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| Non-negotiable Rights and Government Duty |
Thomas Jefferson said "You only have the rights you will fight and die for." At the end of my last article I paraphrased the basic ideas behind the Declaration of Independence, and stated that in order to be legitimate, a government must defend life, liberty, and property. Since liberty is an abstract term, I ended the article with a video called "The Philosophy of Liberty" that puts it in a more concrete form.
Now, in the Declaration it was stated that when a government becomes destructive of the means, of life liberty or property, it is our duty to fire them. Government is our employee, and the only way it can be the other way around is through consent of the governed. So the rights we are born with as expanded are the right to exist, the right to make our own decisions, and the right to have what we have earned through honest work. The restrictions on the right to make our own decisions, is that we do not have a right to make others decisions for them. We do not have the right to take someone elses life. We do not have the right to initiate force or fraud. We do not have the right to take away what someone has honestly worked for.
All rights come with implied responsibility, for the most basic rights, we have the responsibility to protect them. If you do not defend your rights, you do not have them. On the other hand, if you declare a right unto yourself, and if you would fight to the death to protect that right, than no one, not even the largest army in the world can take it away from you. At the worst they could kill you, but during your life you would have still had the declared right. No matter how hard someone tried they could not change that. Facts are quite stubborn.
So, a government is defined as an institution of defense for basic rights. In order to build my government I need to determine what is necessary for life liberty and property. For all these things the employers must have the will to resist any moving outside of the basic government is teaching people to know what their rights are. So a governments first structural duty is a small form of education system. Under no circumstances is the government allowed to redefine rights, and if caught lying or trying to hide these rights, the government will have annulled its authority In order for the government to remain legitimate the caught liar should be impeached.
In the system I want, people should be allowed to setup groups like this, so as to avoid yet another government monopoly. There must be a way for others to set up their own governments without violating the basic rights of others, and with respect to each persons way of life. It should be noted, that all systems can be criticized, and the government has no right to keep anyone from criticizing another. If an argument is really so evil, than it will expose itself... let them speak. If an argument is legitimate, it should be heard, and properly addressed.
In order that life be defended, the people must have a means to defend themselves. It is my belief that an army seperate from the people will overtime evolve itself into a dictatorship. So long as your government does not attack mine, you are free to seperate people and their forms of defense as you please. The second amendment of the US Constitution specifically said that the right of the people to defend themselves will not be infringed. The basic text even implies that people seperate from government should form militias. Further evidence for thiswould be the restriction on Congress of raising taxes for an army, for any period longer than two years. I believe this to mean that congress has not had that power under law since 1791. (Thats not a typo, nor a math mistake, the Constitution wasn't ratified till September 14th, 1789) Right now, since mine is just a small group of eccentric people, this just means we have the duty to learn how to defend ourselves and each other. A government has the duty to encourage this, and make it possible.
Now, when it comes to the right to exist in order to continue said existance, we must be able to eat. There is a restriction in government just giving people food, in that one cannot take others properties through force, and make no mistake, government is a form of force. The other thing is that, if the government earns the means of life through legitimate means, than the group of people making up this government can refuse to give what they have earned. Thus, I say that in order for liberty to be retained, the people have the responsibility to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. What the government can do is help teach self-reliance. Self-reliance is the greatest source of liberty. So if a government is to uphold liberty, than they can legitimately show others how to be self-reliant.
So far the only rights of government that I have defined are very restricted forms of education on self-defense, civil rights, and methods of self-reliance. Civil rights must be strictly defined so as to not be later translated as its antonym (as crazy as it sounds in politics it happens all the time). Beyond this there should be a way of protecting citizens against one another, so a court would also be legitimate, and I will attempt to speak more on this in my next post.
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