It is not the intention to form a habit and discuss aspects of a political nature and fundamentally our aim is to help you with your inner spiritual work. However, we cannot avoid living in the natural world and be confronted by the need to apply and live out our beliefs. Thus I felt it important to make a general statement on the worldly application of the Freedom Principle from my perspective in the hope to challenge your thinking and offer a way to engage in politics with integrity.
The 5 fundamental rights
It seems that today the lessons of history have not been learned and a great many believe that collectivism (the group being more important than the individual) or Socialism (state ownership of everything) is something great to aspire to. Conveniently forgetting the fruits of socialism experienced during the 1940’s and on display in countries like Russia, Cuba, China and the like before the fall of the iron curtain and growing influence of the free west.
As all humans are equally important, it logically follows that each of us individually should fundamentally have equal rights. The law should apply to all people equally and without exception. No collective should be allowed to reduce this principal equality by force.
There are 5 fundamental rights that are not granted to anyone by the action of government legislature, but are simply inherent in human life and come courtesy of our creator. In other words, they are already yours until they are taken away. They are:
Right to life itself
It seems almost too crazy to need to express this separately, but unfortunately there are many who think someone’s convenience is more important than human life. All humans have a right to live and have this right protected. Each of us have our own potential, our own unique capabilities and individual mind. No human’s life is more important than another’s and once our life begins, it should be protected. Life cannot be granted to us, it can only be taken away by force.
Right to think freely
Part of being human is our ability to contemplate and consider our thoughts about various matters. It seems to be universally agreed that mind-control is not acceptable and that we should be free to make our own choices. We should protect our ability to think freely, it can only be curtailed or taken away by force.
Right to express oneself freely
One cannot live without expression. We go to great lengths to learn to express our thoughts and emotions, through speech, art and work. It is everyone’s right to use their voice to speak through various means. Limiting expression involuntary can only be done by force and no voice should have more or less right than another.
Right to travel freely
All humans have the ability to move about and travel from one place to another. Any unnecessary and involuntary restriction amounts to imprisonment and is therefore an act of aggression and not acceptable. People must be free to move about on their own or public property.
Right to own property
Since we have the ability to create, we must be able to own and have control over what we create. We must also be able to trade or sell our own creations. Therefore private property rights are a fundamental element of human action.
Since these five fundamental rights apply to all persons equally and without exception, they automatically require an absence of coercion of any form. Coercion diminishes the ability of another to enact these liberties and these should only be voluntarily relinquished. Any legislation that does not support these rights can therefore only act to reduce them. By extension then, all should also have the right to defend and protect ourselves and our property against external forces in order to stay safe and remain free from coercion, aggression and tyranny.
It is by protecting the rights of each and all individuals’ liberty that a collective/community can benefit and express itself freely. In other words, it is by protecting the individual that society is protected as a whole – not the other way around, because society is a collective of individuals. If it is controlled by a central group with disproportionate rights, inequality will be the result and freedom will disappear but for the mighty few.
The principles of Freedom Philosophy
The principles of Freedom Philosophy are built on the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility, which apply equally to all in all circumstances and without exception. As all humans are equally important, it logically follows that each of us individually have equal rights. What matters most is this equality and care, through which is determined the rights of a collective. No collective should be allowed to reduce this principal equality by force. In short the principles of Freedom Philosophy are fundamentally libertarian in nature and can, against current political slogans, be viewed as being vehemently pro-life, pro-freedom, anti-aggression and pro personal responsibility and accountability.
Let’s have a look at what this means for more specific areas of the religious and political landscape:
Religion
Freedom lies at the heart of our philosophy, which is because inner change can only come from within ourselves. This means we need to take personal responsibility as individuals, but equally for leaders to understand that, while we can potentially make people behave in a certain manner under compulsion, we cannot do that intrinsically. The heart of course is what matters, what we love and this must be voluntarily chosen. So, many mistakenly think that keeping politics and religion separate is about removing religious and spiritual philosophy from government. This is not and cannot be the case. Freedom is not about banning individuals from bringing their ideas and beliefs to the table. The idea is to remove control of government over our religious ideas and remove legislature from telling us what we can or cannot believe. Freedom is ultimately about individual choice and opportunity.
Legislation
Any agreed rules within society should support and protect these individual rights. If it does not, it can only reduce them at the expense of few or most individuals only to elevate those who have the powers to enforce them, which is often the government itself. Oftentimes in today’s society legislation is in place which criminalises conduct for where no victim exists outside the individual engaging in the behaviour themselves, if at all. Examples for these are parking on nature strips, not wearing a bicycle helmet, smoking marijuana, not wearing a seat-belt, jay-walking and the like. In such circumstances, there will be no ‘complainant’ and thus it becomes a crime against the ‘state’, with the state enforcing the legislation and pursuing the enforcement of its own laws aggressively. The enforcement of victimless crime cannot exist in a truly free society and as such has no place as part of Freedom Philosophy.
