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Tag: personal freedom

Wanna Start Your Own Country? Someone Near Thailand Already Has

At some point in our lives, we have all thought, “things would be so much better if I were in charge.” Maybe you’ve even thought, “If a bunch of friends and I went to an abandoned island, we could start our own perfect civilization away from everyone.” Someone has already put this idea forward combining both aspects, but even though their “island country” might be a little (or a lot) smaller than you’d expect, it does make a big statement. As seen on the Seasteader YouTube channel, right now there is a tall spar floating in international waters near Thailand owned by activist Chad Elwartowski and his partner where they live on  a floating chunk of metal in order to make a point by showing, “my big finger…to all those out there who want to control other people’s lives through force,” adding, “You know where you can stick this.” Elwartowski has taken to documenting his experience as a Bitcoin HODLR as well as a pseudo-libertarian philosopher, as he attempts to take these ideas of self-determination and individual autonomy to new heights by seasteading. Seasteading is a concept in which there are no viable, “free” or unclaimed masses of physical land left on the planet for people to claim and begin a new life. Many wealthy individuals and academics – ranging from global warming catastrophists to free-market anarchists– see setting up artificial islands in international waters as the last true frontier for freedom. In 2017, I interviewed the president of the micronation Liberland, where we discussed the challenges of finding an unclaimed space of land, and attempting to build a country where the neighboring nations might not be too keen on having new neighbors. By seasteading, you can join a collective community far away from an established land-nation based on a shared basis of core principles, and live a life in which you have far more control over your personal autonomy compared to the typical nation-state structure. The concept of seasteading has been supported by influential individuals ranging from economist Patri Friedman (founder of the Seasteading Institute) to PayPal founder Peter Theil. This principle unites people from across socio-political and economic backgrounds by promoting the theory that free people can voluntarily come together to form a functioning community without central and collective planning. While Elwartowski’s effort may be minuscule in measure, it is big in the message it sends to central planners that men and women intrinsically have a desire for more freedom.

Freedom Is Indivisible

Freedom Is Indivisible

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here. Economic freedom. Civil freedom. Religious freedom. Sexual freedom. Personal freedom. Political freedom. Freedom is popular. freedomAs such, some attempt to position themselves as its champions, by defining which carefully-worded sliver of freedom they feel comfortable permitting you to exercise. Libertarians believe that freedom, while formed from many components, is indivisible.  While some may value their economic freedom over their political or civil freedom, without the political freedom to choose between candidates and ideas and civil liberties to ensure that government has not improperly imprisoned the dissidents, economic freedom cannot exist. The freedom to live your religious convictions cannot survive in an environment without the freedom to choose your mate or to have the ability to support your church financially. Essentially, each aspect of freedom is interdependent on the others, and when you try to dissect and distribute only parts of the whole, freedom does not really exist. When only slivers are permitted, none of us live free. As documented in the Declaration of Independence, rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were paramount in the founding of America. Our freedom engenders our ability live our lives as we see fit without the force or coercion of others. This week, our friends at The CATO Institute and the Fraser Institute released the Human Freedom Index, which “presents the state of human freedom in the world based on a broad measure that encompasses personal, civil, and economic freedom.” As you will note, the United States is no longer the leading bastion of liberty we once were, falling to 20th out of 152 countries measured in the index. Expansion of the regulatory state, multiple “wars” (terror, drugs, poverty, etc.), and the victories of eminent domain and civil asset forfeiture over property rights all contribute to our loss of freedom. None of those factors is exclusively detrimental to one aspect of freedom, yet they all undermine our overall freedom. So, the next time you hear someone espouse their love for their preferred aspect, remind them that freedom is indivisible, and that without all of it, none of us are truly free.

TV and Film Star Rob Lowe: Is He a Libertarian?

(From the Intellectual Ammunition section in Volume 19, No. 7 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) Renowned TV and film star Rob Lowe is promoting his new Is Rob Lowe A Libertarian?autobiography Love Life. And he’s been making some very libertarian-ish statements along the way. In an interview with the New York Times, he described his politics this way: “My thing is personal freedoms, freedoms for the individual to love whom they want, do with what they want. In fact, I want the government out of almost everything.” He sounded even more libertarian during an April interview with Bill O’Reilly, though he seemed determined not to let O’Reilly stick a label on his views. Here is the relevant portion: BILL O’REILLY: You also have said in your promoting of this book that you want less government intrusion. Is that correct? ROB LOWE: I do. Yeah. O’REILLY: But your pinhead friends in Hollywood, they don’t want, they want equality for everyone, which takes a massive government. LOWE: Well, I’m — equality for everybody is great. That would be amazing. I just think that individuals usually do a better job than collective big government. O’REILLY: So you don’t want the government to be telling you how to live, that’s kind of a libertarian position. LOWE: Well, that’s funny, does that make me a libertarian? I’m a Hollywood pinhead, Bill, I don’t know about political labels. O’REILLY: The libertarians want less government and more personal freedom, which I think is what you are saying. LOWE: That is what I’m saying. O’REILLY: So now you’re a libertarian? LOWE: So all this time shedding the dogma of political labels and you’re telling me now I have to go back to living under political labels. O’REILLY: No, no, it’s not bad. You just have to hang out with Stossel which is very, very difficult. LOWE: Well then I take it back. O’REILLY: You know, I think, look, I’m not a libertarian but I don’t think that the government can solve the problems that the government purports to be able to solve. LOWE: And just for the record we do need government for a lot of big ticket items. Not total. Libertarian, or libertarianish, positions aren’t new to Lowe. In 2012 he defended Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged on Twitter, tweeting: “Can someone explain the vitriol whenever Ayn Rand comes up? ‘Atlas’ is the greatest motivator for the individual that I can imagine.”