This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more information.
Anyone familiar with this blog knows I’m a freedomist. I despise the tyranny of mandatory toil (i.e., a 9-to-5 job), and I despise the tyranny of a nanny state (i.e., a government that “cares” so much about the downtrodden, stupid, and prodigal, it is perfectly willing to dispense with freedom and assert abject control over the thoughts, actions, and wealth of the people).
But just because I’m not a fan of jobs and government doesn’t mean I don’t see the usefulness in either. Heck, if it weren’t for lame 9-to-5 jobs, Mrs. Groovy and I would have never achieved financial independence. And it doesn’t take much thought to recognize that the government is uniquely qualified to do some tasks that are indispensable to a well-functioning society. Consider the following:
At the turn of the 20th century, American food and drink was hardly the epitome of wholesomeness and purity.
- Milk was thinned with water, whitened with chalk, and preserved with formaldehyde.
- Black pepper was cut with sawdust, gypsum, hemp seed, walnut shells, almond shells, and sand.
- Cocoa powders often contained clay, sand, iron oxides, and tin.
- Flour was laced with white clay and powdered white rocks called barites.
- Fake beans made from flour, molasses, dirt, and sawdust were mixed with real coffee beans.
- Popular “medicines” were nothing but strangely named cocktails. Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was 20.6 percent ethanol. Baker’s Stomach Bitters was 42.6 percent ethanol.
- Tin cans used for food were soldered with alloys that were up to 50% lead.
- Canned meat was preserved with borax and formaldehyde.
The Poison Squad
Thanks to my sister-in-law, I got a refreshing reminder of why government is needed. She gave me a book called The Poison Squad, and this book details how some chemists at the Agriculture Department led the fight against food adulteration at the turn of the 20th century. I won’t ruin the book for you. It’s a great read and well worth your time. Let’s just say that processed food back in the day (see above) was even more horrendous than its counterpart today. Processed food today has a disturbing amount of salt and sugar. Processed food back in the day had a disturbing amount of impurities and formaldehyde.
Guarding Against Becoming an NPC
This may seem a bit off track but bear with me. I loathe NPCs.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the NPC meme, here’s a link to a New York Times article explaining it. Basically, it’s an insult crafted by the Right to mock the Left. An NPC is a “non-playable character” in the gaming world, and it has no autonomy. It can only do and say what it has been programmed to do and say. The Right is thus insinuating with the NPC meme that Lefties—especially those who consider themselves SJWs—can’t think for themselves. They can only respond to situations, controversies, and politics the way their programmers over at the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and MSNBC have programmed them to respond. Here are a couple of YouTube videos that explore the NPC meme further:
The NPC meme is a great mock and I salute whoever created it. But the NPC virus isn’t just a problem for the Left. The Right—whether we’re talking about conservatives, libertarians, or freedomists—is just as susceptible as the Left to being programmed by the media. I should know. Up until my late-30s, I let Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the National Review do my thinking for me.
Two executables that Right-wing media programmers have been coding for as long as I can remember are as follows:
Free market good.
Government bad.
NPC Mr. Groovy never questioned these two executables. How could I? My programmers didn’t permit that. In fact, my programmers told me that anyone who questioned these two executables was nothing more than a miserable egg-sucking commie.
I don’t remember exactly why, but it finally dawned on me in my late-30s that it wasn’t particularly wise to outsource my thinking. I realized that right-wing media programmers had neither a lock on wisdom nor virtue and if I continued to let them do my thinking for me, I would go through life as nothing more than a pathetic cliche-spewing zombie (i.e., a freakin’ NPC).
To de-NPC myself, then, I consciously adopted the following two guidelines when it came to formulating or contemplating my beliefs—especially my political beliefs.
- Seek out opposing viewpoints and arguments.
- And if I can’t logically refute those opposing viewpoints and arguments, concede. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to change positions. Getting it right is more important than protecting my ego or blindly upholding the papal bulls of my ideological church.
This is why I love the book The Poison Squad. As a freedomist, I need to be routinely reminded that the free market isn’t always good, and the government—which stepped in to curb the abuses of the food-processing industry—isn’t always bad. It’s the only way I’ll avoid becoming an NPC again.
Takeaways from The Poison Squad
Now let’s see how my non-NPC brain works. Here are my takeaways from reading The Poison Squad:
- Man needs an impartial referee. There is just too much larceny and avarice in man’s heart, and if that larceny and avarice aren’t checked, life would get nasty and brutish fast.
- Government is best suited to be that impartial referee. Rules have to be formulated and applied fairly, and rule-breakers have to be punished fairly. This means a whole lot of due process constraints for the referee and a whole lot of headaches for those hiring the referees (what will be refereed, how will the referees be chosen and paid, and who will referee the referees?). Now some questions. What institution do you know that is duly authorized to use force? What institution do you know that is capable of regulating an industry that operates in multiple jurisdictions? And what institution do you know that has a lot of experience mitigating the headaches of those hiring referees; that is, what institution do you know that is a one-stop shop—it writes the rules, hires the referees to enforce those rules, makes sure everyone who uses the referees pays for them, and has a time-honored system of holding itself and the referees accountable (e.g., voting, an independent judiciary, and a free press)? If you answered “government” to all of these questions, go straight to the head of the class.
- But the government can and will be corrupted. Men and women in government have just as much larceny and avarice in their hearts as men and women outside of government. Cronyism, “pay to play,” lobbying, and outright bribery have been around since the dawn of government. Check out the book Plunkitt of Tammany Hall for a nice historical perspective on this lamentable fact of life. The government, I’m afraid, will always be a crooked referee. And that’s okay. As long as the crookedness is held to a tolerable level, a crooked referee is better than no referee.
- You can’t let your guard down. Voting, an independent judiciary, and a free press do a fairly good job of refereeing our referees. But these checks aren’t foolproof. You, therefore, must look at yourself as the ultimate referee where possible. Yes, the government should referee the food industry (and many other industries as well). But if you really want unadulterated food prepared in a sanitary manner, don’t let others prepare your meals. Prepare your meals yourself.
Final Thoughts
Staying clear of the NPC virus isn’t easy—especially for those on the Left. There are simply far more Left-wing programmers in education, journalism, and entertainment than right-wing programmers. But it can be done by anyone, regardless of his or her ideological bent. One just has to exercise some humility and follow the two guidelines I detailed above.
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Do you have a little NPC in you? And if you don’t, how do you stay clear of the NPC virus? Do you seek out opposing viewpoints and arguments? Do you reject the papal bulls issued by your ideological church when those papal bulls can’t be logically defended? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
Oh, man, I just came across this YouTube video. Comedian Jimmy Dore, with the help of Joe Rogan, shows the dangers of becoming an NPC. The New York Times reporter on the Joe Rogan Show is caught using words she can’t define and hurling accusations she can’t defend. She’s just mouthing things she’s been programmed to mouth. Hilarious and sad.
And don’t forget to check out my opus!
![[HCF] Avatar](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca84269332b223226d4c31cfddd7ffc3e5a46a66ec014ee0bbd84881baf0adfd?s=40&r=g){kind=avatar}
Leave a Reply to Mr. Groovy Cancel reply