On Individual Rights

Why We MUST Invoke Our Individual Rights—Now
By Gen LaGreca

A few of my favorite parts:

1. Our Rights are Unalienable.

They are inherent in our nature as human beings. No government gives us our rights, and no government can take them away.

2. Our Rights are Rights to Take Action.

They are not entitlements to the free goods and services of other people. In a letter to Isaac Tiffany, Jefferson defines liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

4. The Majority Cannot Violate the Rights of the Individual.

Because individual rights are unalienable, they are not subject to any majority vote.

5. There are No Rights of Groups.

Rights belong to individuals.

6. Our Rights Include the Right to Property.

Without property rights, no rights are possible.

9. Our Rights are Violated Only by Force.

Only acts of physical force or fraud violate our rights. In Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia he states: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”

10. Government’s Sole Job is to Protect Individual Rights.

Wise government, explains Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address, “shall restrain men from injuring one another . . . shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” And that’s it. That’s the whole of the job of government...

Giving the practical argument from the inefficiency of a draft is like trying to walk with one leg. Adding the moral argument from individual rights gives us two legs—plus a spine...

Defending any person’s individual rights is scoring a point for all of us. Therefore, we need to be the one non-special interest group that places the individual in the center of the battle for liberty. In each instance in which we want to fight for freedom, we need to ask ourselves two questions:
—1. Whose individual rights are being violated?
—2. What can I say or do to defend them?

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Subsidizing Failure

Bailing out the Big Three is subsidizing failure.

And you only subsidize something

when you want more of it.

--Grant Bosse at NH Watchdog

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Glossary

(Once I figure out how to bookmark and link to each individual term, I will be able to direct you to the specific term referenced. Until then, you'll have to scroll the word yourself.)

Capitalism: the social system in which individual rights are applied to the realm of trade; a social system based on private ownership of the means of production. (Reisman, pg 19) Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. (Ayn Rand)

Commodity money: money that is a definite physical quantity of a good; Wiki: money whose value comes from a commodity out of which it is made

Currency: a form of money; a unit of exchange. Coins and paper money are two types of currency.

Demand deposit: an account held at a financial institution such as a bank in which the funds placed there are to be available "on demand."

Economics: the science which studies the production of wealth under a system of division of labor.

Fiat paper money: a system where the value of money is not tied to any physical good. It's usefulness arises not from an intrinsic value but from the government order that it must be accepted as payment. In this system, money does not serve as a claim to anything other than itself.

Fiduciary Media: transferable claims to standard money, payable by the issuer on demand, accepted as an equivilant to standard money, but for which no standard money actually exists. An example of fiduciary media is the portion of the money supply held today in checking deposits. Given the current state of the fractional reserve banking system, "money equivilents" are created and circulate in the economy far in excess of the existence of standard money.

Fungibility: Wiki: the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution. Money is fungible in that one dollar bill can be substituted for any other dollar bill.

Gold Standard: a monetary system in which a region's common media of exchange is gold or paper notes that are freely convertible into pre-set, fixed quantities of gold.

Inflation: an increase in the quantity of money at a rate more rapid than the increase in the supply of gold and silver. In a system of fiat paper money, inflation would be defined as an increase in the supply of money. (This second definition is problematic because of the difficulty of defining what constitutes money.)

Mixed Economy: an economy which remains capitalistic in its basic structure, but in which the government stands ready to intervene by bestowing favors on some groups and imposing penalties on others (Reisman pg 34); an economy based on the private ownership of the means of production but more or less severely hampered by an extensive list of socialistically motivated government intervention (Reisman, pg 264.)

Money: a good readily acceptable in exchange by everyone in a given geographical region and is sought for the purpose of exchange; anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts; that which serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value. (Note: Wikipedia's definition of money uses "unit of account" instead of "standard of value" which is the accurate phrase to use when defining fiat money. Fiat money can not serve as an objective standard of value, but can serve as a unit of counting.)

Politics (or political science): the science which determines the principles of a proper social system.

