Personal Responsibility

I declare:

• the fact of my personal responsibility to acquire or create concepts to understand the world and communicate that understanding.
• the fact of my personal responsibility to create satisfying conditions (whether local or global) for myself and others.

– Note: The word “responsibility” here refers not a duty but rather a “response-ability” and a simple truth: if you want a better world, you must act in ways that are more likely to bring such a world into being. To deny one’s personal responsibility is simply to deny one’s options or the meaningful difference between them.

Personal Independence

I declare:

• the fact of my cognitive and moral independence based upon my own values and judgement.
• the fact of my political independence to set the foundations and context for my own political relationships and to give proper and useful names to behaviors that do or do not conform to my ethics and consent.

– Note: The word “independence” here refers not to an isolation or self-sufficiency but rather a simple truth: your decisions are made in reference to your own values and analysis, to the degree that you are awake, conscious, and thinking. To deny one’s independence is simply to deny one’s own personal values and judgement.

Personal Ethics

I declare:

• my intention to help build and maintain relationships and institutions — be they social, educational, economic, political, legal, or otherwise — that conform to my ethics and philosophy.

Social Contract

I declare:

• my respect for each sane and innocent individual — my intention to treat each sane individual as independent, with the ability, when innocent, to meaningfully and materially withdraw consent from the relationships or institutions that each finds thonself in or under — and my intention to treat each such person as the owner of thon’s own body, being free to choose what to do with one’s own body and life, so long as one doesn’t initiate or apply excessive force, threat, or fraud against others or their (justly acquired) property.
• my intention to conform to the non-aggression principle — that is, to not initiate force, threat, or fraud against others or their (justly acquired) property. (The issues of just acquisition of property and limitations on ownership are worthy of debate and negotiation. The Georgist/geolibertarian position seems to be superior to the roughly Lockean position, if executed well.)
• my intention to reduce unnecessary force, threat, or fraud when possible.

Terminology

I declare:

• myself and every sane and innocent human to be a _sovereign person_, defined to be a person with autonomy and authority over oneself, not being rightfully subject to or owned by any other person or institution, owing allegiance to no one except to those one determines for oneself. A sovereign person may levy defense of thonself and thon’s (justly acquired) property, conclude peace, contract alliances, engage in commerce, freely associate and disassociate with others as one pleases, choose what to do with one’s own body (including what to eat or not, what drugs to take or not, whether to wear clothes or not, and whether to end one’s life or continue or extend it), and so on. Others may apply social pressure in response to these choices, but they may not legitimately respond with aggression (that is, initiation of force, threat, or fraud).

Notes on Consent

From the US Declaration of Independence, we read that “Governments … [derive] their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Well, consent must be revocable, or able to be withdrawn, in order to be true consent. If one cannot say “no”, then no true consent is present. Our current government thus does not have our consent since we cannot withdraw our material, monetary support without facing the threat of force and violence or its execution. Taxes are extortion and theft, even if most people are happy to submit. (There are better ways to pay for services that have true demand.) Having to leave the country, and leave your loved ones, family, friends, culture, job, etc, only to find another similar government somewhere else, is too high of a bar for measuring consent.

As things stand, most governments are a protection racket — an institution that provides protection with the threat that if you don’t pay for the protection, you will be punished or possibly killed if you resist. This is a moral contradiction and a political failure. We can do better than this.

With a global and a historical perspective, there is much to be grateful for here in the USA, in our current conditions and in some of our political history, traditions, and institutions. The US Declaration of Independence is a document that lays a foundation that seems to me to be far superior to many alternatives that one can observe elsewhere in time and space. With its emphasis on individual liberty and consent, and its expression of the wisdom for people in general to alter or abolish a government that interferes too much in their lives, it comes near my own perspective.

However, today I’d like to make a few brief critical comments on the Declaration.

Here is an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence of the original thirteen united States of America, containing the main philosophical content of the document:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, -That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Critical Comments:

Few truths — perhaps none — are universally self-evident.

Humans are not “created equal”, whatever that means; they are diverse and different in many ways, in body, mind, environment, interconnection, history, ability, skill, et cetera. Perhaps the only thing that is truly equal or the same amongst humans is the basic laws or patterns of physical reality they live in, including probably some patterns of physiology and psychology for survival, satisfaction, and happiness. Perhaps we can construct some political principles that would be wise to apply uniformly across humanity, but that would be an ideal to strive toward, not a political reality.

Without defining what a “Right” is, it is a kind of “magic” word that leads to sloppy thinking and inability to problem-solve effectively. This sort of thing can lead and has led to political confusion, turmoil, disaster, and mass slaughter.

In my view, reality seems to be much more complicated than the concepts and narratives we use to describe it. The same goes for politics and political institutions. We cannot accurately make sweeping statements such as “Governments are instituted among people to secure certain universally self-evident unalienable rights.” Modern governments in technologically advanced regions seem to be extremely complex institutions with a wide variety of purposes and motivating forces interwoven with each other, stretching over a deep history into the present. This complexity doesn’t mean that these governments are finely-tuned and good solutions to our political problems — I believe the complexity arises for both good and bad reasons (resulting from freedom and innovation as well as philosophical contradiction and political deals, exploitation, and some legitimate compromise). Better solutions may at once be both simpler and more complex, in different ways.

To improve upon the social and political systems we have today, we need to be able to confront this complexity humbly but with realistic optimism and ambition. We need to recognize the benefits we accrue and the successes we obtain with the current structures as well as the derived injuries, failings, and destruction. We need to recognize the sources of the good and bad outcomes, the alternatives we have, and the risks and rewards we face in our attempts to improve and innovate.