than criminals with a 12+ year indoctrination program to fool people into seeing them as something they aren't. You can't make me believe in the false legitimacy of the illegitimate, no matter how you try to frame it. Even if your thugs murder me, I know they are nothing but criminals.

It's amusing to me how often (like, every single time) their objections apply equally to the "system" they believe they are defending from scary liberty. Dolts.

It seems that they ignore reality to keep believing what they believe.

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