Posted by
Joseph O'Connell on Sunday, August 02, 2009 9:57:16 PM
I have taken the time to update some of my statements in my introduction. The additions are in red. I did not strike out the letters of the subtracted parts because it is all covered in this new edition and to allow them to remain would be mere repetition. I have edited the original post but am adding this one as well, to keep any potential visitors apprised of my fundamental beliefs.
I believe there are two things central to the stability of a free
society; the sanctity of life and the absoluteness of private property.
Neither of these moral bulwarks are superior or inferior to the other
and the development of policy and belief stem from the two ideals
remaining hand-in-hand. I also believe that these ideals are primarily
defended through religious teaching and their establishment by God.
Taking logic from those views I have concluded definitively the following.
-There is no right or left. There is freedom and tyranny. Tyrants wield
an authority of control while freedom-minded people wield nothing but a
desire to maintain liberty. Liberty is an absence of force or coercion in the life of each individual.
No one, who believes in freedom, forces anything upon anyone or from
anyone unless that person has first violated the natural agreement of
liberty to which such force is necessary to defend these rights.
-There is no perfection on Earth. Humanity is blessed with a stunningly
diverse array of people, in thought as much as anything else. No
arrangement will work perfectly to everyone's complete and satisfactory
benefit. What we must seek is the best arrangement whereby people can
coexist and attain their unique or common objectives for themselves.
-This diversity of humanity exposes an individuality which cannot be
reconciled with any collective ideal. Humans all eat, breathe, drink,
think, decide, act, speak, etc as individuals. The only instances of
collective ideals are in those cases where men unionize their similar
ideals to amass greater power by threat or by peer pressure. Each goal
which drove each member to join such a unionized force remains an
individual objective. Therefore, each individual owns the right to
decide for his own being, what contracts to participate in, what faith
to hold, what desires to establish, etc. I will refer to this as the 'contract of the individual'.
-Property is the manifestation of a person's choices and effort. The right to own property is absolute, since the nature of the individual's ownership of himself is absolute, and not subject to repeal based upon popular demand or fiat. Redistribution of wealth through theft or progressive taxation and recurring taxation
is immoral, discouraging to an economy, and an initiator of snowball
effect which functions against production, societal values, and
morality. An owner has total discretion as to
where, when, how, and why to distribute, destroy, dispose, dispense,
stock, save, or reserve any property owned, created, received in
transaction or gift, or discovered.
-People, therefore,
have a right to defense of one's self and one's property as well as the
persons or property to which one feels obligated in defense,
contractually, neighborly, or otherwise, thus the right to items which
can best
assist that defense against any threat cannot morally be withheld by
law. This is identical to violation of contract. The nature of humanity
is the contract of the individual, once again.
-The right to freely associate is a crucial and basic principal to mankind and may not be restricted without the bound person having
prior violations of these rights against someone else. This applies not
only to political parties and movements but also to labor and sales. An
employer has an absolute right to determine who will work for them and
why someone will or will not work for them. A worker has the absolute
right to determine who they will work for by formulating contracts with
whomever they wish for any rate or reason. A salesman has sole
discretion as to whom they will sell to and for whatever reasons. A
customer has the right to decide where they expend their value for any
reason at all. Contracts to these ends, formulated between agents of the economy are binding and must be upheld by the law.
-Life is the most valuable commodity of all to a person. It cannot be
violated without just cause (self defense) or consent (that is, for
example, as a person may give consent for dangerous assignment by
contract to a construction company whose specialty is high steel). However,
it is not a violation of one person's life that another person's
property remains intact. Suppose a man may die without charitable
contribution from good citizens. He still has no right to prop up his
own life by stealing from another man, whether or not that man can
afford the abuse, whether or not the abuser sends government to act in
his stead. One life is not protected in the trampling of another.
-Willful violation of the right to one's own life or one's own property
repeals all these rights for the violator and thus they subjugate
themselves to the necessary steps for a civil society of ordered
liberty to maintain it's precarious stance or to an individual's right
to self defense. This
is identical to violation of contract, nullifying the contract's
obligations to the violator. The nature of humanity is the contract of
the individual, once again.
-Travel is as necessary as the rest of the rights. A person who is free
to do as he pleases (rights circumscribed by the identical rights of
others) but only permitted to be so in a certain area, has no rights at
all. With the ability to travel comes increased abilities to associate,
contract, and transact. Therefore, no restrictions may be placed upon
mobility except for those to ensure mobility is not a direct threat to
the other rights. This is why we have drivers' licenses and we search
people before they board aircraft among other things as well as allowing private land owners to maintain sovereignty over that land.
-The Constitution is, in originalist principal, for the restriction of government to its sole and declared duties which are to stop force and redress fraud.
Freedom-minded people do not need governing in any sense. The diversity
of mankind not only demands a system where people are not subject to
collective will, but requires a government to preserve the natural
rights of mankind from those who wish to impose unnatural violations of
humanity. Those violations vary from petty crime to invasion from an
enemy force. Thus, government has a function in an imperfect society,
not to create perfection, but to protect against force
and reestablish justice of as much imperfection as possible. In that
sense, government is the greatest threat to liberty and must be
governed, itself, and harshly. That is the purpose for the Constitution
of the United States of America.
-Freedom of advocacy and speech is necessary, however, not as wide open
as commonly thought. Harassment and public endangerment circumscribe
this right which is otherwise unencumbered.
-A nation of ordered liberty must be a republic of some sort. All other
forms of governance are fundamentally at odds with liberty in their
inability to reign in the absolute power of mob rule. A republic can
only serve as a bulwark against this for so long, until the mob
overrules the minority or until, as is also currently happening, the
society loses all moral navigation and boundaries. Yet, we cannot
simply throw the only baby out with the bathwater.
I may amend and append these statements further as necessary but the ideals are sound, though incomplete.