Many people seem to think our rights come from some kind of community agreement as in we all agree we can speak freely. What this is really saying is that other people have the power inhibit our free-will because the community can decide what restrictions are in place for each of us. When the community is not restricting us then it is seen as a privilege from the community since they are reserving the power to turn on and turn off the rights as it sees fit. The problem with this view is that it implies that others have some kind of inborn power over another person.
This is the crux of the argument against individual liberty in that it can be denied to any person simply because any power a person has over themselves only exist because the community gave it to them. This assumes that a person or group of people has some kind of inherent power over another and as much as we may think we do it turns out that we do not.
The reason for this is that we have a monopoly of control over our own being. The control over our own body is not shared with another so no other person can direct it in a manor that is not compliant with that person’s own wishes. No other person can direct the movement of our arms and legs which means that no other person can decide what direction their vessel for this life will take them. It simply rests in the thoughts of the person themselves and those thoughts form independently and free of other people’s control. This simply means that as our mind is free from the control of others so is the control of our body since our body is under the control of our thoughts which are naturally free. What our mind is free of thinking is what it will direct our body to do and there is nothing that can alter that relationship. This makes our person an autonomous being that is incapable of sharing power over itself with another person.
Anyone who says the collective has power over the individual is simply repeating a false idea that any person or group of people has some inherent right over someone else. They are assuming a right over someone else that they do not have. They clearly don’t have power over a person’s thoughts which are the birth place of their free-will and they don’t have power over the motor functions of another person’s body which is the physical mechanism for executing that free-will.
The extent of their power only exists over their own mind and body and nothing more and this is the limit of their power. Each one of us is born with an equal authority since each one of us is born with the same level of control of our body and mind. We each have the same level of power over our existence which is what it means to be “created equal”.
That power is unlimited over our own person since no other person shares that power with us and at the same time it is quite limited because it does not extend to others. The only authority we have is over our own selves and we have no authority over another person. Each person has the same level of authority as ourselves and since we have no authority over them they in turn have no authority over us. This allows each of us to live in freedom since no person has authority over another that can be used to deny any of us our freedom.
This is what it means to be ‘created equal’.
- Enter the Dark Lord Santorum! - August 27, 2012
- When Two Paths of Nullification Collide - August 23, 2012
- Jeffersonian Equality - October 3, 2011