The “Leave Me Alone Party” (LMAP) is for people who want to leave other people alone and who want others to leave them alone, to live their lives without nannying, interference, and coercion. (Some crude individuals call LMAP the Leave Me The Fuck Alone Party (LMTFAP). Not us, however.)

LMAP and the “None Of Your Business Party” share many issues in common.

If you are a modern “Progressive” and cannot abide the notion of conservatives, Christian or otherwise, having a say in who you sleep with and who you may marry, when and why you may get an abortion, what sorts of scientific research and artistic projects should be funded, what school curricula should and shouldn’t include, or when and why Uncle Sam goes on world-policing ventures, then why do you wish to expand the scope of government authority? Doing so in a society with a wide franchise, such as the U.S., inevitably invites those rubes to intrude their antediluvian superstitions and dogmas onto you and onto all that you hold dear and sacred.

If you are a modern conservative, Christian or otherwise, and cannot abide the notion of “Progressives” having a say in how you school your children, what your tax rates are, what size Big Gulps you may buy, or whether or not you may fill in ditches and water puddles on your land, then why do you tolerate – or even applaud – activities such as government’s “war on drugs,” Uncle Sam’s interventionist foreign policies, strict immigration restrictions, and tariffs on imports? Doing so – by creating a large and discretionary state – only encourages those obnoxious know-it-alls to use government against you and against all that you hold dear and sacred.

Laissez Faire

Members of LMAP are not interested in philosopher kings, intellectuals, moral superiors, their “betters,” journalists, celebrities, bureaucrats, politicians, fascists from the right or left, or any other moral preeners or pretenders to the throne of G-d telling them how to live their lives.

(We’re looking at you, Mayor Nanny.)

Lots of people do lots of things I wish they wouldn’t. And lots of people don’t do lots of things I wish they would. In fact, I’m rather certain the world would be a better place for me and people just like me if more were willing to go along with my desires and tastes, instead of stubbornly pursuing their own thing.

Take drinking tons of soda. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why people consider sugar water a multiple-times-a-day beverage. It’s like wanting to pour chocolate sauce on everything, or eat brownies with every meal. In short, to my sensibilities, it’s gross. And it’s way less healthy than drinking water—which tastes a whole lot better, too.

Part of being civilized—arguably most of being civilized—is recognizing that different people do things differently and that such differences deserve respect. Respecting difference means allowing behaviors we find disagreeable, provided those behaviors don’t cause us harm. This covers big stuff like religious toleration—those people of other faiths sure do eat weird things and have a funny way of talking, but that’s their business—to, yes, even the dreadful behavior of drinking half-a-dozen Cokes a day.

Of course, civilized people aren’t prevented from making their opinions known. I just did, with my quips about soda, and if I happen to see you drinking one, I’m free to tell you what I think. (Though I risk coming across as an officious jerk if I’m not careful.) What civilized people don’t do is hit each other with clubs over such differences.

Is drinking large sodas a way of life, though? Conly mocks the idea: “Large cups of soda as symbols of human dignity? Really?” But consider that if you drink 32 ounces of Coca-Cola, you’ll rack up 388 calories. A 20 ounce Iced White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks has 500. Both aren’t good for you, but the Mocha’s worse. The difference is that the kinds of people who want to use government to save ignorant Americans from the harms of soft drinks are the kinds of people prefer an Iced White Chocolate Mocha to a Coca-Cola.

That Conly calls for a ban Cokes and not Mochas indicates that what really bothers her is the behavior of those low-brow folks who slam giant soft drinks, but not so much the worse behavior of the middle-class and educated who just can’t start the day without a latte. About this tendency to use ourselves as the moral yardstick, Mill noted, “our idea of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to be as good as ourselves.”

So the real trouble is people aren’t acting like Conly—or the majority Conly imagines agrees with her—would like them to. Thus it’s time to call in the law.

Paternalism and Barbarism

Ozymandias

Unfortunately, it seems that the future Aldous Huxley predicted in 1932, in Brave New World, is arriving early. Mockery, truculence, and minimalist living are best, then enjoy the decline. However, we do need a Revolving Door Tax (RDT) and to prosecute politicians and staff and their “family and friends” who profit from insider trading.