Please understand that this is meant to be a summation of a large body of work that have been written throughout the ages, such as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Frederick Bastiat’s The Law, a multitude of works by Ludwig Von Mises, Thomas Jefferson and Paine, with the entire list is to voluminous to enumerate in this writing. All authors of liberty, in my opinion have one thing in common, they believed that government for the most is an unethical tool of corruption by those that want to rule over others and that the majority is better off allowing the free markets through voluntary individual participation to provide those services governments tries to accomplish.  They do not buy the concept that people outside government will not provide certain services, therefore individuals within a government structure must.  They believe that voluntary achieved free market solutions will generally provide better results to correcting free market problems than  government mandates.   

The definition of Liberty, being slightly different than freedom, is something that some think we have, yet many are under some misconceptions as to how it affects our everyday lives.

Liberty, I describe, as the ability to go out in the world and do those things that you believe are necessary for one to achieve life and happiness, as long as you do not harm others or their property, and very important to the issue, without having to get approval or permission from a governing authority or body.  It is only logical to expect that we all must be able to go out in the world and do those things that we must do to survive, prosper and gain some happiness. The proverbial Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is the heart of what was supposed to be the American dream and we were supposed to be able to do these things without getting a license, permit or make some other  type of payment to government to get permission.        

The problem starts when someone’s happiness or means of survival affects others.  For instance if some gay guys at the beach are having sex out in the open, there are many people that would want them to stop, so that they could enjoy the day at the beach without having to watch or more importantly have their children watch them having sex. Understand that I personally would not like to go to a beach and see gay guys having sex nor would I want my children to see them having sex but they theoretically could have that right in a libertarian free market society to do so. However don’t fret; there are ways to alleviate the problem.   

The libertarian would say, first of all, that no governing body should be involved in the affairs of people as it pertains to personal or economic activities, that do not harm others and there should not be regulations pertaining to the personal and economic affairs of individuals unless it can be proven that harm occurs. Humans have been fighting legally over the personal and economic affairs of individuals since recorded history and everyone has their own perception as to what is or is not acceptable behavior. The gay beach sex activity is just one issue as it pertains to personal affairs, then there are the economic affairs of individuals and everyone seems to have their own perspectives based on a variety of beliefs. Libertarians do not believe that people in government are any better suited  at solving social problems, that there are free market methods to solve free market problems and that the need for government to be involved is vastly overrated. When people do things, their activities may be obnoxious to others but that doesn’t mean they should go to jail nor does it mean that it shouldn’t be stopped in some manner.  So how do we live harmoniously in a society where there are so many diverse opinions on how human beings should or should not behave in both their personal and economic affairs?

First, you must understand that democracy is an allusion, as it is seldom that there is a real majority involved in any determination. Secondly the majority is often wrong, as they do not understand socio-economics well enough to make educated decisions, Thirdly, individuals vote predominantly for their own best interest rather than what is in the best interest of the majority and this greatly affect both the negative ramifications and unintended consequences of government interventions into the marketplace and fourthly, people manipulate the system by fraud, corruption and graft.  A greater analysis titled “The Democratic Capitalist Illusion”, can be read at: http://groups.google.com/group/HarrietRobbins/browse_thread/thread/8010706446a338c0?hl=en Libertarians contend that because of the inability of the majority to positively affect what is in the best interest of the majority, the democratic system cannot possible provide a positive outcome and history has shown this to be the case. Not once has democracy been shown to have a positive outcome over the  long term, as all have imploded for various reasons. If it is going to work, it should work over very long periods of time. The divisiveness that democracy is supposed to solve, creates additional problems and unintended consequences that continue to plague our world. However, what are the alternatives?

It is not known specifically who stated this but Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience (1849) is often identified as the real source of this quotation, but there may be an even earlier source. Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations points to The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, whose editor wrote in 1837, "The best government is that which governs least. Thomas Jefferson stated “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”  Obviously both quotes insinuate limited government.

History has surely not proven that a Constitutional Republic can or will ever provide for the good or will of the people.   Quite to the contrary, history, time and time again, has shown that the ruling elites use all forms of government as a tool to redistribute wealth from the lower classes to themselves with each generation believing that they will solve this forever existing problem.  Sadly Jefferson’s, Adam’s, Franklin’s, Washington’s and many who fought for the visions of liberty were soon overpowered by the corruptive nature of those in political power that used government to manipulate the marketplace.  I think that most people of that era miscalculated the ability to limit government and it is perhaps as many libertarians believe impossible to limit governments, as they say, if you give government an inch of your property, it will take your entire yard.           

