I, and any number of others, have been accused of not following social rules.

My response to that is as follows. If you want your social rules to be binding, pass a law toward that effect. Have the Parliament or the Congress vote on them. Make them official. Make them real.

If a rule is unofficial, then it is not subject to accountability, check and balance. That makes such rules an attempt at tyranny. When a rule is unofficial, there is nothing to check it against; which means that it constitutes effective tyranny.

Which means that it is not only one's right to transgress such usurpations, but that it is in many cases one's duty before liberty and democracy to do the same.

In many places in the supposedly free countries, the worst thing that one can be is different from people around them. This is a hideous monstrosity. Anyone who makes any kind of original contribution will have to think differently from people around him in order to do such a thing. If such people are portrayed as “narcissists,” “sociopaths” or anything of the sort, then the world loses its best contributors. And that leads the countries that have such attitudes to fall behind to countries that do not.

When the media was running a feeding frenzy about Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski, an independent media outlet called the Salon ran a story about the affair that Henry Hyde, the congressional leader of that feeding frenzy, had run for several years. The media accused the Salon of violating unspoken rules. What it actually violated was a vicious feeding frenzy; and in doing so it saved American democracy.

We hear a lot about the so-called sexual deviants. The Right accuses homosexuals of sexual deviance, and the Left accuses “perverts” of sexual deviance. I would rather be dealing with a homosexual or a “pervert” over people of that kind. Liberty means just that: Liberty. Unelected, unofficial, unchecked and unbalanced organs of usurpation of power – whether oppressive communities or Third Wave feminists – do not have the right to dictate to a free country what kind of sexuality people can practice. Someone going after children, fair enough, make and enforce laws against such a thing. But stay out of the bedrooms of consenting adults.

If it is thought rightful that a man break a child's skull, but not rightful that a woman leave him to be with someone she loves, then something is very wrong with the social norms in the place. If it is thought rightful for teenagers to get one another pregnant but a kid who is taking school seriously is thought of as a “know-it-all” or “thinks he's better than everyone else,” then something is also very wrong in such places. If the worst thing that one can be is different or a “freak,” then the country is going to lose its best contributors. The attention of freedom fighter type has been focused mostly on the government, but in the Western countries the government is not the worst villain. Communities are. School cultures are. Brutal parents and step-parents are. Religious organizations are. Corrupt networks in law and medicine are. All of these commit greater violations than anything that is allowed Western governments under Constitutional law.

If you want your social rules to be binding, sign them into law. I would follow an official law; but I would not follow an illegitimate dictate. Illegitimate dictates have no place in a democracy or in a country that is intended to be free. If you want people to live your way, pass a law toward that effect. But do not at any point put people under an illusion that they are living in liberty.

The rules that are unwritten are rules that are not subject to visibility or accountability. That makes them an attempt at de facto tyranny. At which point it becomes not only the right, but the duty, of anyone who holds liberty dear to confront such usurpations and free oneself and others from them.

Should societies have rules? If you want your society to have rules, make them official. Pass them into actual law. Codify them. Then people will know exactly what they are faced with, and whatever social rule one claims to follow will have an actual existence in the law books.

Codify in the law what kind of relationships people can have. Codify in the law how people can dress, how they can look, how they can behave. Codify in the law how people can think. Codify in the law what kind of personality people can have. But at no point give a false impression that what you are offering is liberty.

I would follow an official law. I would not however follow an usurpatory dictate, nor would I advise that anyone else does either. You want your social rules to be binding, pass a law. Subject it to checks, balance and accountability. And then replace a de facto tyranny with official rules, that at least have the honesty to be official and subject to visibility, check and balance.