The Psychology of Interference

This is not a long post.  This is a post more about questions than answers.

Why can’t some people just leave other people alone?  Why do they have to interfere in other people’s lives? Meddling, snooping, prescribing.  Why do these people use the social democratic system to put their ’stuff’ on others?  Why do they want to make sure you comply with code 1243.56 of the municipal by-laws?  Why do they even create code 1234.56 in the first place?  Why, when they disapprove of your habits, do they try to force you to stop, or fine you for not stopping and call you a criminal if you don’t? In your face, brash, coercive.

What is it about these people?  What is the psychology of interference?  How do these folk get like this?  What do they gain?

Why do they want to tell me how much I must pay my employee?  Why do they want to tell me who I can marry and why do they tell me only the state can rubberstamp my union? Prying, regulating, demanding.  Why do they say I can’t share a bottle of wine with my wife over dinner and drive home without being labelled a criminal and liable to be locked up? Arbitrary, callous, forceful.

Why do they force us to use a prescribed grade of fuel, or a prescribed grade of tyre, or eat a prescribed grade of food or use a prescribed grade of medicine? Patronising, belittling, infantising.  Why do they tell us we can only sell certain products at a prescribed price? Why do they force petrol retailers and wholesalers to make a prescribed margin on petrol sales? Cronyist, elitist, unjust. 

Why do they want to regulate our personal morality and force us how to behave? Holier than thou.  Why do they want to tell you that you can’t use an idea or can’t paint your house a certain colour? Prescriptive, restrictive, thieving.

Why do people do this?  I don’t know the answer.  Perhaps they are scared of other people and what other might do to them if they don’t nip their freedoms in the bud and constrain their actions.  Perhaps they want to preserve their pristine little world from any potential disruption.  Perhaps they’re just power hungry.  Perhaps they are just so nice that they want to you to see the light of their wonderful ways. Perhaps they don’t understand liberty because the virtues of liberty are not taught anymore.  Perhaps they can’t distinguish between their needs and the sovereignty of others’ needs.  Perhaps they’re evil.  Perhaps they’re ignorant.  Perhaps they’re just downright coercive idiots.  Perhaps it’s all of the above.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if we can get to the underlying psychology of interference and attack that bug, we can start to build a free society.  That is the challange to which freedom-lovers must apply themselves.  We must try to understand the psychology, the thinking, the prejudice, the paradigms of our fellow man and the people we interact with, so that we can find their ‘Key’.  The Key that will unlock their prison of the mind.

In the meantime: “LEAVE US ALONE!!!”