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John Ketchum's avatar

Here's something I posted elsewhere:

The fundamental principle of liberty is self-ownership because the opposite of liberty is slavery, the ownership of one person by another, or tyranny, which is slavery writ large, the explicit or implicit ownership of most of the people of a nation by a tyrant or set of tyrants. France's Louis XIV is an example of an absolute monarch who explicitly claimed to own his subjects. In “Patriarcha,” Robert Filmer defended the divine right of kings by appealing to the principle that the king owns the entire territory over which he rules, including everything and everyone in the territory. Substitute “ruling authority” for “king” to get the general basic principle of authoritarianism. Regarding humans, the fundamental principle of authoritarianism is this: The ruling authority owns all those who are ruled. John Locke's “Two Treatises of Government” was primarily a response to Filmer. In the “First Treatise,” Locke refuted Filmer. Concerning ownership of humans, in Chapter Five of the “Second Treatise,” Locke appealed to self-ownership, the basic principle of libertarianism. From that principle, he derived his political philosophy, which includes the right to property in land and its resources, which opposes ownership of a territory by a ruler. Thus, two basic political alternatives are state ownership and individual self-ownership.

Consider adding to your reading list "The Problem of Political Authority" by Michael Huemer.

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Sotiris Rex's avatar

Thank you for this comment and the valuable context.

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John Ketchum's avatar

My pleasure. I hope it's useful.

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Nikos Maris's avatar

BIG TRUTH, worth making a meme out of it:

''Democracy is the monster that rapes you and calls it lovemaking.''

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Sotiris Rex's avatar

I wish more people would realize this blatantly obvious fact.

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Arjun's avatar

"I think rape is sexy" -someone who made news recently whose name I can't recall

https://youtube.com/shorts/xrtwGg97_6Q?si=AtxLjs8UTrM90xzj

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Verity Love's avatar

If more people would adopt statelessness and be self-responsible, what a different world we would have. Some of the people I talk to ask, 'what would we do without government?', which I reply, we would be free of tyranny, taxes, deathcare, indoctrination schools, military, police, etc, which are all corrupt constructs.

How many want to be free? Galt-Cooperative.com and PurpleParadiseResort.com.

Love you post, Sotiris!

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Sotiris Rex's avatar

I appreciate you. Thank you. Wish more people could understand these simple concepts.

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Verity Love's avatar

Me too! People are SO deeply programmed and unaware of what can be, if they stop playing the game.

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Autonomy4Life's avatar

Gotta agree with you on taxation. Growing up in Belfast in the 60’s no one ever, but never called the cops for anything, the result of this non compliance was a British Army occupation for 30 years. Few people put that paradigm together

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Prometheus Sputnik's avatar

This post is very true - i think the same.

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Sotiris Rex's avatar

I am glad you do.

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