Hence the belief systems by libertarians that limited government (miniarchism) or even perhaps no government (anarchism), are the predominant factions within their Austrian Economic Movement.  At libertarian meeting, they generally argue about how to successfully limit government manipulation and graft and the eventual corruption of the free markets.      

If a Democracy doesn’t work and a Constitutional Republic using democratic decision making hasn’t worked nor appears capable of working, than there are no other known governmental organization left to try out.  All other governmental structures have even provided worse results.   Hence the belief that using free enterprise to accomplish those things that government cannot do cost effectively.

Free enterprise does not require government. It is government that requires Free Enterprise to create profits, so that taxes can be skimmed off the top.  Paying their fair share is an erroneous concept for government employees as they are just giving some of the money back that was stolen from those in the private sector that earned the profit.  Government doesn’t produce profit and is really just an expense and a huge unnecessary one at that.   

I sometimes think about the possibility of having what I call a “voluntary government” and as I will go into later on, has some interesting possibilities as it eliminates the use of police power and this appears to be the primary divisive element that makes governments implode and despised by their Citizens. 

Due to the all encompassing nature of the human existence, understanding how free markets work is quite extensive, so if I seem to get off the subject, I am, but I will get back to the various aspects as we go along.

Force is the element of police power that provides those in political power with the ability to maintain control over others. Slave owners used force to keep their slaves in line and governments use the force of the police and military to keep their citizens in line. It is interesting how often those in power use excessive force and there are pretty good statistics that have been put together showing that governments have killed and imprisoned more of their own citizens than have died in their foreign wars, even in the 20th Century.  To think that in America it couldn’t happen, is a very big mistake, as we have already seen tons of police violence against innocent or unarmed civilians on a constant basis. As the economic conditions of a society decline from the overburden of excessive government costs, the totalitarian effects start to rear their ugly heads as individuals in government finds it more and more difficult to obtain revenue to pay for their existence.                    

Hence that is why libertarians are opposed to the use of governmental force, but do not be confused as to the ability of acting in self defense.  I wrote of being able to pursue ones happiness and if someone tries to stop you, by force or the threat of force, from doing activities that do not harm others, than you have the right to protect yourself. Hence the phrases, “don’t tread on me” and “live and let live”.

Understand that an individual’s rightfully acquired property, including money falls under the same protections as the individual themselves. That is why libertarians believe in less taxes.  They find great offence in the redistribution of wealth that allows governments to steal or coerce money and property from individuals who it rightfully belongs to and give it to those that it doesn’t rightfully belong to.  To believe that a system based on the fundamental premise that the redistribution of wealth can or will provide for an ethical society is seriously flawed and irrational concept and history provides additional evidence of the negative ramifications and unintended consequences of a force based system.   

So how do we stop the gay guys from having sex on the beach unless we have cops to call and haul them off.  Understanding the free market is not that difficult.  Think of a car. People get together voluntarily, not by force, and exchange good and services and try to sell them to others whom voluntarily buy what is being produced. All actions are done on a voluntary basis.  Can you imagine if governments made all the cars in the world how that would turn out?  Instead governments overtaxes the companies like GM, that make the cars, put them and their distributors out of business and end up owning the company during its bankruptcy and giving them control which is a great way to place undesirable business liabilities on the backs of the taxpayers.  Just over tax them until they are no longer profitably or are forced to go somewhere else where taxes are tolerable or none existent.  Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?

So the same aspects of how an automobile is achieved can also be applied to services.  I was a real estate appraiser and received compensation for my services from those who were willing to pay for them. The same can apply to every service including police.  Private security is prevalent in our society for which I can only assume, the public/government police cannot or will not provide the services that many are desiring.  Our government system is set up so that the police are the front line individuals that help to collect the taxes and therefore the incentive to go out and catch the bad guys is more keeping up the publicity level high enough to make the Citizens believe that there is adequate police protection.  The U.S. has the highest incarceration rates in the world (mostly drug offenses) and yet crime is still rampant.  The Cops are obviously busy giving traffic tickets, picking up prostitutes, people who have expired licenses and license tags or have not paid their prior tickets, and crack and pot smokers.  Don’t you feel much safer.

