March 17, 2004

One Odd Fellow’s Insights Into Making Liberty

Item 1:
Liberty cannot be achieved by fighting for it; that is, by means of force.

Item 2:
Liberty cannot be achieved by running away or escape, although a semblance of liberty may be achieved if one goes to a place where people will respect your difference (as long as you, as the intruder, respect how they live their lives).

Item 3:
Liberty is defined as respect for the sovereignty of the individual.

Item 4:
The action of liberty is respecting the sovereignty of individuals; that is, it is not an action of protection of your sovereignty by an agency by force, but the mutual respect of sovereignty between individuals (reciprocally).

Item 5:
The reciprocity of respect is predicated upon the self-interest of each individual to be secure in their own sovereignty, and that, to secure this personal value, they act in such a manner (respectfully) as to secure the same value (of sovereign boundaries) in regard to others.

Item 6:
The value of security in one’s personal sovereignty is an equally held value from person to person. All other values are idiosyncratic, divergent, individual choices, and respect for all such other values is the definitive boundary of individual sovereignty.

Item 7:
The only way to achieve liberty is to practice it; i.e., means determine ends; i.e., means cause ends; i.e., liberty is the consequence of respecting individual sovereignty (i.e., it is the consequence of its own practice).

Item 8:
The way to spread liberty is to practice it oneself and to encourage it in others.

Item 9:
The way to encourage it in others is by means of explanation and/or education, although not necessarily in a formal, western sense. (Education, traditionally, is usually a matter of force, epistemologically; often in the guise of authoritarianism, rationalism or scientism.)

Item 10:
The dissemination of information as to how liberty works (its reciprocal mechanism) is, like the substance of liberty (respect), freely given to others. I.e., it is a gift rather than a demand.

Item 11:
It is the inherent nature of groups, societies, organizations, institutions, and so forth, to disrespect the sovereignty of individuals, such as to promulgate uniform values over people (i.e., to force agreement).

Item 12:
It is the inherent nature of groups, etc. to subordinate individuals to the group, in order to sustain, strengthen and materially enhance the survival of the group itself (superior to individual members).

Item 13:
It is inherent to the nature of group programming that the individual survives by permission of the group, that the individual is dependent for his survival upon the group, that the individual fares according to the power (strength and affluence) of the group, and that the individual owes a duty to support the group regardless of personal cost.

Item 14:
It is inherent to the nature of groups to seek mechanisms of force by which to extract support for their insatiable aggrandizement of material and military power (often termed “progress”).

Item 15:
All groups, and not only military, political and religious groups, possess this inherent nature and inclination - and will develop it to the full extent that individuals, through ignorance or carelessness, allow, bounded only by the existence of other stronger and competitive groups.

Item 16:
Groups, in their nature, are not “human,” but, as empowered constructions made by human beings, are corrupted by the element of power (force; implied or explicit) into perversions of any underlying or intended humanity.

Item 17:
The philosophies and rationales for the brutal nature of human beings, needing a strong external power to subdue and control them, derive their understanding of “humanness” from the example, demonstration and existence of the empowered and, hence, corrupted nature of groups (and from the behavior of corrupted individuals within such unnatural “power structures”).

Item 18:
Unempowered, voluntary, optional groups, of any size or description, are harmless and may provide benefits to individuals, as freely formed associations composed of other, sovereign individuals. The means of sustaining unempowered groups is always predicated upon the continued voluntary support of individuals.

Item 19:
In the design of liberty, as a reciprocal respect accorded between individuals (a very simple mechanism), individuals must take care not to empower any group over themselves, nor to provide groups with mechanisms of survival independent of the voluntary choices of individuals.

Item 20:
In addition to practicing liberty, and spreading its practice informationally, individuals will formalize the practice by means of an agreement in the form of an individually attested contract, which does three things only:

Sub-item 1:
defines the terms (sovereign, individual, respect, and so forth),

Sub-item 2:
defines what constitutes a breach of contract and the mechanisms for repairing such breaches (e.g., restitution and penalties), and

Sub-item 3:
prevents the empowerment of groups over individuals, outside of the enforcement of penalties imposed upon those who have breached the contract, and, thus, as a power derived from the contract (explicitly, from having attested thereto as a binding agreement), and not a power inherent in any group, agency or institution. (That is, the power to enforce the contract derives from the person who signed it, and who is liable, by agreement, to penalty upon breaching his agreement. It does not derive from the group or from the document, but, specifically, from his agreement to be held accountable for violations - to the agreement, which, if the agreement is designed properly, would also be violations to the sovereignty of other individuals.)

