Liberty For All

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Liberty For All

Libertarianism only requires societal agreement on one thing: liberty for all. Any other system requires agreements among many, both people and problems: difficult at best, or agreement among none, totalitarianism: worst. These systems end up failing at one point or another, sometimes spawning progress, maturity and forward motion for the population or repeating themselves over and over in a kind of groundhog day manner, a reset each time, dictator after dictator, democracy after democracy down through the ages.

Given what we know about our world and how we as humans operate, the only solution is individual liberty based immovably on private property rights; private property which includes you as a person and your body. This means you have a nature given right, a right based firmly on the fact that you were born to this world, a world where there is no provable higher power to assign 'rank' among the humans, to be left alone to do your thing free from any and all aggression perpetuated by any other human, with one exception which I'll address in a moment.

Further, there are many examples in nature, of which we are obviously a part of, of natural selection, survival of the fittest, meaning it's biologically and evolutionarily possible here on Earthland and it appears to be the default. We mix in a little logic on top of this: if the natural state for humans was subjection and violence, it stands to reason that a civilization based on those would be limited in a overall potential. The focus would be constantly on survival resulting in very limited, or at least glacially slow, forward progress instead of focusing on living life, progressing, learning and growing.

We've seen humans, despite sharing a common existence or goal, eventually turn on one another fairly often like the allianced contestants ultimately must on a game show like Survivor…we get bored when forward motion, progress, grind to a halt, even for those who enjoy a more sedate pace of living. In the end, a society based on violence and subservience at the species level seems very much counter to longevity and prosperity. It's my guess that the society would implode in due course every time. It stands to reason then that cooperation with, and respect towards, other humans is the default way to roll.

For many reasons leaders have a tough go of it, especially as they grow in popularity, not the least of which is the reaching of the physical and metaphorical hands of many people who now look to the leader for something, hearing their voice, solving their problem, addressing their concerns. A human leader is just that, human, with all the limitations inherent with that reality. They cannot effectively be everything for everyone despite the demands to do so. Instead, delegations (read: equiv to manager/supervisor/bureaucrat) are made further compounding the problem. With others handling the addressment of the masses, the leader is no longer infusing each decision with some of the stuff that drew people to her/him in the first place. Each of the delegates is now doing that and of course each of their approaches is different. A solid set of policies and procedures goes a long way to band-aiding the problem but does not provide a permanent solution to the issue. Over time, operations are moulded to the personalities and morals of the delegates which may not, often the case, have the best interests of those who chose to be lead by the original individual, whatever proportion of the general population that may be.   

An idea based on knowledge, observation and logic is unassailable and available always to any who want it or need it. In the case of the idea of liberty and private property rights, there is no interpretation, no moulding to a whim: we leave each other alone and don't steal/wreck other's stuff, period.

Sound Utopian? I get that, however, it most assuredly is not. Aside from the fact that humans are in a constant state of struggle with their environment just to stay alive (we are shielded a fair amount by progress in our tools 'n tech and the division of labour), humans are very often in a struggle with each other. A society built on liberty will alleviate very quickly many of the ills that prompt poor (sometimes desperate?) behaviour but I'd wager that we will still have our share of social challenges.

This dictates the first and arguably the most important human adoption aside from liberty itself: a system of justice and dispute resolution coupled with a mechanism to ensure restitution is carried out as ordered by the court process. Using the principals embedded in natural law/common law, law, as Rothbard quotes in For a New Liberty: A Libertarian Manifesto, would be discovered, not dictated.

The next major challenge: our universe, our reality. While I don't think we can say 'none' with total certainly, although an example escapes me at the moment, there are very few 'things', of any description and corporeal form that are free-as-in-beer. Liberty is absolutely one of them with the cost being our diligent and ongoing protection of same and the private property rights that accompany it.

A society based in individual liberty and private property is one of personal responsibility as well. The world owes nobody nothin' as is said and it's true. There are no guarantees, no owzzies (parent/child relationship a separate topic), what you put in, hopefully you get out in spades (the word profit worx here) but even still, no guarantees. The best we can do is prepare and mitigate risk. This however is subjective and only belongs at the individual level not at a group level: one person's risk is another person's joy.

Truth disguised as cliche:
  • you reap what you sow
  • you gotta pay to play
  • shit happens
Personal responsibility for all one's uncoerced choices and actions, again a price tag: it is up to society to continuously hold people responsible for their actions…starting with themselves.

SARS-CoV-2 showed us that humanity can change on a dime when the motivation is strong…I can't think of a stronger one than our survival, can you?

[note: the only aggression exception where an individual's private property rights can be violated is in the case of forced restitution after being found guilty during legal due process; the individual will remain, at their own personal expense, under whatever restrictions and/or confinements determined during proceedings until whatever assigned restitution has been paid in full.]