What They Really Mean When They Say “Do The Right Thing”

As a senior in high school, I ran for class president with “Do the right thing” as my campaign slogan.

Though I realized years ago how utterly pretentious that message is, I’m often reminded that it’s good politics, which proves the point that politics is poison.

To vote for someone else is to “do the wrong thing,” and you don’t want to be a bad person, do you? It’s a sinister trick that comes in many phrases—all of which are highly effective in duping the majority—yet democracy is still deified. Just as “the science” insults the scientific method, “the right thing” has the capacity to reduce peaceful interactions. How can “the right thing” be peaceful if it isn’t consensual? If the “right” thing is imposed, the thing is wrong.

Why would “the right thing” require blind obedience? If the thing were right, dissenters wouldn’t be punished. Accepting that I was arrogant to tell my senior class what is or isn’t right, imagine the hubris required to dictate morality to a third of a billion Americans.

The US president recently chastised certain governors who “aren’t willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic,” but why does the Biden regime presume to know what’s right for, say, Texans? First of all, pandemics are “beaten” only when they become endemic. Yes, involuntary (read: “political”) action can hasten that process, but at what cost? Those who answer that question with “at any cost” are the same people who would be mortified if vaccines were banned. These people see the horrors of depriving choice only when the choice is their own, illustrating why politics brings out the worst in people. Their childish and violent aspirations, if acted upon, are punishable by imprisonment, but through politics, “the right thing” is legal and enforced. Democracy tends to legalize immorality, which is bolstered by the inability to discuss tradeoffs—the best indicator of mass hysteria.

When I “served” in Afghanistan, my boss would occasionally invite the religious to pray with him prior to executing a mission. He would ask God to help his men and to hinder the enemy—whom he deemed “pure evil”—without ever appearing to think that the Taliban were likely saying the same prayer and calling us evil. It’s as if both sides were begging God to do the right thing, and over a decade later, the absurdity still bemuses me. Who can argue that twenty years of imposing democracy on a country that doesn’t want it was the right thing to do, especially after twenty years’ worth of resources were nullified in a week? War crimes or crimes against humanity began with those committing them first rationalizing them. Though the murderers might not have deemed their actions “right,” they acted anyway, because they were “just following orders.” But what of those issuing the orders, the sociopaths who believe they can define “the greater good” without the knowledge of the greater population? History repeats itself, and that too many have dismissed that fact as “pessimistic” is one of the reasons why we can’t wake from this dystopian nightmare. Is it not reasonable to expect something catastrophic to unfold when the demagogue defines the right thing?

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