In a lot of my other posts, I’ll reference the word liberty and advocate for enhancing it. As such, it is imperative for me to define liberty, which I shall do here:
Liberty is the absence of coercion and the absolute protection of fundamental individual rights, both of which are mutually inclusive, at all costs. In order for fundamental individual rights to be protected at all costs, coercion must be absent. The only time any entity can justify the use of coercion is in defense against coercion and/or violation of fundamental individual rights from another party. For example, if your neighbor approaches your property in an attempt to steal something of yours, the neighbor is using coercion and, therefore, violating your fundamental individual rights. As such, in defense of your fundamental individual rights, you may use coercion only against that neighbor who is violating your fundamental individual rights.
As Joel Skousen defines so well here:
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT #2: LIBERTY
To ACT without external or prior restraint when those actions are not in direct and harmful conflict with the rights of others.
This is the basic law of freedom–the right to do anything in the pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness”, including that which others may think dangerous, or harmful to SELF, as long as others’ fundamental rights are not infringed in the process.
Often times in my posts on Liberty Forecast Blog, when I mention that liberty doesn’t prevail, it is usually in the complaints against the following:
-Essentially all forms of taxation, but most especially the income tax and 16th Amendment
-Socialism
-Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and our overall banking and financial system which are all products of socialism, not capitalism, contrary to popular misconceptions.
-Coercive regulations on business enterprises and commercial activities
-Gun control measures
-More intrusive TSA-style measures(such as Covi-Pass being contemplated for future airport security)
-Illegal NSA spying
-Subsidies, especially to corporations that stifle free speech and press like Google and Facebook
These are just a few examples, but in a civilization where liberty prevails, these examples of coercion and violations of fundamental individual rights would be illegal and non-existent.