“It shall be legal for one to do whatever he chooses, so long as he does not threaten or initiate violence or force against another person’s life, liberty, or property” – The libertarian non-aggression principle
This is the “non-aggression principle” or “NAP” as it has become known in recent years around the internet… “Known” is being used loosely here, as it is often misused and abused by people who apparently misunderstand libertarianism as simply a way to politically oppose anything they don’t like. By applying the NAP logically, one can determine the libertarian position on an issue of rights and justice. It ultimately boils down to private property and self-ownership. One way it is often misused is by attempting to apply it to morality or culture, which are aspects of life that actually occur outside of the strict concerns of private property rights and the NAP. (However, if one’s actions are just, he or his actions may be seen to be “moral” under a given system of morality.)
Note the mention of “justice” – The NAP, libertarianism, and its purest form, anarcho-capitalism (read Murray Rothbard) are truly a backbone system of justice. Individuals may come together or secede from one another in order to establish their own rules (“laws”) upon which they agree, to be exercised on their own property or groupings of property. Rights to secede exist naturally even at the level of the individual. Whenever injustice is perceived, it can and should be analyzed in terms of the NAP, and a just solution can likewise be determined by way of the NAP. Voluntary charity is a means by which people and groups can help each other, as opposed to coerced taxation. Actions of theft, assault, battery, murder, and war can be understood within the NAP.
Secession is very important to this understanding of justice, as is voluntary action. The erosion of respect for the system of thought around the USA’s founding, the founding documents, and the demonization of the Southern Confederacy, its heroes, and its symbols can be understood as an erosion of the respect for and value of justice. Indeed, the attempted nullification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, along with the growth of trendy SJW Cultural Marxism (aka “Political Correctness” or “PC”) – and ALL Marxism for that matter – are attacks on the natural law and natural rights we have in the United States. The NAP correctly categorizes such efforts as absolutely forbidden and unjust.
Legal experts will likely think of torts and common law when faced with the above description of the NAP and its practical application, where a trespass may be determined, and where a community may develop guidelines by which legal issues may be decided. Imagine this writ large, while retaining our rights to free speech, right to remain armed, right to freely associate/dissociate, and right to self/community-defense intact. It amounts to the natural, God-given right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Individuals may voluntarily form groups and live under rules to which they agree. Political conflict can be avoided through separation. In the traditional domestic geographic application, this is known as the “democracy of the feet” as people tend to gravitate to like-minded congregations of people and local cultures. Forcing people with opposed or contradictory ideas together or keeping them together tends to brew conflict, and conflict is often used to divide and conquer. The political engine continually feeds off of such a cycle when opportunists see a chance to exploit a situation of conflict, and the educational and media apparatus also have skin in the game. The individual becomes a powerless pawn when his natural rights are not commonly understood and respected, and the guilty know this.
In the establishment legal system, unnatural “laws” are created and imposed upon the people by Congress, increasingly by the courts, and also at regional and local levels by the respective governments. While one may often move to a different city, state, or country, he is in most cases not allowed to exercise the absolute rights described under the NAP. This is unfortunate, as a true understanding and proper application of anarcho-capitalist libertarianism would provide people with the means to address many political, social, and economic issues peacefully and effectively. It’s the logic behind the “common sense” feeling of what one perceives as “just”.
The artificial “laws” often prevent people from being able to pursue the justice for which these legal and political systems are ostensibly aiming. When governments deny secession to groups or individuals under their dominion, one can begin to see how these political efforts act as a prison that prevents the pursuit of liberty and justice. “Political” action is correctly understood as the use of force, whether literal/direct, threatened/implied, or by proxy. It should be understood that not everything is political by default; something becomes politicized by a denial of one’s natural rights.
Whether or not an artifical “law” or its application is truly just can be ascertained by application of the non-aggression principle (NAP), as can a legal or political system. Bureaucratic growth of laws and legal-political systems tend to do much to thwart justice when they are not explicitly bound to consistency with and preservation of the NAP.
The current situation causes many instances in which legal help is needed – hence the many lawyers and legal questions… But one should always heed what is at the core of the ultimate Legal Question: The Non-Aggression Principle.