Item 21:
The details of the agreement cannot be resolved in the context of oppression, wherein they will derive much of their design from existing, corrupted mechanisms of a power structure erected over individuals.

Item 22:
The practice of liberty and dissemination of the principles of liberty, from the position of a corrupted society, provides and requires great healing, before any contractual agreement can be formed in regard to details without contamination.

Item 23:
The period of healing will be neither slow nor fast, but will vary according to degree of indoctrination, military resistance, communications, accessibility of the presentation of principles, psychological resistance (denial), and other factors, such that it will take as long as it needs, no less.

Item 24:
The period of healing will generate many attempts to subvert the process by the offering of quick-fixes, compromised solutions, capitulations by the power structure, and so forth, that will create powerful temptations to halt the process prematurely. (These “offerings” will come as frequently from the private sector as the power sector, because, within a power structure, people are struggling to climb to the “top” by any means possible, thence, scams and schemes will multiply in areas where people are most hopeful, willing, optimistic or gullible.)

Item 25:
Even after substantial healing has taken place, the majority of the proposed agreements, contracts, and their mechanisms and details, will incorporate, by design or oversight, elements of power structures that will subvert and corrupt the intended goal of free sovereignty, some of these merely by the imposition of a private sector price tag on the operations.

Item 26:
Further items to this list (and many details) are probably premature in the year 2004 on the planet Earth for the species homo sapiens.

Item 27:
Practice liberty, spread its healing message - heal thyself, and heal thy neighbors.

If you have ever contemplated purchasing/reading any of my books, perhaps most notably Reciprocia, but have restrained yourself because, “ach, but he is such a self-promoting, insistent, my-way-or-the-highway, contrary bastard, I would probably find the experience disagreeable.”

Then I can only say, agreeably, yes, since my return to my country, I have been confrontationally reminded of the poverty of common sense in my “fellows” (compared to nearly any individual I have encountered in the third world), which has made my disposition, at times, somewhat sour and my temper, at times, seemingly strident.

The first four books, however, were written in a healing space, outside of this country, and in a mood of gentle, optimistic goodwill (albeit with a somewhat robust enthusiasm). I cannot say which is the “true” me, for I am as affected by my environment as are most people, more sensitive than some, and less adaptable than others ... and not always to good effect, in either case.*

Recently, a new web site, Practical Liberty, was launched by Kelly Ross, as an activist distillation of Reciprocia. I requested that she keep reference to me and my works off the site, as it does not serve any purpose in disseminating principles to bind them to the promotional efforts of a given author, philosopher or, um, guru - especially not a one-way sourpuss.

The documents that Kelly produced are much simplified - with the idea that what is needed, initially, is to start practicing liberty, such as to heal, such as to avert the coming holocaust, and such as to prepare for a greater awareness of liberty’s dimensions in the future. This is not unlike Sunni Maravillosa’s practically informative web site, Doing Freedom!, nor is it unlike several other activist liberty web sites on the Internet.

Kelly’s particular twist was to turn these principles into documents that could be “owned” by individuals, and - through Kelly’s on-going efforts in processing feedback and input on that web site - to refine their accessibility and usability.

My own approach is somewhat different, as I am less a political animal than a philosophical one, and, therefore, tend to explore the farther reaches of the process (than is probably necessary to initiate its present implementation).

Still, in keeping with the idea of distilling essential ideas, I present the above items ... not as a signable document, but as a presentation of key points. They may be supplemental to Kelly’s attestable documents, or they may, with my usual philosophical flair, be off on a different track altogether. But, well, if I were doing something like that, this is how I would go about it.

*
(I will add, parenthetically, that although you would imagine that I would need to be more adaptable while living around the globe for ten years, it is a matter of direction of adaptation. I do not believe that I learned to walk up-right until I had been abroad for at least two years. I have a certain resistance to going backwards, and bending over, as I perceive the cultural position of most Americans. This makes me, in the eyes of many of my “fellows” a disagreeable, contrary upstart. And, yes, I would prefer that slaves learn to stand-up, than that I, to accommodate them, re-learn how to bend over. I also acknowledge that my lack of flexibility is frequently unhelpful to some of my broader goals, and, so, I pivot, at times, upon this personal dilemma.)

Richard Rieben’s books are available through the publisher, berapapress.com, and through amazon.com, bookstores and other outlets. His internet articles are featured at takeliberty.com. He does not blog.