The philosophy of liberty

This says it all:

The Philosophy of Liberty is really the best, most concise, and most understandable explanation I have seen of how to determine what is right and wrong in the realm of politics.  Any law that cannot be justified on the basis of these principles is unjust.  Any time a freedom lover, anarchist, libertarian, or voluntaryist justifies force to violate these principles, he or she is making a terrible mistake.

I've seen people in these camps (or this camp) occasionally veer off of these principles for causes that might seem "left-wing" or "right-wing" or might not seem to fit into either category.  At the same time, I've seen people who've never even seen this presentation follow these principles perfectly.  This is what libertarianism is about (and all those other groups I listed above).  This is what morality is about.  Everything else involves initiating force against people who have done nothing wrong.

Love does no harm to a neighbor

A small bit of truth from the media confusion regarding the FLDS:
Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville[, TX], ... began looking for ways to rein in his FLDS neighbors.

Representative Hilderbran from Kerrville is a tyrant, a busybody, a crook, and the moral equivalent of a Mafia thug.

The FLDS are NOT Hilderbran's neighbors. According to Google maps, Kerrville is nearly two hours from Eldorado. Why should a man in Kerrville have the authority to tell people in Eldorado how to live? This is a moral question we really should answer, with monstrous implications for the whole foundation of most people's thinking.

There's a line drawn across the middle of the Rio Grande river. We call it the border between Texas and Mexico. People living north of the line don't have the authority to tell people living south of the line how to live, and people living south of the line don't have the authority to tell people living north of the line how to live. If people cross the line with guns and try to force their will on others, we recognize they are criminals. The only way for people on opposite sides of the line to influence each other is by voluntary agreement. This can happen on a massive scale, in the form of treaties, and it can happen on an individual scale, in the form of small purchases, and it can happen on every scale in between.

Representative Hilderbran has no more authority to force his approval or disapproval of marriages on the FLDS than I do to go next door and tell my neighbor who his daughter can or can't marry. Marriages at age 14 and up with parental consent were deemed perfectly moral and acceptable by the gang of thugs in Austin calling itself the State of Texas prior to October 2005. They did not suddenly become immoral. Apparently the Austin Gang thinks these marriages were just fine as long as nice Baptist and Methodist people were letting their children get married at 15; it's only a problem when scroungy FLDS people move in and do it. Baptists and Methodists don't constitute near as much of a threat to the established order as do the radical FLDS.

There is no moral reason why there should be a line across the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico, but no line drawn between Eldorado and Kerrville. People have the right to self-determination. If Texas and Mexico each have the right to self-determination and it must be mutually respected, then so does each component territory within the U.S. and within Mexico, so does each county within each U.S. State, so does each city, in fact, so does each household. Why should there be a line between Texas and Mexico? Surely it's not because the people to the south have dark skin and speak a different language, is it? Is that why it's okay to draw a line to keep those people out, but not okay for FLDS near Eldorado to draw a line to keep whites out? I don't think that's the motivation ... but what other consistent response can be offered?

We've invented the fiction that voting equals self-determination. Here the truth is exposed: voting in this case eliminates self-determination by giving a fake legitimacy to the crime of a man from Kerrville oppressing the FLDS. Self-determination is robbed from the FLDS. Their fate will now be determined by "neighborly" thugs like Hilderbran, offering us all "protection" if we will pay and acknowledge his authority, as he makes us an offer we literally can't refuse.

The cult here is not the FLDS. It's the religious belief that the gang in Austin is legitimate in exercising its authority and is beneficial as it does so. And that belief permeates almost all of society, within and without Texas. This is why Austin is so scared of groups like the FLDS: they offer something else to believe in and venerate, an alternative culture to the one mandated by our gang. They are competition, and the gang is trying to wipe them out.

Totalitarians looking for another name

Leftist politicians are abandoning the word "liberal" in favor of the word "progressive." Of course, they pretend they are fighting to restore the original definition of "liberal," which meant being in favor of freedom, which they definitely are not. But as we know, it's politically expedient to claim that things which are not freedom and liberty actually are freedom and liberty. Like democracy, for example.

I know a bunch of libertarians who would love to have the word back. That's what it used to mean. Of course, it's truly bizarre to see advocates of religious faith in government like Hillary Clinton pretend to care that liberal doesn't mean liberty anymore.

I'm fine with them labelling themselves progressives. I just hope there will always be an extremely large number of people like me around to point out that the "progress" that they want is totalitarian. What this world does NOT need is just the "right" leaders in charge so that we can finally make "progress." True progress would be liberty.

A couple of years ago my local city politics had a group calling itself "Moving [our city] Forward." I opposed it, of course. What utter dreck! You'll never hear a politician who doesn't say things along the lines of "a vote for me is a vote for moving forward; I just think we need to move forward," etc.

