I'm a proud libertarian, but one thing I think people get confused about when they hear that is my stance on rules and laws.
I've made it very clear in the past that Libertarians aren't anarchists, we're minarchists. It's the general libertarian belief that there should be hard and fast rules for society, but not a lot of them. The vast majority of the rules that are created should be applied to the government which can easily spiral out of control the more room it's given. The government is like a child, and it has to be watched, monitored, and given strict boundaries, or else it will reap destruction upon you, your home, and itself.
(READ: Even Libertarians Draw a Line)
If I'm being honest, I'm a big fan of basic rules. God gave us 10 that are conducive to a happy, healthy life and our American system is broadly based on these rules. A few more could be added here and there, but if I'm being honest, at the end of the day it's not the laws that matter.
It's the people's willingness to follow them.
In order for society to function we have to agree to have a functioning society. This means following, not just the laws, but the unwritten rules that usually come with tradition and societal expectations. If even a fraction of the population suddenly disagrees with these rules, society starts to collapse.
If you need proof of this, you need only look at what's happening in California.
Where is this accomplished well? Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel recently let America know in a way that embarrassed himself more than it embarrassed Americans. As Fox News reported, Kimmel went to Japan on a family trip and came back with stories about how clean and great Japan was compared to the trashy U.S. of A.:
"Here in America, we know we have our faults. We know we have areas for improvement. But, overall, I think most of us believe that, compared to the rest of the world, we’re pretty buttoned-up. I know I did," he said. "I go to Europe where there are dirt holes where plumbing is supposed to be, and I hold my breath and I go, ‘I’m glad I’m not one of these people,’ and then I go back home, right?"
...
"But now, after traveling to Japan, I realize that this place — this USA we’re always chanting about, is a filthy and disgusting place. We were in Japan for seven days. Not only did I not encounter a single dirty bathroom, the bathrooms in Tokyo and Kyoto are cleaner than our operating rooms here," he said. "Everywhere you go, the bathrooms are clean. They don’t smell bad, and they have those toilets that wash you from the inside out."
Before I lay into Kimmel's point, I have to say that on a surface level, he's not wrong. Japan is clean, well-maintained, polite, and generally safe. Compared to Japan, the U.S. is a cesspool. In fact, compared to many other countries, the U.S. is pretty filthy. Even on my recent trip to London, I was astonished by how much cleaner and organized it was compared to New York.
But what Kimmel didn't seem to get, or at least he never mentioned it in his rant, is that the Japanese have this for themselves because they're capable of agreeing to do it as a society. Even foreigners who come to the country are expected to do their best to follow these rules, and anyone who comes to live there must abide by them. Failure to do so results in fines, jail time, and even being banned from the country.
Japan is so intent on keeping its traditions and rules that it will even close off parts of a city to foreigners just purely to maintain order.
It's the kind of attitude that Kimmel and his ilk would call "racist" and "xenophobic."
But it's necessary when the people in question have refused to form a peaceful society alongside you in order to accomplish their own ends. This applies to migrants both legal and illegal, criminals, and just all-around a-holes.
America — and the Western world in general — seems to have gotten to a point where it's perfectly fine with shrugging off propriety and common decency. It puts endless laws on the books, empowers its own government, and is even now willing to ban entire platforms off the internet, but it has very little concern about enforcing many of the basic rules already on the books, especially if the person not following them is of a certain identity.
People in America aren't following basic rules anymore because they aren't being enforced. Even when someone defends people against someone willing to violate these rules, the defender gets in trouble. Even parents can't punish their children without a Karen or the state breathing down our necks.
We're encouraged to be passive while aggressors roam around us.
Then we wonder why everything is so trashy and our society is degrading.
We've shrugged off the rules in order to avoid being labeled as one thing or another, but as we pat ourselves on the back for being "tolerant" and "inclusive," we crumble.
