Defending Civil Society

The mission of this website is to promote the virtues of civil society.

Civil society, is based on voluntarism and predicated on giving the widest possible latitude to the individual so that he has sovereignty over his own life, so long as he respects the equal rights of others in society. It is in civil society--the realm of individual liberty--that mankind flourishes. It is from civil society that industry, civility, rectitude, science, and prosperity arise.

The Road to Prosperity

A prosperous society will uphold the following principles through voluntary cooperation:

1 Individual liberty.

Principle of self ownership.

Non-aggression principle.

Protection of personal property rights.

2 Economic freedom.

Enforcement of contracts.

3 Limited, accountable government.

Definitions

Individual liberty: The absence of coercion.

Coercion: Physical violence or the threat thereof.

Principle of self ownership: Each individual inherently owns themselves and has the exclusive right to control their own body, life, and justly acquired property. 

Non-aggression principle: No person or group of people may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.

Personal property rights: Each individual exclusively owns the products of their labor, savings, and investments.

Economic freedom: The ability to engage in voluntary exchange and voluntary collaboration without interference.

Enforcement of contracts: Guarantee that agreements will be honored and that there are remedies available in the event of a breach.

Limited, accountable government: A government that exists solely to protect the natural rights of its citizens.

Links

The Philosophy of Liberty - By Ken Schoolland  

The Root Of Liberty Reading List

Inspirational Quotes

Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it. -- Ludwig von Mises, (his motto)

The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else. -- Frédéric Bastiat, "The State", 1848

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. -- Lord Acton, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1887

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases while the citizens may act only by permission, which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history – the stage of rule by brute force. -- Ayn Rand, "The Virtue of Selfishness", 1964

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. — Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects. -- Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, 1982

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. -- Albert Camus