Socialism: an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production (Reisman, pg 264); !--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy (Dictionary.com)

Standard Money: Money that is not itself a claim to anything further.

Statism: The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy (Dictionary.com); the political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man’s life and work belong to the state—to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation—and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good ( Ayn Rand .)

Wealth: the material goods made by man; also land and natural resources in so far as man has made them usable and accessible.

Giving Thanks

Norman Rockwell's famous painting of Thanksgiving is just one of four from his Four Freedoms series, his "Freedom from Want." It is fitting to have a day to share the blessings of our abundance with those we love and cherish. But freedom from want is the simply the effect. The right to Life, Liberty and Property are the means, and our labor is the cause. As summarized by Tom Bethell, "When property is privatized, and the rule of law is established, in such a way that all including the rulers themselves are subject to the same law, economies will prosper and civilizations will blossom."

Freedom of Speech

Freedom from Fear

Freedom of Religion

I was fascinated to see these paintings used as posters to support the war effort in WWII, which is a nice reminder that freedom is not free.

In addition to provding the conditions for the greatest production and accumulation of wealth, Bethell reminds us, "Private property is the most peaceable of institutions, encouraging its owners to cultivate their own gardens and do so productively rather than to organize into armies and raid the storehouse of neighbors."

So I give thanks today, for family and friends, for peace and abundance, and the freedoms which make it all possible.

Quotes from The Noblest Triumph, by Tom Bethell, 1998.

For a nice summary of the history of Thanksgiving as it relates to property and prosperity, see Thinking Man's Thanksgiving post, and "The Pilgrim’s Most Important Discovery” by Robert Sirico, WSJ Nov. 26, 1997. For a firsthand account, see Of Plymouth Plantation by Willaim Bradford, with special attention to paragraphs 216-217.

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The Pilgrims' Most Important Discovery

I have tried to find a link to the original article, and after severla failures, i have decided to simply post the relevent passages here:

From “The Pilgrim’s Most Important Discovery” by Robert Sirico, WSJ Nov. 26, 1997

Thankfulness for prosperity is the mark of the season. But as you enjoy the holiday feast tomorrow, remember that only private property makes prosperity possible--a hard lesson the original Pilgrims learned in the years after their arrival in North America.

In 1617, when the Pilgrims decided to leave the Netherlands, they formed a partnership in a joint-stock company with a group of London merchants. The company, John Peirce & Associates, received a grant for a plantation in the Virginia colony, but the Pilgrims missed the mark and landed along the Massachusetts coast instead. According to the terms of the contract, each adult would be given a share in the company, but the earnings would not be divided among the shareholders for seven years. The Pilgrims' sense of collective ownership was already established when they set sail for the New World.

Once they landed in 1620, the Plymouth colony, following the advice of the company, declared all pastures and produce in common and enshrined this principle in law. The result was economic chaos, disease and starvation. After the first winter, half the colonists had died. It was 1623 before private property rights were established in land, and each stockholder was allowed to cultivate food at a profit.

Textbooks typically blame the weather for this disaster. But William Bradford, governor of the colony, who instituted the New World's first privatization, had a different opinion. Faced with a crisis, he wrote in his diary, the colonists "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery." So Bradford "assigned to every family a parcel of land." "This had very good success for it made all the hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content."


The previous socialist policy, Bradford wrote, had proved the "vanity of that conceit of Plato's . . . that the taking away of property and brining community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing." In fact, socialism "was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."
It was Bradford's decision to draw clear lines of ownership, far more than a turn in the weather or better production techniques, that allowed for the first plentiful harvest and gave us the first Thanksgiving…

Property is not an ultimate value, but a means to an end. It allows us to make use of our individual talents, to take risks, to be charitable and to imbue our lives with ultimate meaning. It is the foundation of a growing economy, a reward for work, a means of security and a source of order in our lives. By allowing us to make contracts and to share, it deters human conflict and shores up social peace. Without private property, the state pretends to rule on everyone's behalf, always with the same disastrous results.
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