Not even the widespread use of the internet has broken America's addiction to the television. TVs are everywhere. The average family today owns multiple TVs and some homes have a set in every room. There's nothing inherently wrong with owning or occasionally watching TVs, but shouldn't some areas be left free of its presence -- for things like conversing, working, reading, and thinking?

    Away from home it's no less difficult to get away from the tube. TVs impose themselves at restaurants and bars, retail stores, waiting rooms, and even schools. Students at 12,000 schools around the country are subjected to a daily, mandatory dose of "Channel One," an in-your-face "news" program in the intellectual tradition of MTV.

    Another galling example of TV intrusion is at the airport, where at every gate multiple TVs are almost sure to be in place. One can try to keep the flashing images out of view, but it is usually impossible to completely tune out the blaring sounds coming from the ceiling speakers. The TV interferes with individuals' ability to focus on anything else and discourages any attempts to find anything else to focus on (such as worthwhile reading material). By imposing the TV on everyone, airport officials deny everyone with the exception of the deaf the freedom to determine what shall penetrate his consciousness.

    The omnipresence of TVs discourage independent pursuits, thus narrowing the minds of individuals and "standardizing" their thoughts.

President Bush

    The administration of President George W. Bush, though in some ways a refreshing relief from the scandal-plagued shamelessness of the Clinton regime, does not seem willing or capable of derailing Big Government.

    In fact, Bush and his GOP sidekicks are openly advocating new federal spending schemes and new expansions of governmental authority over our lives. Consider Bush's proposals for expanding federal influence over the minds of young people by expanding the Department of Education's budget. Confiscating billions of dollars from local taxpayers -- so that federal bureaucrats can shuffle the money around, consume much of it through endless paperwork, and then ship some of it back to local and state governments -- amounts to theft and waste. But that's not all. Of course, federal subsidies come with strings attached. The feds want schools to conform to their idea of "education," which means a Politically Correct ideological agenda that has the seal of approval of teacher unions and other interest groups who seek the use of federal force to shape the minds of students.

    This is Big Government at its worst. And instead of attacking this weed at its root, President Bush is fertilizing it.

The Language of Obligation

    "I can't meet you for lunch," says the hard-working professional to his or her spouse, "I have to be at a meeting."

    "I can't play today," said the same individual at age 10 to his friend. "I have to do homework."

    From early on in life, most people are taught to think of their lives in terms of fulfilling obligations. They are given orders by parents, teachers, and other authority figures. They begin to apply this mindset to what should be their personal value judgments. They say they "can't" do things really could do. They say they "have to" do things that they could choose not to do.

    Falsely framing personal choices in terms of obligations is a form of self-denial. It denies an individual control over his own life and enables him to escape responsibility for his own choices, thus rendering him a psychological dependent on those who "create" obligations for him to fulfill. 

    The language of obligation denies free will itself.

Gifts

    Why has gift-giving become a ritual?  Why do birthdays and Christmas and other holidays require that family members and close acquaintances exchange gifts?  Such exchanges are pointless if the only motivation behind them is fulfilling obligations based on social custom.  Now, I'm not against gift giving per se.  I am against ritualistic gift-giving. There ought to be a reason for giving somoene a gift other than that a day on the calendar corresponds with some arbitrary social occasion. A gift offered as an expression of genuine love or friendship, and not as an obedient fulfillment of a custom, is a truly meaningful one.

Seat Belt Laws

    The heavy hand of government reaches in to virtually every aspect of our lives, often under the pretense that what it's forcing us to do is for our own good.  Government tries to be our parent, and we're supposed to be its obedient children.  Few laws are as blatantly paternalistic as compulsory seat belt buckling laws.  Defenders of such laws say that the laws "save lives."  

    Saving lives by denying the rights of citizens to make choices about how to run their own lives?  The condescension and arrogance exhibited by those who want the government to forcibly buckle us into our seats is astounding.  They are willing to deny all citizens the right to protect their own lives as the citizens themselves see fit because they think they know what's best.  It's always about saving lives.  Nevermind about letting people LIVE their own lives.

    While seat belt laws by themselves are not the most damaging laws on the books, it's the "I know what's best for you" mentality that leads to truly horrifying abominations such as the War on Drugs.  The War's soldiers have viciously attacked the individual rights of millions of Americans because, they say, we need to be protected from what we might choose to do to ourselves.  And as for protecting people from choosing to unbuckle themselves in their cars, I quote from Herbert Spencer: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." 

"How ya doin'?"

    Don't ask me how I'm doing unless you care what the answer is. Don't ask me how I'm doing unless you know me or have the intention of getting to know me.  Don't ask me how I'm doing if all you want is to hear me recite "fine" or "good.  Don't ask me how I'm doing as a substitute for "hello" and then go on talking, not even pausing to let me respond to your pretense at showing some interest in me.

    If you really are interested in me-that is, my values, my interests, and my ideas-then please differentiate yourself from the others who aren't. With thousands of pointless "how ya doin'?" utterances bombarding my consciousness, yours, no matter how sincere, wouldn't carry the meaning that it should.

    So don't ask me how I'm doing. Ask me something that expresses unmistakably that you care what the answer is. Ask me something that no one else would bother asking.  Ask me simply what I'm thinking.

Obey Your Teachers?

    "However wrong or irrational a teacher is, the etiquette of the classroom requires that a student recognize that the teacher is in charge and should be shown the manner of respect his position holds, even if he personally does not live up to it."

    Is this a provision in the student code of some authoritarian school? Nope. These mandates to bow down to teachers come from officials at none other than the Ayn Rand Institute on their "Student Survival Guide" section.

    The Ayn Rand Institute would do well to consider Ayn Rand's own views on the relationship between students and teachers. The advice Rand herself gave to students is as follows: "Rebel against the ideas of your teachers. You will never find a harder, nobler, or more heroic form of rebellion." (From "The Comprachicos" in Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.)

    I portray a conscientious student rebel who flouts the ideas of his teachers and the repressive code of classroom etiquette in my novella The Escape.

 

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