The Delusion of Autonomy
No Man is an Island
A woman is dead. If you havenโt heard about it until now, good for you. That means you arenโt trapped in a digital box.
But her story affects you in more ways than you can possibly imagine.
Renee Nicole Good, an anti-ICE activist in Minnesota (member of a group who labels themselves โICE Watchโ and routinely impedes federal immigration operations), used her SUV to block ICE officers from conducting their patrol duties in a residential neighborhood.
She was accompanied by her wife, who got out of the vehicle to record, taunt, and resist the officers openly.
Two officers ordered her to exit the vehicle. Not only did she disobey that direct order. Instead, she aimed her vehicle at one of the officers and gunned the gas.
In self-defense, the officer removed his weapon and opened fire until the threat was neutralized.
Good died at the scene.
Now, the incident is being politicized, mostly by leftist radicals to further impede federal immigration enforcement. But thatโs not why it matters for us.
At root in the debacle is Goodโs irresponsible behavior. All she had to do was comply with the officers, and she would still be alive. But something in her character prevented that outcome.
She chose
Disrespect
Resistance
Attempted murder
It cost her everything. And left a 6-year-old boy without his mother for the rest of his life.
Some would say her convictions and worldview fueled the madness, and they would be correct.
Good hated ICE because she believed they are doing wrong by deporting illegal immigrants from the United States. A belief seated in the worldview that all should be welcome in the U.S. no matter their background. Who they are or what they have done.
But something more sinister lies behind that false assumption: The postmodern obsession with individual autonomy.
Through that obsession, that delusion, men and women alike are being convinced they are islands, over which they are sole rulers. And any affront to total control is a deadly assault against them. Itโs each man against the world.
Said belief is wrecking our souls, our bodies, our country, and our future.
State of Independence
โAutonomyโ means โthe quality or state of being independent, free, and self-directingโ or โself-governing.โ For someone to be purely autonomous, he or she would have to be the ultimate authority and disregard all other forms of authority. Exactly as Good did and other leftists still do.
Yet, pure autonomy is unattainable. As Thomas Merton famously said, โNo man is an island.โ Something most in this day and age fail to grasp.
Exercising pure autonomy always leads to bad outcomes. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Why?
Because humans arenโt purely autonomous. The only level of independence humans really have is over their personal choices. Beyond that, autonomy dissipates like vapor in the breeze on a sunny afternoon.
You are born dependent on your parents
You canโt do everything on your own, so you depend on help from friends and family
You canโt live without income, which requires hard work and dependence on employment or others buying your offers
You depend on the earth to keep spinning, plants to keep breathing oxygen and providing food, gravity to keep you from flying off into space, water to keep you hydrated, the sun to keep you warm, and so on
Everything and everyone listed has some level of authority over you, regardless of whether you want it. And when you try to escape that design, you either end up alone, miserable, or dead.
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Milgram and the Pressure of Authority
Authority thrives on reliance and boundaries. Even self-authority. But the postmodernists (now โsocial justice warriorsโ) want to tear all boundaries down, claiming they canโt be trusted since they interfere with autonomy.
Hence, these โsocial justice warriorsโ resist and/or dispense with any other kind of authority beyond themselves. Orโฆthey think they do.
In his book Influence, psychologist Robert Cialdini records the story of several experiments run by a psychology professor named Milgram. The professor set up a scenario where a Learner would be hooked to electrodes and receive questions from a Teacher, and if the Learner answered a question wrong, he or she would receive a shock that would increase in voltage with each wrong answer.
The whole experiment was run by a Researcher in a lab coat, who served as the authority or overseer. After a question was asked and answered, he would give the cue to the Teacher if they should pull the lever.
Onlyโฆthe Learners were paid actors, and there were no shocks.
The Teachers were the sole volunteers, without their knowing. The test subjects. And the experiment was to see how long they would continue administering shocks despite witnessing Learners writhing in pain. Even near death.
NONE OF THE TEACHERS STOPPED.
They kept pulling the lever. Against their better judgment. Some among the group of volunteers even snapped and became like insane wild animals. Because they trusted the researcher and did not want to disobey his authority.
Always a Slave
The only power you have is to choose which authority you will serve.
Milgramโs experiment proved total control is a delusion. Even subconsciously, outside forces work overtime to influence and program our behavior from the inside out. Once they have us capturedโฆthatโs it.
And Milgram is far from the first to make this case.
Christians have warned for millennia that we are broken sinners susceptible to temptation. Easily persuaded toward bad acts in the name of faulty convictions. In the name of lower-case gods.
Paulโs familiar words are appropriate here:
โ[B]e strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.ย Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.ย For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly placesโ (Ephesians 6:10-12).
A cosmic war rages, and the prize is your soul. There is no way for you to evade that reality.
Jesus himself, Almighty God-in-the-flesh, prophesied in the Sermon on the Mount, โNo one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the otherโ (Matthew 6:24). Though spoken in the context of money, the principle reigns supreme in every situation.
But notice what isnโt permitted by Jesusโs words: Lack of service. The Lord presumes the impossibility of total independence. Humans will serve something or someone.
Jesusโs brother James takes this idea further in his epistle. He says,
โLet no one say when he is tempted, โI am being tempted by God,โ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.ย But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.ย Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth deathโ (James 1:13-15).