Economy
Based on these principles, central economic interference should be avoided and human action left to a laissez-faire approach. Like society as a whole, ‘the economy’ also is simply made up of individual actions. Any central interference amounts to coercion by limiting free individual actions and to stimulate otherwise unwarranted actions. Two individuals should be left free to interact or trade voluntarily. In an environment which is absent of interference, we have a maximum potential for competition and therefore minimal chances of monopolised control – thus providing freedom through choice. Freedom Philosophy recognises that the economic actions rely on individual interactions not government regulation and stimulation. Under principles of Freedom Philosophy there should be minimal if any regulation and no regulatory interference to protect or bail-out any uneconomical industries or individual entrepreneurs. It recognises that no state ‘creates’ any legitimate jobs which add economic value, but that small entrepreneurs and other enterprise does. It is only in a free environment, devoid of stifling regulation, that new ideas can emerge and risks are taken to develop and support these.
Government
The place of government in our current society is to govern (read ‘rule over’) the people through elected representatives. In a free society of autonomous individuals, and without limiting the rights of others, people should ideally govern themselves. In Australia, under the Constitution, the legislature (parliament) has the power to make laws, the executive (government) has the power to implement the law and the judiciary (legal system) has the power to interpret the law. In other words, our through these three arms, the government has the power to create law, enforce law and interpret the same laws as it sees fit. It is a central power that effectively amounts to being judge, jury and executioner in one which heeds only the vocal populist voice of dependent residents in order to maximise its own potential to stay in power.
In a free society the law should remain focussed on protecting the 5 fundamental rights of each individual and provide an effective and supportive mechanism of arbitration. It is not (or rather should not be) the place of a monopoly government to coerce individuals into specific behaviour. In particular if doing otherwise does not impinge on the fundamental rights of others.
Therefore, where government may be useful, it should have severely limited powers and essentially be elected unanimously (Democracy is a mob-rule scenario and does not equate to better outcomes for all). This automatically leads to more localised representation and better alignment with the local community. In other words, government should be devolved and with active engagement of a responsible local community.
Taxation
Governments are dependent on contributions in order to be able to spend money on particular programmes or outcomes. Unlike other services people seek to obtain, and for which there would be a voluntary exchange, governments force contributions by compulsory acquisition of your funds – called tax. While it is obvious that certain services the government provides benefit all or most and have an establishment and or maintenance cost attached for which one would expect all who are able to contribute to to do so, it is, in fact, the first and foremost form of aggression performed by the state. History has shown that taxation ever increases, both direct and by stealth. Taxation in a free society should be voluntary (and at the very least appropriated by democratic vote) and as a result automatically minimal. It should certainly not be used to ensure wealth is transferred from those who earn it to those who did not via legalised theft.
Equality
It seems to have become more prevalent in our current society for democratic governments to pander to vocal minority groups and seek to provide an equality of outcome. Taking more tax from the ‘haves’ and to gift it gratuitously to the ‘have-nots’. It is a seemingly never ending task, because there seems no lack of causes for which to try and enforce (but never reach) a homogenous outcome. This is because we are all individual, with individual circumstances, individual skills, inclinations, interests, abilities, opportunities etc.. It is this approach, which creates and environment where it is seemingly legitimate for government to take money from a wage earner who has travelled to meet work opportunities and give it to someone unwilling to do so.
This approach fails to recognise that it is only those who have been able to be rewarded for their entrepreneurial risk, hard work or otherwise, have the capacity to spend money on new ideas and so bring society along the path of new development. If it weren’t for rich being allowed to maintain their wealth in the past, we would today not have cars, fast trains, airplanes, coffee machines, computers or even books or electricity. It is only by free or accidental ‘exuberance’ of wealthy spend-thrift, that new technology becomes available to the masses at an affordable level. In other words, someone has to has enough money, time and freedom to come up with new ideas first and develop these, before it can benefit society as a whole.
While no person likes to see anyone poor or miserable, redistributing wealth (as opposed to creating new wealth) by force is not appropriate. In a free society, which recognises the same fundamental rights of every individual, there is no better mechanism for equality than that which is provided through an equality of opportunity, which only comes courtesy of these same rights applied equally to all. It would also make each one personally responsible and accountable for their own freely chosen course of action in pursuit or non-pursuit of opportunities available to them.
Be aware though, that while we hold principles in mind, there may be legitimate reasons when we need to compromise. In a democratic environment and shared community with others, we cannot enforce our own will. However, it is important that we understand our basis from which we compromise and clearly understand why we do so.
Now, I hope this helps. If not, at least it gives you a deeper insight into the perspective on Freedom from my position.
Blessings and Peace,
Cor
