In today's society, there is an assault on individualism, or the belief that each man owns himself. This belief is truly the most accurate definition of freedom. What is freedom, except the most direct attachment of each individual to the consequences of his actions and inactions as well as the right to determine what those actions or in-activities are. As always, I note that this self determination is circumscribed or limited by its direct impositions upon others.

The Fort Hood attack of several weeks ago, yes, a terrorist attack, was not just an an outrage of thuggery and murder. Many commentators have been terminally frustrated with the politically correct atmosphere that seems to have entirely overtaken every facet of American life. So, in politically correct fashion, the soon-to-be terrorist, Nidal Hassan, was promoted through the ranks and his communication with Islamic radicals was kept secret from the Army. As well, the Army itself, refused to court marshal or at minimum reprimand Hassan even though a number of complaints had been filed against him for his overt anti-American views and his admonition of the worthiness of the enemy's cause. Action was not taken against a clear threat because he was not regarded as an individual. He was dealt with as a member of a class; Muslim American and as the omnipresent insistence prompts, he was assumed a moderate practitioner of Islam.

Yet, in this climate of hostility primarily emanating from Muslims toward Americans, Americanism, and anything which is not Islamic, but perhaps in some small part reciprocated by a small portion of the nation, Hassan was given a huge pass on the even larger warning bells his statements and actions must certainly have set off amongst those with whom he had contact. It was his religion that protected him from scrutiny, from reprimand, from arrest, from charges. His Islamic beliefs, a characteristic which can be noted of a great portion of the American population, allowed him to remain unchallenged until his violent heart expressed itself in grim outrage. The class which was ascribed to him by other people, unwilling to see individuals as they individually are, permitted him the necessary time to carry out terrorism and murder.

Who in our culture views people as members of a particular class? One does not have to look very far to discover the plain answer. The left believes in ascribing order by placing people in classes, and then fooling with those classes until everything is 'fair'. Remember the President's recent appointment to the Supreme Court? Sotomayor made clear in her judicial decisions that 'fair' was one group of people being treated differently than another, based upon things which have nothing to do with the situations in which individuals act. The firefighter case was as blatantly racist a decision as one can find, as much as the Dredd Scott decision, I venture and boldly so. Perhaps you would think otherwise? Recall that in the Dredd Scott case the Supreme Court's decision ruled that Scott was not entitled to the rights afforded every other American citizen. Sotomayor's decision in the Ricci case essentially said the same thing, that people in like circumstance must be judged differently, based not upon their different actions, but based upon the differing social classes into which each of those people are reserved.

Many other situations of this sort exist, where the depravity in the arrangement of confining people to classes and creating warfare between them is fogged only by a proclaimed superior ethic of social manipulation. We have a heavily one-sided graduated income tax, splitting people into economic classes. We have privileges afforded people based upon their race, in many states and cities who run quotas in their hiring processes rather than allowing market forces to drive for the best employees to be hired, regardless of their heritage. It has been long known that such programming of culture is counterproductive. Not only does it most often entirely ignore merit, it arranges a situation where the perception is that merit does not matter. What I am referring to is this; suppose a black man is hired on to work at a fire station in a city that practices affirmative action or some similar system. Even if that black firefighter was truly the best qualified candidate for his position, there will remain doubt in the minds of those who did not receive the position and in the coworkers that something other than merit was what promoted that man to the position. The same thing is true in the mind of the black firefighter. He would much rather have been hired solely on merit so that his credentials for the position are not doubted at all, avoiding the stand-off-ish circumstance that non-merit hiring creates.

But, in returning to my original point, individuals are the bearers of their own freedom. They own themselves, the right to decide, the right to act, the right to succeed, and just as much the right to fail and pick themselves back up and go at it again or at something else or not to pick themselves up at all. This notion that people should be protected from their actions or, effectually, isolated from their rights because of the 'class' into which intellectuals fit them, is utter nonsense and the outset of tyranny. People behave individually and we cannot regard their behaviors in any other way.

Whereas the Dredd Scott decision hurt the black ex-slave and forced him to return to slavery, denying his American rights to himself, the Ricci case denied firefighters the advancement they earned on the whimsical notion that since none of the black candidates passed the test, the nineteen white and hispanic firefighters who did pass the test would have their scores invalidated. Where the graduated income tax takes a greater percentage from the people who work the hardest, it is called justifiable since that money is used to fund government handouts to people who did not work as hard (but promise ever-so-earnestly to vote Democrat henceforth).

Here is the truth. Freedom is individual in nature and is a hands-off situation. Individuals owning themselves are entitled in every respect to those things they produce. No one has the right to anything that they cannot produce or freely barter for themselves. They have a right to contract with anyone they wish, for whatever they wish, again within the boundaries of impositions upon others. No class, no race, no gender, no bereaved minority, or tyrannical majority has any right to enslave one man for the benefit of another. Americans are not a mass of people to be arranged. They are a people who have lived for a great deal of time in harmony, while producing for themselves and their families on an individual level. Adam Smith was a brilliant man, but he only pointed out the self-evident nature of men's free barter; that the invisible hand works amongst people because, in order to achieve his own goals, each man is more than likely to help someone else in some way even having no intention to do so. The only situation in which this is not the case is where a man may isolate himself. Anything other than these two arrangements is one person imposing his will upon another, and thus a violation of that man's liberty.

I have tried to sit down and write but time always gets away from me too quickly. So, in lifting a form idea from Sowell, I'll run through a few quick hits here that I have meant to post and hopefully down the road I shall elaborate on them in more detail. (I have only just placed these words on screen and will edit them tomorrow. When these parenthesis disappear, the editing is complete.)