Attempts at pure autonomy, pure individualism (entering a realm with no boundaries and no authority), lead to sin and then death. Because we humans were not created in a vacuum, and authority cannot be escaped.
If you donโt serve God, you will end up serving something or someone else guaranteed to lead you astray.
Sacrificial Servanthood
The solution to the dilemma of authority isnโt individualism or forced collectivism. Communists tried the latter many times, and millions of people were slaughtered or starved to death at the hand of the State, the new god. Because such tyranny strips humans of all autonomy, even over their own decisions, erasing free will.
Either of the above dehumanizes and destroys. Soโฆwhat are we left with?
Humble, sacrificial servanthood, as prescribed in Acts 4 and Romans 13.
In Acts 4:32-37, the members of the first church met together regularly, supported each other, held each other accountable, and voluntarily distributed goods and services wherever there was need. Each person had independence over his or her own decisions but was encouraged to support the community as a whole, operating as one body (see also 1 Corinthians 12).
And then Paul extended that model toward government and the churchโs relationship to the world in Romans 13. The whole passage deserves quotation:
โLet every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.ย Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.ย For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval,ย for he is Godโs servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out Godโs wrath on the wrongdoer.ย Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid Godโs wrath but also for the sake of conscience.ย For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.ย Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owedโ (Romans 13:1-7).
Contrary to popular interpretations, Paul doesnโt give full and unaccountable authority to the State in this passage. He prescribes a hierarchical roadmap of existing authority in the world and limits to each earthly authority.
God is the highest authority
All people belong to God and are expected to live out his good will
The state exists to protect people and defend good conduct in accordance with Godโs will
The only party without need for accountability is God because he is the highest, eternal, perfect standard by which all else is made and measured. An authority that extends beyond the limits of His church.
Each earthly authority is accountable to him and does right as long as they operate within the confines of the boundaries set before them. The key to understanding is the final verse: โPay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.โ
Resistance to an authority, then, is only valid when this prescribed order is violated. Even Paul resisted Emperor Nero when he attempted to take the place of God and murdered Christians in cold blood.
Hence, we are commanded to โtest the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the worldโ (1 John 4:1). False prophets and spirits of darkness will disobey and attempt to dismantle Godโs established order of authority.
But until such a case arises, โdo what is good, and you will receive his (the governmentโs) approval,ย for he is Godโs servant for your good.โ
The Delusion of Autonomy
Renee Nichole Good fell prey to the delusion of pure autonomy. Not realizing she isnโt fully independent, she fell prey to easy deception by the anti-ICE group she joined. A cult founded on that very delusion.
Itโs entirely likely she held their views prior to joining because of the narrative pushed in almost every mainstream media outlet: โUndocumented immigrantsโ are innocent people trying to live-and-let-live. Third World minorities who are โoppressedโ due to โsystemic white privilege.โ In other words, their autonomy is being violated by the system.
So, she viewed it as her duty to resist the government.
Except
Her view is extremely flawed. Countless illegal immigrants (who came here without following our laws and assimilating to our culture) have raped and murdered legal American citizens who were just trying to live-and-let-live.
Good did not remain peaceful. She attempted to kill a federal officer without legal or justifiable cause. Thatโs attempted murder.
The โautonomyโ of illegal immigrants doesnโt matter apart from Godโs established order of authority. Especially since they are not legal citizens of the United States. They have already violated the established boundaries.
Therefore, Goodโs very presence at an ICE operation, impeding their duties, was both wrong and dangerous to herself and the public. And when she did not heed their commands, they were fully within their God-ordained rights to arrest her for the sake of the greater good and safety of American citizens.
What happened is a terrible tragedy, but her blood is on her own hands.
SOURCES
Robert B Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (New York, NY: Harper Business, 2021).
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island (New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc. 1983).
https://nypost.com/2026/01/08/us-news/renee-nicole-good-was-minneapolis-ice-watch-warrior-who-trained-to-resist-feds-before-shooting/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
https://www.dailywire.com/news/renee-good-was-trained-ice-watch-warrior-locals-say?author=Jennie+Taer&category=undefined&elementPosition=22&row=3&rowHeadline=Latest+News&rowType=Vertical+Carousel&title=Renee+Good+Was+Trained+%E2%80%98ICE+Watch%E2%80%99+%E2%80%98Warrior%2C%E2%80%99+Locals+Say
Its a real tragedy. She also had kids and still made such a stupid decision. I wish them luck in their lives.
This whole phenomena that's happening reminds me of the Entire Story of One Piece. For those who never read or watched the anime it is this era's Oddessy. The Lady who lost her life due to her own actions. She FAFO'd thanks to her "wife" telling her to Drive baby Drive running over the ICE Agent reminds me of a class of characters called The Tenryubito or Celestial Dragons thinking they can do as they please and harm others as they Wish with out consequence.
It sucks she lost her life and the "wife" should be, if not already be in custody for attempted murder of a federal Agent.
Now, I've been to Minneapolis several times last year. I went to one of the hotels where I met a fine black American fellow named Mo. We started talking and he was shocked when I told him about Illhan Omar and shared my condolences that they are stuck with her. He then told me "Sir Mo is Short for Mohammed, I keep my name short so I'm not lumped in with the Somali's as they cause issue for other Muslims in the state who came here through the proper channels." He wanted them gone. So, we lamented shook hands and I went to my room for the night. I remember how cold it was that night.