Living in a free society

People always ask me, "What is a free society?" A free society is summed up in one simple word: self-ownership. I own myself. You own yourself. Every person owns his or herself. To imply that others have more control over yourself than you is to imply that you are a slave. You own yourself implies you own your life, you own your mind, you own your body, and you own your property. No other person has a higher claim on yourself than you, and you do not have a higher claim on another's self than that person.

Since you have the absolute right with yourself, you have to take responsibility for yourself. Individual liberty and personal responsibility are opposite sides of the same coin. If you want liberty, you have to take responsibility for your actions, and vice versa. Some people want to lay blame on other people, other animate objects, inanimate objects, or worse, the government. Since the only role of the government in a free society is to protect your rights, you have to be responsible if your decisions and/or actions are unwise. And, if you want to live a free society, you have to let others live in a free society too. You may not approve of what others say, or do, but if that person doesn't forcibly interfere with any other person, just face the facts: you are not God, or your majesty. In other words, they have equal rights, also.

While most people are just and honorable, some people are evil. You have to protect yourself from the latter. Those people want to take away your life, your mind, your body, and your property. The Framers could see it oh so well, so they drafted the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is the most unique concept of any founding documents, of any country, past, present, or future. The underlining principle of the Constitution, with its checks and balances, three equal branches of government, and adding the Bill of Rights before ratification, was to protect the country from the government. The underlining concept of the Second Amendment, as a last resort, is a check on the government by the people..."To protect themselves against tyranny in government", as Thomas Jefferson once said. I believe the Second Amendment should be first in line, because if you take away the right to bear arms, those rights found in the First Amendment, like religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition, are mere privileges, given and taken away on a ruler's whim.

Since you have the absolute right for your life, you have the absolute right to choose, if God doesn't choose before you, where, when, and how you will die. Now, the vast majority of the people don't want to die any time soon. But if you have excruciating pain, and you think the right course for your well being is to die, you are an adult, and that is your choice. In fact, it is your choice regardless of the circumstances.

Since you have the absolute right to do anything with your body, you have the absolute right to ingest anything you want, including drugs, both legal and illegal. Now I don't recommend ingesting gasoline, Drano, lighter fluid, etc., including dangerous drugs. But, there is one fact that trumps all others: I'm not you. Only you can decide for yourself.

Since you have the absolute right to do anything with your mind, you have the absolute right to read pornographic magazines or other offensive material. Now, I don't want you to act out on what you read in public, and thus, violating an innocent bystander with your sick, perverted ways. You just crossed the line by forcibly interfering with someone else's right to be left alone, and I have no problem with that someone retaliating with force. But if you want to read, and act out on the fantasies you create, by yourself, you have the right to do that.

Since you have the absolute right to do whatever you want with your own property, every else has the absolute right to do whatever one wants with one's own property. The only concept by which people can interact with one another voluntary is through a free market. And everyone has a choice of which product(s) one should buy, or sell. Whether it is retirement accounts, health insurance, education, financial products, or whatever, we should have a choice, like a choice of different bread, peanut butter, milk, cereal, and the rest of the products we find in a grocery store. But in government today, there is only one choice, you are forced to take that choice, and that choice is terrible. In retirement accounts, government forces you to take Social Security. In health insurance, government forces you to take Medicare and Medicaid. In education, government forces you to enroll and send your children to government schools. And in financial products, the "legal tender" is fiat paper, inflationary, Federal Reserve Notes (US dollars), backed up by nothing. In a free society, people will have a choice in everything.

And if you put Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. from the public sector into the private, you won't need to pay any taxes. Taxation is legalized theft, and legalized theft is theft, pure and simple. Theft in general violates God's Eighth Commandment; thou shalt not steal. If you don't pay taxes, it means every dollar that you earn, you keep. You can do what you want to do with your money: spend it, save it, invest it, give it to charity, hoard it away, or even destroy it. It's your money, and thus, it's your call, not the government. Remember, the government does foolish things with your money. You know better how to spend your money than the government, because IT'S YOURS.

We just scratched the surface on what would it be like if we live in a free society. If you want to know more, check out this 10-minute animated video titled "The Philosophy of Liberty". You can play it without sound, but it has a powerful music background. This video is an introduction to libertarian principles, created by Ken Schoolland and Lux Lucre. I wish I could live in a free society. Do you?