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We welcome you to our community of liberty.
Perhaps you are unaware of what Libertarians stand for, or why they’ve chosen the “third party” path. Maybe your current political party has abandoned its supposed core values. Perhaps you have lamented that the ideas of our founders have been replaced with collectivist nonsense. Do you wonder if there are any left who still believe in the wisdom of the founders? Congratulations on discovering the Party of Principle! We are the Libertarian Party of Brevard County, FL.
“What’s a Libertarian, anyway?”
Libertarians believe in both economic freedom and personal freedom. This belief stems very clearly from a wonderful idea: Liberty. We apply this word with no underhanded doublespeak or with any attempt to bend its definition. We mean “liberty” in its classical sense: that every human being has the right to live their life as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe upon any other person’s ability to do the same. This idea may seem dangerous, perhaps chaotic. To a degree, it is. Thomas Jefferson said, “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.” Yet inherent in the idea of liberty is a great responsibility. Margaret Thatcher: “Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life.... There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation.”
What appears to be an outrageous dichotomy, particularly with the collectivist sophistry we get from public schooling and the news day after day, is instead the very foundation of peace and prosperity for every person on earth. We invite you to begin one of the most profound intellectual journey’s of your life.
Below are some fundamental questions that pertain to all of us. These questions go to the heart of why the deterioration of our liberty and our natural rights must be fought at every opportunity. More and more people awaken to the seriousness of the threat to our liberty and prosperity, and have chosen to take up the fight. It’s no joke. Neither are we. Join us.
“You have taken your first step into a larger world”
Obi-Wan Ken obi
We highly recommend taking a look at these resources, courtesy of the International Society for Individual Liberty:
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Who owns you?
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No one but you. This means no one can make you do what you don’t want to do, associate with whom you do not wish, give up of the fruits of your labor when you do not wish to give them, or dictate to you what you can or cannot do with your own faculties, industry, and imagination. Self-ownership MUST be true. If it was not, then someone else must own you or part of you. This cannot be true. Nor is there a rational criteria that can be applied to how much ownership you have over yourself. You must own all of yourself. The inverse is logically absurd and unsustainable.
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What exactly is “liberty”?
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Liberty is the right to do with your body, your mind, your speech, and your property whatever you please so long as you infringe upon no one else’s ability to do the same. In the words of Walt Whitman, “The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.” In other words, there is great responsibility in liberty. The freedom to do as you will makes no one beholden to you. You are free to succeed or fail. You are not guaranteed success in your endeavors and you have no right to ask government for a “safety net” to take risk away from what you choose to do.
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What is the purpose of government?
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To paraphrase Jefferson, governments are instituted to secure the natural rights of people. The government does not exist to provide services like education, welfare, medicine, and job training. These things can be provided by the free, voluntary interaction of private individuals.
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Where do our rights come from?
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Nature. The Creator. Divine Providence. The Great Spirit. Reason. Inherent in our make up is a yearning to be free. To pursue our own dreams. To make life better for our loved ones. No human can by rights take away these things that can only belong to each individual. Rights come from the fact that we are reasoning, sentient beings with the ability to forecast the future, judge the past, assess the present, and choose our actions. We are not bound by instinctual behavior alone. Whether divinely inspired, or a fluke of genetic variation, we can take action, choose, and reason. No one can usurp these abilities from us. “The hands of force can destroy, but can never divide these.”
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Why are property rights important?
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Inherent in liberty is the ownership of that which you create with your own hands, energy, and creativity, or acquire by just and moral means in voluntary exchange. If you own yourself, then you must own your action, and that which you create by it. Property rights begin with ownership of your body and extend to that which you gain by voluntary exchange or create by your own labor. To deny property rights is to usurp the ownership of a persons ability to act. Without property rights you have no ownership of that which you produce. In essence, you are a slave.
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What is slavery?
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When you cannot dispense with the fruits of your own labor, you are a slave. When you cannot dispense with your own property as you see fit, you are a slave. When you cannot pursue that which makes you happy and harms no other person, or damages their property, or hinders them in any way, then you are a slave.
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What do “liberty” and “natural rights” have to do with politics and economic policy?
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EVERYTHING! Instead of rules to which we refer when a citizen has been wronged by another (passive), laws have become the means by which we place limits on the behavior of individuals in the community (active). This control becomes a means of aggression that groups of interests use against one another. Laws should instead recognize the liberty of the individual. Laws must respect and bolster liberty. Fostering liberty, particularly in removing barriers to creating wealth, new business, and freely hiring workers - barriers such as minimum wage and licensing laws - will vasty increase the prosperity of our citizens and communities. Political aggression in the form of restrictive economic policy restricts the means we use to improve our lives, satisfy our needs, and provide for our loved ones.
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