LIBERTY OR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? Part 1

By Michael Shaw
June 30, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

Chapter 1: Understanding Liberty

Who decides the terms of your life? Is it you, the individual? Or is it the state? Society has faced this core issue since the beginning of time.

If we resolve this in favor of individual rights to dictate the terms of one’s life, society must understand this:

Respecting individual dignity requires that we respect the private property of others.

These ideas are as old as the Ten Commandments which prohibit:

1. Stealing.
2. Coveting the property of another.

These principles came to fruition in society with the foundation of the United States of America in the constitution that guide and govern this country. In these institutions, the concept of self-governance is understood to be a necessary prerequisite to leading a life that is one’s own.

Americans know that something is wrong today. The American system of liberty is not being maintained. To fully understand this issue:

• We must learn to understand the nature of the problem,
• We must learn what caused it.

To do the necessary learning, we start with an understanding of what could be: We must understand the basics of liberty.

Liberty presumes that the scope of government powers must be strictly limited and the law must be equally applied to every citizen. In other words, for liberty to exist, governmental favoritism must be eliminated.

Freedom means individuals:

• Can act on their own authority.
• Have authority limited by their legal responsibility not to infringe on other’s right to life, liberty, and property.
• Have moral responsibility that limits their scope of rightful action.
• Have a social responsibility to work toward mutual benefits and productive societal gains.

Building a free society promotes the development of individual conscience. People in a free society, with nurture in a family environment, can become who they are. This system promotes general welfare. Healthy individual character development and positive individual personality expression require a developed conscience.

A person whose character is based on conscience is fully capable of constructive self-expression and of associating productively with others. The freedom to associate and the freedom to express are prerequisites to a person’s natural right to trade freely with others. Genuine free trade creates improvement as each party works toward mutual benefit. The result is a general rise to society.

Liberty and freedom promote and are a prerequisite to peace. However, genuine peace can only exist in free societies where civic responsibility is truly voluntary. Peace requires a system that is based on liberty.

Genuine peace cannot exist in a slave or serf society.

Liberty requires a self governance system. A self governance system of government is centered on the individual and is dependent on the family. Civilized government protects individual rights by exercising powers that are enumerated and limited. The enumerated powers primary design is to protect a citizen’s natural or unalienable right to life, liberty, and property. The alternative form of government uses force to direct the terms of individual life. When government’s force is not strictly enumerated and limited, ‘peace’ is no more than a symptom of society’s fear of government.

For genuine peace to exist, the right to determine the terms of one’s own life requires that we respect the property of others even if that is adverse to our own interests. Consider this example: A person wants to build a home on their land and neighbors object claiming that the new house causes ‘view shed pollution’.

Americans need to understand that if we focus on protecting our property value at the expense of another’s property right, we all end up without property values or property rights.

Respecting what others want to do with their lives and their property, providing one does not create a real nuisance for another, provides each person the opportunity to lead their own life.

George Washington said; “private property and freedom are inseparable.â€