We can nicely ask the gay guys to stop having sex on the beach.  If that doesn’t work we can leave.  In a true free market society someone would own the beach so we could ask them to remove the gay guys and since that is the owners private property rights, he may or may not want to have the gay guys removed. He may want to cater to the gay community and therefore we may have to leave or tolerate the sex on the beach.  You could of course buy the beach with some other friends or by yourself and do with the beach, than as you see fit.  I’m sure there would be sex beaches, family beaches, nude beaches, over 55+ beaches, dog beaches, etc. and perhaps if you’re a real beach person you could own your favorite beach. We’re now stuck with beaches that are predominantly government run with limited activities that are decided by elected representatives through the democracy process where a woman going topless on the beach is quickly escorted off by the local police. Our creativity to enhance the human experience is embroiled in a constant power struggle over rules, regulations, taxation, fines, penalties, mandatory incarceration periods, etc. etc. ad-nausium and we have bankrupted our nation trying to regulate and control everything from herbs to human behavior itself.  

There are free market methods of doing everything, even military defense.  For instance privateers were private groups of individuals that would furnish warships and crews during the Revolutionary War and fought the British Navy. What was cool is that when a privateer captures a British ship, they got to keep it and all the stuff on board. Historians acknowledge that without the privateers, it is highly unlikely that the Colonies would have won the war.  Private Citizens Militias, as enumerated in the 2nd Amendment, also played a major role in that war as well both without the control or regulations of government.  It was private independent militia groups which first took up arms in self defense against the British government which obviously pissed off King George to a great extent and I thank you guys for those that had the courage to have risked their lives, liberties and fortunes for real liberty.  

Believing that individuals, without government controls and the necessary enforcement, are incapable of providing all aspects of the human experience, is just plain ignorance and historically incorrect. A fallacy perpetrated by the ruling class, as they desire to primarily control the means of production through government regulations and taxation.   

Almost everything that we cherish in our lives is made by free enterprise and most of the things we despise involves government, yet we cannot unburden our lives, trust our neighbors, forgive and tolerate their behaviors, enjoy their individualism, understand that we seldom would have to use force to accomplish a civil society and most the force used would be in self-defense. 

The Voluntary Government concept previously mentioned is simply a structure set up in which citizens can get together to effect change.  Consensus building I like to call it, where people with similar desires can get together and voluntarily associate and accomplish those things they desire.  For instance the President, as he now does would be Commander and Chief.  Except he would have to get people like Bill Gates and other wealthier individuals, as well as anybody else for that matter  to voluntarily give to his military defense programs and the guy that has the best ideas, would generate the greatest contributions and therefore most likely would be the President.  The force of taxation is eliminated and that would eliminate most of the corruptive elements and graft within our current system.   

Everybody knows we need military defense and the wealthier are much more interested in protecting their property because they have more of it. Those with the greatest vested interest will of course have a greater desire to protect their interest. Thomas Jefferson was extremely acute at understanding the human nature and ethics of individuals and the relationship with economic activities and if I were to suggest a study of any single individual’s belief system, it would be his. We have put much effect in the structural elements of our government, yet it fails to perform as desired, obviously because the use of force is the basis of funding the foundation of the system.  The structure is already set up for us.  All we need to do is switch off the forced redistribution of wealth and make it a voluntary system.   All the scum in the system will float to the bottom rather than what it does today, floats to the top and we would return to be the greatest nation that has ever existed again.   

Our only other alternative is to allow government to continue what they’re doing until we end up in some type of massive civil unrest or war via a total monetary collapse.  Our system has gone through a large portion of what is referred to as the Bell Curve, by some economists as each nation state, as countries are referred to,  go through a cycle of prosperity, economic collapse, civil unrest/war and back to prosperity that all nation states go through every two or three hundred years.  That is what governments have produced and in contrast those societies which embrace large levels of Free Market economic activities, experience peace and prosperity, until such time as the government through police power intervene, manipulate and corrupt the activities of individuals and groups operating in the free markets.  Once again, not that free markets are perfect, it is that government is not the solution and attempting to use government to correct problems is an extremely dangerous option that has historically proven hazardous to the welfare of the majority. Using free market solutions to free market problems does work and that doesn’t mean that it is not necessarily be easy or will allows be successful, as there is no utopia.  You may have to find another beach to go to or go to the park instead but what libertarians can explain and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, you do not want people to have the option of calling the government police because at some point in history the government police will be shooting at you and rounding you up for Auschwitz.   Will it be the Christians, Muslims, Jews, Chinese, Japanese or perhaps the Mexican-Americans next time?