(CNN) Think of the last time you filled your car with petrol. Where did your money go?

To buy a glass of champagne for the dictator of a country whose children die at the highest rate in the world?

To Vladimir Putin?

Photos: Cult of Putin Photos: Cult of Putin While his nation waded deeper into the Syrian civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, spent his 63rd birthday on the ice Wednesday, October 7, playing hockey with NHL stars and various Russian officials and tycoons in Sochi. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia, on Friday, September 4. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokingly toast at a lunch during a meeting at the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, on Sunday, August 30. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin exercises during his meeting with Medvedev on August 30. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin sits in a bathyscaphe as it plunges into the Black Sea along the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea, on Tuesday, August 18. Putin went underwater to see the wreckage of an ancient merchant ship that was found in the end of May. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a Persian leopard cub in February 2014 at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight. Hide Caption 21 of 21

In 2014, for example, the average American household sent around $250 to authoritarians , just by filling up. That's a lot of money that Americans gave to autocrats to help them violate basic human rights and spread religious intolerance around the planet.

This may seem to be just the way the world works. But it doesn't have to. We can change the rules. If you think about the rule we use today to decide who to buy oil from, it makes no sense.

To see why, imagine that an armed gang takes over your local petrol station. Should that give them the legal right to sell the petrol and keep the money? Should our law at home say that "might" makes "right" for oil?

No. A law like that at home would cause complete chaos. We'd see ever-more powerful gangs, turf wars, kingpins...

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But "might makes right" is the law that we actually do use for the oil of foreign countries. When Saddam's gang took over Iraq in a violent coup, our law gave us the right to buy Iraq's oil from them.

And then in mid-2014, ISIS took over some of those same Iraqi wells -- and their oil sales helped the extremist group to become "the world's richest terror army."

Anyone outside of Iraq who bought gasoline made from ISIS oil would have owned that gas free and clear under the laws of their own country.

'Might makes right'

We take the law of "might makes right" for granted because it's been around for so long. The law is a relic of centuries past -- from the days when the European empires were blasting each other's wooden ships with cannons. Back then, "might makes right" even made the slave trade legal. Back then, the world's law even for human beings was "whoever can control them by force can sell them to us."

That's the law that made it legal for 12 million captured Africans to be forced through the horrific Middle Passage , where the survivors were legally bought in the Americas.

In one of humanity's great steps forward for freedom, we abolished "might makes right" for human beings. It's now illegal to sell captured people. But, for captured oil, "might makes right" zombies on, because we've never had the courage to change it.

We can change it now. The west now has enough energy of its own -- we don't need to send our cash to despots and fanatics any more. To make the change, our governments only need to pass new laws making it illegal to buy oil from such men. Our laws are up to us -- and changing our laws now would get us out of business with today's men of blood.

Of course, other countries might still buy oil from them. But we would no longer be complicit with torturers and terrorists whenever we purchase petrol. And if the West took the lead in abolishing this archaic, destructive law of "might makes right" for oil, we might just inspire the rest of the world to join us in taking humanity's next big step toward freedom and peace.

Something to think about the next time you fill up.