‘If I Were in Charge of the World ...’
Answering an Epic Rant on Politics, Religion, Celebrities, the #COVIDHoax & More!
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During my first year of college, I had an assignment for a Philosophy course that involved reading the positions of various thinkers on ethics and then answering whether each person would want something to be outlawed.
Presumably, if the thinker opposed some activity, that meant he wanted it banned.
I say “presumably” because I recall answering many times that the thinker’s views on government power — outlawing, banning — weren’t clear in their treatment of ethical behavior.
My nuanced answer wasn’t exactly what the professor had in mind.
Looking back, that was an important incident for statist me on my long road to anarchism. It’s the earliest memory I have of explicitly realizing — to some degree, at least — that having strong moral positions doesn’t mean you want them imposed on others by a coercive civil authority, a monopoly-violence institution (“government”).
I thought of this untaught lesson from my university days while listening to the second part of my most recent visit to “The Jeff Macolino Podcast.” Host Jeff Macolino and I talked about so many topics, he decided to split the conversation into three episodes. Part Two published on June 2, 2025, and can be found at Spotify, Apple, YouTube, ListenNotes, Amazon, and Podchaser.
Jeff, an indie screenplay writer/actor/director/producer and former stand-up comedian, had an epic rant for a decent chunk of the first 10 minutes of the episode.
It’s worth hearing in its entirety, and it launched plenty of threads, often related to my writings. The first was a scaffolding on the religious underpinnings of all governments, that eventually led to the title of this essay:
DOM: The things I believe about human purpose and about humanity in general and about individuals not only do not require them to be imposed on people, but my beliefs are against them being imposed on people.
…
JEFF: I think you’ve given me a realization that you and I and a very small percentage of people have brains that think that way. … I don’t believe [in] government imposing my belief on other people. You know, if I was in charge of the world, I would have the Golden Rule be the only law.
…
DOM: If I were in charge of the world, I wouldn’t be.
JEFF: Right!
DOM: There’d be no top-down anything coming from me.
JEFF: … lead by example.
The self-harm of idolizing
We talked more about the religious fervor of politics and government, which blended into questions about Christian public figures, such as the new Pope, and celebrity culture (which I wrote about recently).
Believing in a monopoly-violence institution objectifies people, and the idolizing of public figures can do the same thing. It dehumanizes both the celebrity and the person giving the adulation.
I hadn’t explored this angle previously in my writing and jumped at the chance to explain more in conversation:
Celebrity culture objectifies the celebrity, but it also self-objectifies the person who worships the celebrity. It’s not good for either one of you. It’s not a healthy way to be as a person, and it’s not a healthy and truly respectful thing to do to the person you’re idolizing.
For the person thrust into celebrity status, a well-grounded view of self is needed to withstand the pressure of all that attention. I continued:
Don’t let someone’s response to you or reaction to you either dehumanize them or dehumanize you. … Even though it looks like they’re adoring you, there’s a dehumanization that happens.
Proper & improper roles
I wrote about attention switching and niche switching a week ago, and I got to practice some role reversal in this conversation: I turned into the interviewer and put Jeff on the spot to answer some questions!
One time concerned what I call the pathological believer; if you’ve heard of a pathological liar, you can probably figure out what a pathological believer is. Too many people outed themselves as pathological believers during the fascist, anti-science #COVIDHoax when they supported lockdowns, masks, and gene-therapy injections.
Expert culture is a kind of celebrity culture, and the pathological believers caused damage with their compliance, even if the “experts” weren’t totally lying (stupidity could’ve also been a factor).
It’s a widespread example of how both “idol” and “idolizer” are terribly bad roles for humans to play.
Switching fields, indie filmmaking has plenty of good roles people can play, using their abilities to tell stories and entertain people. To close this podcast episode, I asked Jeff about his experience in the indie ecosystem. He operates the way a small-business proprietor would and relies on getting to know other highly skilled non-celebrities in the indie scene.
The way he described it, his indie process seemed more human than what happens in big-budget, crony-corporation-driven, Hollywood blockbusters. In a practical sense, it has to be; many would say it should be.
And this brings today’s essay full-circle. Having a preference in some matter — a “should” — is different from wanting to use the violence of government to enforce your preference on other people (“If I were in charge of the world …”).
As I wrote in my book:
For a Christian, the ends never justify the means. Evil tactics fundamentally taint any allegedly good goals.
This principle holds for anyone who believes in consent-based interactions, whether or not the person identifies as Christian. To violently impose truth, beauty and goodness is to betray those realities.
And to dehumanize someone, including by idolization, is to betray their personhood and yours!
Be a good neighbor and remain humane.
To be continued, one more time …
Your turn to rant …
… in the Comments section!
What’s your favorite part of Part Two?
Ever take a philosophy class in college? Do you remember anything from it/them?
Are you involved in indie art, music, dramatic performance?
Anything else on your mind regarding this week’s topics?
Let me know your thoughts below …
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My book, Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen, is available at:
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Find me on X: GoodNeighBadCit
And, as always: Be a good neighbor, even if it makes you a bad citizen.