Libertarian Basics

The Libertarian Premise: It is wrong to unjustly encroach upon any creature or the environment to the detriment of any living thing. Most people agree with this premise. The disagreement is over what constitutes encroachment.

The innate love of liberty and the concession of this to others is what we may call the Libertarian Impulse. Depending upon the degree of spiritual development, the individual either manifests this or does not. We know that it is unjust to unnecessarily kill, assault, coerce, rob, defraud, slander, or otherwise encroach upon any living creature. Calling these acts by other names and programming an ignorant majority to agree that they are necessary or permissible does not change their nature. To do evil is to trespass unnecessarily upon the liberty of any living organism. Historically this principle has been called the Golden Rule.

In human affairs we accept the premise that is desirable for people to reach their natural level of prosperity and development through their own volition while living in peace and harmony with each other. A human being is an creature which comes into this world with no rights owed him and no obligation incumbent upon him, except the natural right to absolute individual liberty, and since he is not alone on the planet, the logical obligation of reciprocity in this towards others. He need only concede to others the same liberty that he demands for himself, because this is absolutely all that is necessary for continuing harmony on Earth. The one human responsibility then is simply to never make unjust encroachment. The only legitimate function of government is to enforce this natural obligation of humanity. Any person or government attempting to impose any burden other than this upon the individual is guilty of criminal coercion and should be regarded as a mortal enemy even if the oppression is sanctioned democratically.

Liberty is the natural right of every living organism to manifest justly as an unimpeded participant in evolutionary destiny. This manifestation, to be just, must not unnecessarily interfere with the evolutionary expression of any other living organism.

Every problem in every society on Earth can be traced back to a point where someone in government decides to sacrifice individual liberty for some other goal. Like any breech of natural law this produces a distortion. One compromise seems to justify another and soon the cause and effect relationships become obscured by time and complexity. The achievement of harmony on Earth simply involves eliminating the complex of false dependencies that have arisen because of these past mistakes.

Individual liberty is the innate right to be free of unjust encroachment from others. It doesn't matter if the others outnumber us, are organized, and use euphemistic terminology. There are two types of unjust encroachment against individual liberty, illegal and legal. From a Libertarian standpoint both are equally as criminal. Un-Libertarian elements will allege that legal crimes are not unjust because they are determined to be necessary by a majority opinion and that this should supersede any objective measure of workability and rightness. There is no reason for decent people to compromise about this. People who don't want to be free are cowards. People who keep others from being free are criminals. The majority of people on Earth have always been and still are both.

People who have little regard for individual liberty will think that anyone who questions their morality or basic understanding in this regard is being terribly unreasonable. For those, however, who have a heroic vision for future societies, liberty is not a question to be begged, but a moral absolute. It is not negotiable or compromisable. It's value is not merely theoretical or just a "matter of opinion". The Libertarian position is the only viewpoint which is not unreasonable. The people who now oppose individual liberty eventually will be vanquished. Natural order will prevail. The first line of attack is education.

Libertarianism is not power hungry politics, but the structuring of human affairs in accordance with natural law. Anarcho-Capitalism is not chaos, but the one and only system of economics which implements natural order.

The individual has the natural right to live in a free society, failing this, to live in liberty within any society in which he may find himself, regardless of the "consequences" to anyone else. Absolute individual liberty is the one and only thing worth fighting for. The truly Libertarian position is superior to all others, intellectually and morally. There are few however, who really understand or practice Libertarian ideals. No existing government and very few people will knowingly allow complete liberty to anyone if it seems to suit their purpose to do otherwise. If the individual wants liberty, he has to reach out and take it at any cost, must guard it jealously, and to keep it must be willing to fight even unto death.

No matter what else man accomplishes, if he does not immediately deal with the problem of increasing population, nothing else he does will matter. Couples who have more than two children make direct encroachment against all other creatures on this planet. The ideal population level on Earth was passed hundreds of years ago, if by the word "ideal" we mean a level consistent with concepts like individual self-actualization and opulent joy in living, rather than mere subsistence in anguished mediocrity. Evolutionary destiny is served through qualitation, not quantification. Maximum joyful manifestation for small numbers is superior to minimum meager manifestation for vast suffering multitudes. We are not imbued with life merely to endure it.

Trying to make the world Libertarian through writing is like holding a message in a bottle while standing upon a high precipice overlooking the vast expanse of limitless ocean. You are at the brink of heroic destiny, but casting your message into the sea of fate. The message is a knowledge of natural principles, which if generally acted upon by mankind, will ensure worldwide prosperity and peace, the unimpeded evolutionary expression of all living things. You wonder if the message will ever be read by anyone. Your only certainty is that little perceptible change will result in your own lifetime, because there are few who would comprehend the message even if everyone did read it. You wonder if the message will be preserved long enough to make any difference at all or whether the life you have spent has simply been wasted. Then you wonder if anything matters at all. Then you contemplate the other things that you might have done with your life and you realize that there is nothing, nor could there ever be anything, more excellent than this: the Greatest of All Quests.