Free human beings don't define "moving forward" like a collective, like a communist nation, like the Borg. The only meaningful definition of "progress" at the government level is the progressive elimination of government itself. Want to make progress today? Call one of your agents in government and tell them to stop doing anything, and especially to stop taking money from your neighbors and telling them what they can and cannot do. And convince your neighbors to do the same. Help build a world where we don't gladly hand out the reigns of tyranny to people who promise to make the most "progress." That would be a world where anyone who stands up and says "put me in charge, I'll help us make progress" doesn't get a single vote.

Compulsory education is slavery

Texas state Representative Wayne Smith wants to make it illegal for parents to miss parent teacher conferences, in order to encourage more parental responsibility.

As homeschooling parents, we're not worried about missing any parent teacher conferences. (Though according to the old joke, if you talk to yourself you only have to worry about yourself answering back...)

In a free society, free citizens can never be told what to do, where to go, when to be there, etc. The only exception to this is when a free citizen steps outside the law, by violating another person's right, and thus loses his freedom to the extent to which he took it away from someone else. (In older times, the term "outlaw" meant someone who had literally been deemed outside the protection of the law because he had chosen not to abide by the law.)

If we're telling grown parents where to go and when to be there, aren't we taking away their freedom? Of course we are!

But we crossed that line long ago. We tell the children where to go, right? We force the parents to make their children go to school. We've been violating the liberties of parents and children through compulsory schooling for almost one hundred fifty years.

The founders of the United States knew that the free market (the organic institution you get when you respect God-given liberties) furnished the best possible education. Until about 1850, every one of them was privately schooled, either through a private institution or at home. Literacy was near universal, and love of liberty reigned. Then some people who wanted to take away liberty decided it would be a good idea to have a centralized, universal education system so that all children could be educated in the same values. The result is over a century of indoctrination, and a society that is less educated and less interested in liberty. In fact, amazingly, lots of people see forcing children to go to school as being essential for liberty. The founders would've disagreed.

A book you might like to read on this subject is John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. You can buy the book, or read it for free online at the link provided. I promise it will open your eyes.

You might also like to know that Thomas Jefferson explicitly declared it to be wrong and inconceivable to violate the liberty of parents and children through compulsory schooling:

"It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father." (Note to Elementary School Act, 1817.)

Of course, in a free society, uninterfered with by criminal force (whether exercised by the state or others), people have natural incentives to see that their children receive the education they find to be most fitting. But the state has eliminated an enormous number of incentives for this. Chalk up Representative Smith's idea as yet another misguided attempt by the state to correct a problem caused by itself. The solution is less government, not more, Mr. Smith. Government IS the problem.

In earlier posts, I've proved that taxation is simply another name for stealing. Compulsory funding of education means robbing people to educate children. What kind of lessons does this teach? What kind of lessons does it teach when the children themselves and their parents and all of their neighbors have their liberty violated for the sake of this education? As an answer, think how many people (maybe even you, dear reader) will react negatively to this essay, asserting that the state (or society) does in fact have a claim to the lives of its citizens -- perhaps we should say its "subjects" -- and the right to violate their liberty in these ways. Yes, compulsory education teaches its lessons well.

Has God entrusted you with the authority to command other people what to do? I don't think so. Don't support the government doing so in your name.

The Philosophy of Liberty

Here's a short little movie you must see, entitled the Philosophy of Liberty.

You can view it directly here. Or you can view it in its original webpage here. Finally, you can install it as a screensaver to educate others. :)

This little film explains what is right and wrong, politically, in a very simple manner, from basic concepts with which we should all agree. (If you believe in the right to enslave others you might disagree with its basic concepts.) It explains why we are required, morally, to support liberty, and why exercising power over other people is immoral.

The presentation contains no reference to religious concepts. However, its fundamental principles are things that are taught in the Christian religion. Everything else it says is proved from those fundamental concepts. Thus, we should recognize that this is not just someone's political fantasy: it is binding on Christians.

Moreover, the truly wonderful thing is that Austrian economics has proved that if we would respect liberty, as taught by this presentation and on this site, we would see maximum economic prosperity. All attempts to interfere with liberty result in a suboptimum result: we tamper with things to make them "better" and make them worse, overall. This should not surprise us. If we would just have faith in what God teaches us, which means being willing to trust and obey Him and do what He says simply because He says it, we would not need to have mathematical proof that His way is best. Nevertheless, it seems that God has written His laws into the very fabric of the universe, in such a way that nations and groups that disregard them find themselves penalized for it. Want prosperity for your nation? Then practice the liberty that God decrees.