Principles of Freedom

Individual Rights

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.

Fundamentally, there are only very few rights that need to be expressed and it is these particular rights that form the basis of all derivatives. These basic rights are not granted to anyone by the action of government legislature, but are simply inherent in human life and come courtesy of our creator. They are:

1. Right to life itself
2. Right to think freely
3. Right to express oneself freely
4. Right to travel freely
5. Right to own property

Since these 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 thus may these only be voluntarily relinquished. By extension then, one should also have the right to defend and protect themselves and their property against external forces in order to feel safe and remain free from coercion, aggression and tyranny.

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 for personal responsibility.

Let’s have a look at what this means for more specific areas of the political landscape:

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 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.