Who Should Be In Control?

#2 in a series of Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd Expanded Edition)

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iii. WHO SHOULD BE IN CONTROL?

“Healthcare is a basic human right.” “We have the right to financial security in old age.” “All children have a right to a good education.” These and similar beliefs that we have a right to goods and services that others provide are commonplace. We hear these ideas discussed in news media, academic research, intellectual debates, Sunday sermons, student papers, and, of course, political campaigns.

Leading up to an election, politicians often outbid each other in promising various voter groups such as the elderly, women, parents, students, labor unions, the disabled, people of color, people of faith, people of a certain sexual orientation a “right” to “free” healthcare, special regulatory protections, more money for education, financial security in retirement, and so on. They hope that, come election day, you will find their offer worthy of your vote. But they conveniently avoid answering this question: “How does preferential treatment for some impact the rights of others?” They prefer not to discuss how granting certain alleged “rights” to their voter groups of choice impacts you; how it impacts your ability to control your choices, your time, your resources. Does free healthcare, subsidized education, and a financially secure retirement for some increase your taxes and impose regulations that limit your financial and other life choices? Does this force you to work harder and longer to provide for yourself and your loved ones? In short, how does it impact the control you have over your life? Conversely, if you’re on the receiving end, how does what you get for “free” or subsidized impact the rights of others to control their life?

The premise behind this citizen guide is that you have the right to be in control. You have the right to seek an education from anyone willing to teach you and a job from anyone willing to hire you. You have a right to pursue the career of your choice. You should decide, by mutual consent, who to share your life with romantically, who to be friends with, and how much time to spend with family, including deciding whom to invite for Thanksgiving. You and your partner should determine if and when to have children and—if you have them—how to handle their upbringing, education, screen time, and cell phone use. It should be up to you where you live, what you eat and drink, who you choose as your healthcare provider, what other products and services to consume, what causes to support, and how to spend or save the money that may be left at the end of the month. You should determine how you save for retirement and when to retire, and what to do with your belongings when it’s time to check out. In short, you have the right to be in control of your life.

But why? Because your right to control your life stems from what it means to be a person. As a human being you survive and thrive by thinking. Opposing thumbs make life easier, but it is your capacity to think conceptually and to reason abstractly that sets you apart from gorillas, chimpanzees, and every other species in Mother Nature. At a fundamental level, no one else can do your thinking for you. If you contract with someone else to help solve a problem or take advice from someone, to retain control of your life, you still need to independently evaluate the person’s competence and contributions. And if you make the unfortunate decision to unquestioningly follow somebody else’s lead, it is your thinking that brings you to that decision. Does thinking sound hard? At times it is, but the alternative is to put your life at the mercy of other people, who may or may not be rational and who may or may not have your best interests at heart. And you probably don’t want to exchange your life for that of an automaton or a zombie, although it may be tempting on a rough day.

Having the right to be in control of your life means that you must have the freedom to put your thoughts into action, to make all the decisions mentioned above and more, to use your time to the best of your ability, and to dispose of the fruits of your labors as you see fit. This means being in charge of your paycheck (if you’re an employee) and your profits (if you’re self-employed), your belongings, your time, and everything else that is yours. Without this freedom, your right to be in control of your life is violated.

But bear in mind this crucial qualification: you must respect that others have the same right to control their life as you have to control yours. Sometimes this may feel as if you’re not in control. Maybe your employer fires you, perhaps unfairly, or an employer hires someone over you despite your superior credentials. Or your employer pays you less than you deserve or requires you to work a lot of overtime while cutting others slack. Or a landlord hikes your rent, leaving you to move back in with Mom and Dad. Or the college you want to attend charges outrageous tuition—and turns you down for financial aid while approving a friend from a more affluent family. Or preschool charges so much you end up working an extra job and feeling guilty for not spending enough time with your child. Or health insurance premiums increase so much you forgo it. Or a dip in the stock market erodes your savings and postpones your retirement. Life is full of situations where the actions of others or outside forces can make your life feel out of control.

When this happens, you may have the knee-jerk reaction, “This is so important it should be provided for free or be subsidized or regulated.” The implicit assumption is almost always that the government should step in, that “there ought to be a law.” This is where those election campaign promises may sound really attractive. At this point you should take a deep breath and ask yourself: “Would providing this for free, or subsidizing or regulating it, so I can feel more in control, violate other people’s right to be in control of their life?” Would it violate the rights of an employer or landlord, the college president or financial aid advisor, the preschool owner, the health insurance industry executive, or your bank manager? Would it violate their freedom to act on their judgment (which may not be aligned with yours), and to dispose of the fruits of their labors? If the answer is that it would, then having the government step in is not the answer, regardless of how important it may seem to you and to a lot of other people. The fact that life sometimes feel out of control is not a claim check on others.