The Constitution is an exceedingly small document for the purpose it was created. It's small because it was to restrain an exceedingly small body; the federal government of the United States. HR 3200 is massive because it is designed to control a large body; the American people.

A great many people mistake consensus of opinion with fact. But facts do not depend upon the opinions of mankind. Truth stands wholly apart from vindication by observation. Interpretation of evidence  is an extrapolation or even invention of situations to match what is observed with some level of preconceived world-view.

Justice is the direct binding of action and result, a natural association of choice with consequence. Nothing is justified by the end result. The means are of at least equal if not greater import than ends. And the means, therefore, often justify the ends. Men who break the law lose their freedom in prison. That's an attachment of consequence to action and a statement against supremacy of results.

The right to life is not the right to continue breathing at any cost. It is the moral claim of individual and sovereign self-ownership. Simply put, the right is to 'my own life' and with that right comes the right and responsibility of self-actualization, self-determination, and property. This overarching right to life can be argued for on a number of different levels but I wish to note here that a human is a natural individual. It cannot tap into any collective will without intentionally aligning itself to such duties or without external and brutal force. It does everything, at some level, to match with its own set of goals, even if that appears to follow a unified goal with others.

Collectivism has an appeal in that it frees people from the rigors and disciplines of prudent behavior. Consider this; A leads to B which leads to C. Most of us understand that. If I fail to pay my mortgage (A), I will be foreclosed on (B), and will end up homeless (C). Concern over results guides my behavior to abide by my responsibilities. Yet, under a collective system, when results are 'evenly' distributed across the community, not only does the material wealth no longer have a bearing on input, intentions become the highest currency. In Barney Frank's mind, he could NEVER be responsible for the housing bust because he believes and has pushed for a socialization of lifestyle in America, therefore, the entire nation is responsible if anything.

This is turning into a bit of a non-few-statement blog post but allow me to elaborate a tad further. Remember what I said earlier, that no human operates outside his own individual goals? Well, Barney Frank, being a collectivist, could never associate himself with consequences because he's 'operating toward a collective good'. Yet, he blames Republicans (who should have shut down the GSEs) for the housing bust. Why? Because by and large the Republican party is NOT collectivist in nature. They are individualists and therefore are subject to the consequences of their actions (or in this case, subject to the consequences of Barney Frank's actions). It's important to realize, this is not merely an arrogant belief in the left's purity of intentions. It is a concerted effort to supplant human nature with a foreign construct of elitism.

The left regards anyone who disagrees with them as idiots while the right regards disagreement as a natural state of mankind. The right believes in liberty, therefore disagreement is associated a measure of competition within the principle of individual sovereignty. The left believes in collectivism and therefore associates disagreement with hatred toward the collective or to mere imbecility. In this situation the left will never regard the right as capable of intellectual debate because of the left's perpetual refusal to accept as intellectually worthy anything which is not collective in nature. The right, also, will never be able to regard the left as capable of proper debate because of the left's voluntary constraints within a collective ideal.

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.

Short and simple. I'm on my way out the door to go camping, but this is something that's been rolling around my mind for a few years.

It is not possible to 'overshoot' freedom. It isn't possible to create a system in which the individual has a level of control over his own life that is 'too great' to be allowed. Many, in politics and amongst the advocates of covetousness, try to state that some people can't take care of themselves or that when left more completely free, people are more likely to become victims of fraud and force.

Well, perhaps in an anarchic system, fraud and force would rule the day. That is why real freedom is a natural contract between individuals that no one will foul with each others business and everyone will operate according to the contracts they establish with each other.

When that contract is violated, there is a need for a universal backlash which is not democratic, which does not merely engage in the fiat of mob justice, which is not reciprocity but rather is blind justice. That is why we have established a government. To stop force and redress fraud.

This leads us to another need, that of a binding contract by which the government ought to be held in its operation; a Constitution.

Further, having a Constitution which is unchangeable would enslave subsequent generations to the decisions of a previous one. While human nature demands we all be left alone in our freedom, it is that freedom which allows us to choose against that human nature, hypocritically, unwisely, and illogically. Therefore, we have processes of amendment and election.

It follows that these people will eventually choose a form of government which is unnatural and which oppresses the human spirit of freedom. We are engaged in such a transition at this moment. So, it also stands to reason that our freedoms must be maintained by a philosophical adoration for the precarious system which allows the unhindered expression of liberty, man's truest and most often suppressed character. Morality and personal reservation become utterly crucial components to the individual's right to decide for himself.

I have not said anything profound here. But I think we are at a point when very simple concepts are profoundly ignored and hidden from and by a great subset of our society. I only hope that my own contributions in discussion, debate, and writing help to illuminate those very basic ideals which are more often than not buried by the flaw of humanity.

As an introduction to a blog, most certainly to see very very very little, in the way of readership, I will note a few things.

First, I am creating this blog to add my half cent to the world conversation and also as a place I can send people in reference of what I believe, in the event that time does not permit full discussions on all topics (as it never does).

Secondly, I don't intend to do a great deal of events blogging, if any at all. I may end up doing some, but primarily I want to use this as a place to establish and explore philosophical matters and then note how they may or are or should be playing into real life scenarios. But this isn't going to be a breaking news blog. Malkin, Coulter, Steyn, Sowell, Stossel.... the list goes on forever. There are ample sources for people interested.

Now, to what I believe. I posted this as an introduction to another blog. I'll update it and add to it. It will give an interested browsers a good base of what sort of thoughts I have.

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.