My philosophy is based on the principle of self-ownership. You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life nor do you own the lives of others.
Discussion
This is one eloquent man. If more people understood and lived by this, we'd be a lot better off.
Correct.
So beautifully clear.
For so many people, actions in society that are generally considered good (helping others, cooperating in the face of a crisis, etc) are assumed to be the arena of government.
Excellent! Ayn Rand couldn’t have said it better 🤩
If I run into a burning building that I did not have permission to enter, and I rescue an occupant, did I violate the property owner's rights? What if I hesitated, because I was tErRifIEd oF viOLatInG tHe NAP?
This is theoretically bullshit.
Normally there are more circumstances like just NAP. Do you know the owner? It's he your neighbor? How acted people in the past? What happened to them?
You wouldn't run today simply into a secured military area either, but you wouldn't hesitate to help at a burning house, even in a state that permits to shoot you for trespassing.
Walter E Williams RIP
Keep going past Walter and you'll end up with me at Lysander Spooner.
From this, one can derive that personal consent is what matters, in all things.
Just Powers are derived from consent of the governed.
Yet, there is no personal consent mechanism.
Thus, there are no Just Powers (absent a personal consent)
'But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such as government as we have had, or it has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist"
(because it portends to be a legal binding contract which no one alive has consented to, because it lacks a personal consent mechanism)
💯🤙🫡
Nice well articulated
If I am my property, and you are your property, then I’m going to need some explanations
I don't think the analogy with property holds up, because it's circular and because it'd mean you can give yourself away. It's circular because the definition of property is that it belongs to you. If you are your own property, that means you belong to you belong to you belong to you... leading to an infinite regression. "You" is never actually defined.
If something is your property, you can sell it or give it away. If you regarded people as their own property, that'd be a very thin legal protection against, from the video, slavery or rape. Because you could sell yourself and what the new owner does with her/his new property is none of your business (again: "you" isn't defined anyway).
So those are reasons I think your moral philosophy absolutely shouldn't ever equate people and property.
No, on the contrary.
Owning yourself is another way of expressing that you are born free and sovereign; you are your own master, without external masters. (Except perhaps god if you are religious, yet that is a voluntary choice).
Your sovereignty as a free, self-governing individual is inherent in your biology. You can't transfer ownership of your body; your mind is still there. You can sell your organs, but this implies that you already own your body.
This goes back to John Locke whose ideas provided a groundwork for the abolition of slavery. When you own yourself, nobody else can lay a claim to own you, or the fruits of your labor. Hence slavery becomes a violation of property rights.
John Locke, 1690:
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"Every man has a "property" in his own "person". This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. (Part 2, Chapter 5.27, page 130, Two Treatises of Government)
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This is about individual sovereignty and liberty principles.
If anyone is interested, I wrote a longer piece on John Locke's view on property rights:
This is correct!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The principals of Natural Law are these: Do NO HARM to other Living Sentient Beings. Meaning, the initiated stealing of an innocent, living, sentient being’s property will trigger Natural Law consequences to the negative for the initiator and will induce harm, which creates suffering for the victim. This is what is meant by breaking Natural Law Principles.
Listed below are the initiated ways of stealing that will always produce harm then suffering for the victim:
1.) Murder/Assault (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s life, body, and mental integrity, which is their property)
2.) Trespass (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s peaceful domicile in their home or body, which is their property)
3.) Theft (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s peacefully acquired property)
4.) Rape (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s choice to sexually relate, which is their property)
5.) Willful Lying (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s complete information in order for them to make an informed decision, which is their property)
6.) Coercion (Stealing an innocent, living, sentient being’s free will choice, which is their property)
To be in harmony with one’s self and the Creation of the Universe and to eliminate suffering caused by harm, is to align one’s life to NOT break these Natural Law principles.
The last step is then to NOT participate in any institutions (governments, religions, organizations, mind controlled world views, etc.) that break these Natural Law Principles.