Libertarian Principles for America Today

Socialist ideology is ascendant in America today, sponsored by the global elite to promote their agenda of world domination.  The basic principles on which our nation was founded are under attack.  The concepts of individual freedom, personal responsibility, limited government, a free market economy, and private property rights were the philosophy of our Constitution’s framers.  To these great men, the totality of a person’s property was his land and home, his possessions, the work of his hands, the ideas of his mind, and his life itself.  These beliefs form the legal basis for the rule of law and protection of individual rights that made America the greatest nation on earth.

The United States is a Constitutional Republic in which the Natural Law Rights of the minority, even a minority of one single person, are protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights regardless of the desires of the majority.  The federal government is required to protect the Natural Law Rights of each citizen and, as a nation of laws, must adhere to the legal requirements of due process, habeas corpus, and equal justice for all citizens.     

One single paragraph from our Declaration of Independence contains the basic foundational principles by which our nation was to be governed, specifically to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Declaration of Independence, 1776

Achieving and maintaining “consent of the governed” is where most governments eventually fail.  We consent to be governed as long as the government follows the rule of law and preserves those unalienable natural law rights of each citizen.  Individual sovereignty is the essence of personal freedom. 

Today, these constitutional protections are being ridiculed, ignored, abused, altered, and eradicated by elected and appointed government officials whose primary ambition is self-enrichment and a lust for power.  They have pursued a divisive agenda of group identity politics to set us against each other instead of fostering the wishes of true patriots for unity of purpose and policies that promote the true general welfare.

In times of strife and conflict, when the established government is out of control and unresponsive to the rights of its people, rational citizens seek to replace the corrupt regime with one that will obey the rule of law.  That right is clearly spelled out in the Declaration of Independence:

. . . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The decades leading up to the War Between the States were contentious and filled with controversy, which caused the formation and breakup of several political parties.  Ulysses S. Grant, elected President after the war in 1869, was the first leader of the Republican Party, which was the renamed anti-slavery National Union Party originally formed in 1854.  The election of Grant marked the end of the multiparty era.  Since then, America has been a two-party political system in which two parties share virtually all the power.  The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901 – 1909) and the nearly successful campaign of Ross Perot in 1992 were the only significant departures from the Republican-Democrat duopoly.  Election campaigns by so-called “third party” candidates have been largely unsuccessful.

While there are numerous small political parties in our country today, only three can be considered serious contenders against the two established parties that currently hold power.   As listed in Ballotpedia, The Constitution Party is on the ballot in 12 states, and the Green Party is on the ballot in 17 states.  The largest of the small parties, however, is the Libertarian Party which is on the ballot in 33 states.  Libertarian principles are a fundamental part of our national heritage and a philosophy that underlies our founders’ belief system. 

Libertarianism is political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value. It may be understood as a form of liberalism, the political philosophy associated with the English philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, and the American statesman Thomas Jefferson. Liberalism seeks to define and justify the legitimate powers of government in terms of certain natural or God-given individual rights. These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, freedom of speech and association, freedom of worship, government by consent, equality under the law, and moral autonomy (the ability to pursue one’s own conception of happiness, or the “good life”). The purpose of government, according to liberals, is to protect these and other individual rights, and in general, liberals have contended that government power should be limited to that which is necessary to accomplish this task. Libertarians are classical liberals who strongly emphasize the individual right to liberty. They contend that the scope and powers of government should be constrained so as to allow each individual as much freedom of action as is consistent with a like freeom for everyone else. Thus, they believe that individuals should be free to behave and to dispose of their property as they see fit, provided that their actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others.

The American Revolution (1775–83) was a watershed for libertarianism. In the Declaration of Independence (1776), Jefferson enunciated many libertarian ideas, including the belief in “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” and the belief in the “right” and “duty” of citizens to “throw off such Government” that violates these rights. Indeed, during and after the American Revolution, according to the American historian Bernard Bailyn, “the major themes of eighteenth-century libertarianism were brought to realization” in written constitutions, bills of rights, and limits on executive and legislative powers, especially the power to wage war. Such values have remained at the core of American political thought ever since.

Encyclopedia Britannica – David Boaz

While libertarianism had a significant influence on Western thought for centuries, the Libertarian Party as a political entity in America did not emerge until December 1971.  A group of individuals led by David Nolan became concerned when Nixon instituted price controls and ended the Gold Standard as the standard for American currency.  In the libertarian view, both the Republican and Democrat parties were seen as having abandoned the founding principles of our Constitution.  

Contentious times often serve as the incentive for the resurgence of small political parties and the formation of new ones.  In the context of today’s push to abandon the basic governing principles of our nation, the Libertarian Party and Libertarian Principles are an attractive alternative to the collectivist agenda of the global elite and the totalitarian tyranny that will inevitably follow. 

Resist Tyranny and Trust in Freedom!

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Dr. Dan’s guests on Freedom Forum Radio this weekend are Rob Yates, Communications Director, NC Libertarian Party, and Dee Watson, Political and Public Policy Director, NC Libertarian Party.

​Don’t miss part one of this four-part interview beginning this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, January 28-29, on WJRB 95.1 FM and streamed live over the Internet.

Part two streams Saturday and Sunday, February 4-5.
Part three streams Saturday and Sunday, February 11-12
Part four streams Saturday and Sunday, February 18-19

Streaming times are Saturday at 8:00 am and 9:30 am and Sunday at 2:30 pm and 7:00 pm.  All programs are available by podcast following air time here.