If everybody has the right to be in control of their life, “to do their own thing” (while respecting that others have the same right), how do we get along? We engage in voluntary trade. We sell our skills to willing employers in exchange for a salary or wage, and we buy goods and services from willing sellers. We trade non-material values when establishing friendships and romantic relationships: if you provide values that are important to me—being sincere, caring, trustworthy, fun-loving, interested in sports, not interested in sports, etc.—and I offer values that are important to you, let’s be friends or lovers.

And if the pay is not right or the skillset not a match, if the price is too high or the quality too low, or if a relationship changes over time diminishing its value, then we are free to go separate ways, within the bounds of contract. This is not always easy, and sometimes we disagree about parting ways, but being in control of your life means having the right to walk away from the transaction or the relationship if that is what your best judgment tells you.

When we talk about being in control of our lives, the context is that each person properly is free to enter into, or not enter into, voluntary relationships with others. When someone else declines to enter into a relationship that we seek, that does not undermine our control in the relevant sense. What does undermine our control? Force. When someone else—and this someone could be from the government—forces you either to engage or to disengage with someone against your will, or uses force to set the terms by which you may peacefully interact, that undermines your control over your life and violates your rights.

Today, nobody is completely in control of their life. Sadly, we—people today and in previous generations—deliberately or unknowingly have voted away large chunks of our right to be in control. Most of the time, the matter at hand was sold as “so important it should be free or subsidized or regulated.” We’ve given up the right to control much of our hard-earned money to instead be taxed to receive “free” or subsidized healthcare. We’ve compromised our right to be in control of planning and saving for retirement in exchange for government Social Security in old age. We’ve voted for, or implicitly accepted, myriad regulations preemptively addressing the bad behavior of a few but violating the rights of everyone. And we’ve accepted government (public) schools as a fact of life, although the system takes away the right of parents to control the education of their children. We’ll return to these topics in detail throughout the book.

Today’s politics may appear more polarized than ever. As presented in the media, the right and left are at each other’s throats daily. But the American public by and large have more nuanced views on most issues, as evidenced by the growing number of independents who don’t feel at home in either established party—the “exhausted middle.” And when it comes to our choice of whom or what to vote for, we often vote for the lesser of two (or three or umpteen) perceived evils rather than enthusiastically embracing a given candidate or issue.

The goal of this guide is to provide advice on how to approach politics as a responsible citizen and to exert influence that will move the needle on restoring your right to be in control of a greater part of your life. To that end, it will provide you with a radically different framework for how to make sense of the political landscape than what you’re probably used to. And it will offer a blueprint for activism based on your level of interest, and guidance for making informed and principled voting decisions in times of elections.

The book is relatively short. 15 minutes a day should get you through it in a couple of weeks. It is divided into three parts: Part I, “Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right,” explains why and how your right to be in control of your life is being violated today and what a society looks like where it’s not. This is where we’ll introduce the radically different framework mentioned earlier. Part II, “From Here to There,” outlines how we may transition to a society where your and others’ right to be in control are respected and protected. And part III, “A 21st Century Citizen Guide,” provides guidance on how to actively champion the right to be in control of your life, how to influence those in or seeking power, and how to vote come election day. We’re using the broadest definition of citizen meaning “inhabitant.” Whether you’re already a naturalized citizen, are on the path to becoming one, or have just arrived in the country, this book is for you.

Throughout the book, upper case “R” and “W” are used when discussing “Right” and “Wrong” in moral terms, as in “this is the morally Right thing to do” or “this is morally Wrong on so many levels”. And lower case “r” and “l” are used for the political terms “right” and “left,” as in “many on the political right want to deregulate commerce and dismantle government services” or “many on the political left want the government to play a larger role in our lives.”

In the end, you may agree or disagree with the premise that you and others have the moral Right (upper case “R”) to be in control of your life and that it’s morally Wrong (upper case “W”) to control the lives of others. But regardless of where you land on the moral Right to Wrong spectrum, you will look at today’s politics of left (lower case “l”) and right (lower case “r”) through a sharper lens that will support your citizen activism and voting decisions for the rest of your life.

A final note: Footnote references may be found on thinkrightorwrong.com. Visit the site for additional content as well, including an FAQ section where the most common questions will be answered. Let’s get started!

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