The concept of freedom isn’t about other people living their lives the way you live yours. It’s about everyone being free to do whatever they wish so long as their actions do not harm other people or deprive them of their stuff. Put another way, you have no right to impose your personal opinions and beliefs about sexuality, drug use, lifestyle choices, body modifications, religion, and so forth onto others.
Author: Parrish Miller
Parrish Miller has worked as a web designer, policy analyst, blogger, journalist, digital media manager, and social media marketing consultant. Having been largely cured of his political inclinations, he now finds philosophy more interesting than politics and is focused particularly on alternative ideas such as counter-economics, agorism, voluntaryism, and unschooling.
Your Boss Doesn’t Have Authority over You; He’s Your Trading Partner
The employer-employee relationship doesn’t involve authority because it is an ongoing, voluntary trade of labor for goods (typically money) or occasionally services. There is often confusion on this issue because it might appear that when a “boss” tells his employee what to do, he is exercising authority over that employee.
Mainstream Media is Not the Solution
While the recent preoccupation with “fake news” is largely intended to silence the alternative media, there is a real (and growing) trend of reporting unproven theories and unsubstantiated claims as facts—often with little or no evidence.
Someone, not Santa, is Always Watching
A paper recently published by a professor in Canada suggests that the popular “Elf on the Shelf” game is conditioning children to accept the surveillance state. The notion of the Elf on the Shelf is that a small elf doll is actually a scout elf who reports nightly to Santa Claus on the activities that occur in his house. Parents are supposed to reinforce this story by relocating the elf each night so that his journey and return seem more plausible.
Satanic Ritual Abuse?
Although it hasn’t yet reached the mainstream, there appears to be a growing resurgence of the panic and fear mongering of the 1980s regarding the thoroughly debunked claims of “satanic ritual abuse” and widespread kidnapping for such purposes. If you are seeing this trend too, please help to counter such fantastical claims with logic and truth.
The Non-Aggression Principle isn’t Mystical
The non-aggression principle (NAP) isn’t some magical or mystical moral code handed down by a deity or discovered in ancient ruins, it’s derived from logic and reason
There are No Good Cops… or Cop Defenders
Faced with the avalanche of despicable and unrelenting boot-licking propaganda from the John Birch Society (JBS) and its local disciples, you might believe that cops were not 53 times more deadly to Americans than terrorism. You might believe that 960 Americans had not already been slaughtered by the American Gestapo in 2016. You might even believe that being a cop was an unusually dangerous job. You might believe these things… but you would be incorrect on all counts.
Why Authority is Always Illegitimate
The notion of authority is about the right to control, and this quite simply cannot actually exist because no one ever has the right to control anyone other than themselves.
Redistributing Stolen Property to Non-Producers is a Hallmark of Leftism
I have observed a constant factor among what are roughly considered ‘leftist’ ideologies which appears to transcend what broader philosophy the leftist may advocate. This factor is the desire to create a system by which non-producers (those who consume more than they produce) can survive in relative comfort.
Think of a Prospective Politician or a Proposed Bill as a Bowl of Skittles
My position on things is actually pretty simple. I believe that it’s wrong to hurt people and to take their stuff. The state (i.e. the government) exists to hurt people and to take their stuff. Every state, in every place, and at every point in history has done these things.