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Compass with sun shining through

First, Do No Harm

Liberty is based on a single rule: Don't hurt people or steal their stuff. Peaceful, honest people are otherwise free to do as they please. Interfering with mutually voluntary interactions between peaceful people breaks that rule.

Liberty is the right path because it is inherently peaceful. Every law is backed up with physical force, and can potentially kill someone. Law enforcement should keep the peace, not break it. Adherents to principles of liberty commit to never initiating violence.

Liberty is the right path because it avoids cultural imperialism, otherwise known as tyranny of the majority. Freedom in a free country means the ability to live free, each according to personal conscience. Our laws should not tell us how to live. As a general rule, if we wouldn't invade another country to require them to live by a law, we should consider granting our fellow Americans the same courtesy.

Liberty is the right path because economic freedom consistently lifts entire populations into prosperity, reducing poverty and meaningfully improving everyone’s lives. Economic signals are necessary to help us figure out the most valuable way to serve one another. Creative, competitive, and diverse private enterprise provides the best and cheapest goods and services.

Liberty is the right path because human beings are not guinea pigs. Each individual did not consent to be part of a perverse science experiment where politicians meddle in their lives, hoping for the best. Too often politicians enact policies that inappropriately intervene and have unintended consequences that harm the precise populations they are trying to help.

Liberty is the right path because it is the most likely to prevent immense human suffering and death. In recent history, millions of people have died at the hand of their own governments (far more than from homicide or war), precisely because individual rights were not respected.

Liberty is the right path because it is the best defense against visions contrary to our own. We live in a country capable of electing political officials with very different visions for our country. Limited, non-intrusive government that respects the personal autonomy of every person respects and protects our own preferences.

Liberty is the right path because it is morally consistent. It is founded on a single, sound, universal moral principle, upon which all religious leaders agree: the Golden Rule. The Libertarian non-aggression principle is a reformulation of that rule: "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you." Equal justice for all can only be attained when liberty for all is broadly and objectively defined. Consistently prohibiting the initiation of non-consenting physical force meets that criteria.

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