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Pox on both Houses
Are you a sovereign individual, sounds a little like the microcosom of all collectives, eh? Rang some bells as I read it!
Date: 1/19/2006 3:47:33 PM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 2137 times My comments in the January 11 A-Letter about the warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens by President Bush, Judge Alito's record on privacy issues, and the record of the Supreme Court, elicited a flurry of angry responses from some of our more "conservative" readers.
One said: "... you have adopted the same thrust as our Liberal friends i.e. Teddy the swimmer, Barbara the Boxer etc..." Others thought I must be a "liberal" because I didn't point out Bill Clinton's abuses of power, only those of Bush. I was told that I was stating only half the story about Judge Alito's rulings. Several readers reminded me that we are "at war," and that the terrorist threat requires that the President must have the power to tap our phones.
Mea culpa. Yes, I failed to include examples of attacks on individual freedoms by liberal politicians. However, it was not because I have a "liberal" bias, but only because of a lack of space. Let me clarify my position. I am neither a "liberal" nor a "conservative." I am a sovereign individual.
In all political systems, the state is the voice of the collective. It uses force to control its citizens' actions, confiscate their earnings and assets, and demand obedience whenever the state decides that this is in the best interests of the community. All systems rest on the premise that the individual must place his interests beneath the needs of the collective. This is the key premise underlying communism and fascism. It is also a very real but unstated premise of both liberals and conservatives in democracies.
As democracies mature, politics and law evolve from protectors of private property into instruments of plunder. As a few individuals and groups succeed in feeding at the public trough, their success encourages others to beseech politicians for subsidy and privilege. Politicians scramble to meet the demand. Government spending climbs, taxes increase, and the productive and thrifty suffer. Voltaire summed up the process 240 years ago: "The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."
The main squabble between conservatives and liberals is over which types of property should be controlled by the state. Conservatives generally argue that the state should allow individuals maximum economic freedom (lower taxes, minimize regulations, etc.), but should be a stern enforcer of personal morals (drugs, abortions, sexua| preference, privacy, gambling, etc.). Liberals generally argue that individuals should be free to do as they plase with their bodies, but their wealth should be controlled in order to achieve economic equality.
The founders and members of The Sovereign Society believe that individuals are born sovereign over themselves, not as chattels of governments. Sovereign individuals share the conviction that peace and prosperity will be optimized when every individual's property is rightfully his or hers to keep, control, and dispose of.
The principles upon which the Society was conceived are built into its Credo, part of which states:
THAT every individual has the natural right to keep, control, and dispose of his or her justly acquired property;
THAT individuals are not the property of the government of the political jurisdiction in which they are born or reside;
THAT when government takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral authority of government;
THAT individual liberty is the highest good for any society.
The goal of the Sovereign Society is to encourage and help individuals achieve and maintain individual sovereignty over their own lives and assets.
It is a noble cause. To whatever extent individuals successfully defend themselves and their assets from being plundered, they expand the pool of investment capital on which a society depends for progress, encourage production, stimulate saving, and increase the standard of living for all. Simultaneously, by depriving governments and legal predators of resources, some who might be attracted to plunder are attracted instead to productive enterprises, increasing the standard of living for all.
If you, too, believe in the principles of our credo, that you should have the right to control your own life and property, I invite you to join this noble cause and become a member of the Sovereign Society.
JOHN PUGSLEY, Chairman
The Sovereign Society Ltd.
E-mail: johnpugsley@sbcglobal.net
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