Foundations of Philosophy
Every now and then, everyone involved in the political arena needs to do a “reality check” and redefine, or at least revisit, their philosophical roots. It is so easy to get caught up in the heat of partisan politics that we often forget that one’s political beliefs should grow from, or be part of, one’s total philosophical world view. It is not enough to know that this person is against “whatever” and that that person supports “whatever.” In order for these partisan positions to have any merit, they must be explainable and supported by a philosophical belief system.
Every philosophical framework must begin with a foundation which defines our personal view of humanity. I believe each of us has been created in the image of our God, and that each of us is a free and sovereign person (the exclusive right to complete control over oneself) and that each of us owns our bodies, our minds and our time. The only limit to our individual freedom should be that none of us use our personal freedoms to harm anyone else. We are also gifted with free will, the right to make choices in our lives. And the right to choose, the right to try comes with the responsibility that we accept the reality that we may fail.
Each of us is born with certain rights that come from our Creator. Among these rights are those which are defined in our Bill of Rights; the right to free speech, the right to free assembly, the right to freely worship, the right to self-defense. Our individual sovereignty and our God given rights pre-date societies and governments and will exist even when governments no longer exist.
In the most simplistic view, governments exist for the purposes of defending their citizens (or subjects) and providing an orderly structure for people to live their lives and transact their commerce and affairs; to wit: 10 men can better defend a small village than 1 man can defend his hut and farmstead. Without some orderly structure for the transaction of commerce, individual people would be at the mercy of vandals, thugs, bandits and bullies. Simply put, governments should exist to protect the weak from the tyranny of the strong. When people organize governing entities, the surrender some of their individual liberty to the well-being of the society. It is the tension between complete individual liberty and societal, or government control, that is one of the major driving forces of history.
Our American government is unique among all governments throughout the long history of the world, in that our government was created with its main purpose of protecting the natural, God given rights of the American citizens. No other government in the history of the world was created for this purpose. No other government in existence has ever defined those rights in its governing charter as our government defines them in our Bill of Rights. And our American government is also unique in that our Constitution was designed to define and to limit the scope and power of our government.
As a Libertarian, I believe that all governments should be as small as possible, and as limited in scope as possible while still being able to fulfill those two fundamental functions listed above. As a Conservative, I believe that our federal and state governments should be limited to those functions clearly defined and delimited in their respective Constitutions. From my philosophical perspective, I see that much of what our state and federal governments are doing now is far beyond the limits of the authority granted to governments in our several Constitutions. As a Conservative, the extreme growth of the federal government concerns me greatly, because the Constitution, the authorizing document of our federal government is a compact among the states and not between the citizens and the federal government.
Following my belief in small government and guided by my belief that we own our minds and time, I believe that taxes should be no more than is absolutely required to fund government and that taxes should be equitably applied to all citizens. In my world view, our current “progressive” income tax is immoral as it punishes creativity, risk taking and hard work – and, as currently applied, it uses the threat of the use of force to take money (time) from some people and gives it to others. There is no moral, nor rational justification for that.
Considering my belief that we are free and sovereign individuals, created in God’s image and bestowed by God with rights that pre-date and transcend all governments, and my belief that governments should be as small as possible but still provide national security and a peaceful environment, it is logical that I am also a free-market capitalist. There can be no other logical conclusion. My belief in the free-market system grows, not only from my philosophical roots, but also from observation and a knowledge of history. America’s free-market, capitalist economy has provided Americans with the highest, most comfortable standard of living that the World has ever known. History also clearly shows that the first economic system that societies adopt when they move beyond subsistence economies, is always some form of a barter system and all barter systems are pure, market driven, supply and demand economic models. Free market economies are the most natural of all economies.
As we continue our discussions in the years to come, Faithful Readers, I hope that you will be able to see how the foundations of my philosophy guide the positions that I take on issues of our time. I encourage each of you to take some time and think about how you arrive at your political positions. I challenge our progressive letter writers to set forth their philosophical foundations for our review. Conservative and Libertarian philosophies always triumph because they are based upon the divinity of man and are built upon the lessons learned and upon the successes of the past. No other political philosophies even come close.