Religion vs

The Indispensability of a Declaration of Freedom

a Thomas Paine Institute essay

In today’s world, a world in which all land is under the sovereign control of unfree and semi-free nations, nations whose repressive programs and practices are so entrenched that they are virtually irreversible, freedom lovers urgently need inspiration to stay committed—connected—to the vision of freedom.

For the Thomas Paine Institute (TPI), the vision takes a very specific and challenging form: Pure capitalism, given birth from scratch in a new place and inaugurated as an independent sovereign nation. How do we at TPI, faced with today’s world, keep the fire alive for this seemingly implausible vision? The answer: By a Declaration of Freedom.

Our Declaration not only has the inspirational power to keep our vision alive, but it also has the intellectual power to successfully navigate, over time, the many miles to its realization. In fact, without both powers of a Declaration of Freedom, the inspirational and the intellectual, that vision of freedom will ever remain just that: a vision.

To bring that vision into reality, to bring any vision of freedom into reality, on a planet where freedom is becoming ever more a rarity, a Declaration of Freedom is a necessary precondition. In a word, a Declaration of Freedom is Indispensable.

Our purpose in this essay is to demonstrate that indispensability by reference to the Thomas Paine Institute’s Declaration of Freedom.

INSPIRATIONAL POWER

The Thomas Paine Institute’s Declaration of Freedom is not merely a public announcement but a resounding proclamation to the world. Its language is clear and concise, emphatic and explicit, leaving no doubt about what it is proclaiming. Nor does it require interpretation. From the first paragraph—with its call to “restart freedom in a new place”—to the last—with the expression “to begin the world over again”—the TPI Declaration is an inspirational call to action, specifically action to drive a new beginning in accordance with the joint principles of individual rights and the proper role of government to protect those rights.

INTELLECTUAL POWER

The Declaration of Freedom would not be possible but for the towering intellectual achievement of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Her genius is at the root of the intellectual power you see in the declaration and thus of its inspirational power as well.

The Declaration captures foundational truths Rand identified and developed regarding human life and what it requires to survive and flourish on planet earth:

Ultimate Value: Individual human life is the ultimate value and standard of the good.

The Faculty of Reason: All humans are equal in their possession of Reason, the faculty by which they survive and thrive.

Initiated Physical Coercion: This evil is the greatest threat to the faculty of reason.

Individual Rights: The most fundamental of which are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, are possessed by all men and women and stand in opposition to the evil of initiated physical coercion.

In addition, the Declaration captures fundamental principles and core concepts that underpin it:

The Non-Initiation of Force Principle: No individual or group, not even government, the largest group in any nation, may initiate or threaten physical force against another individual or group and

The Sole Function of Government Principle: The sole proper function of government is to secure and protect the individual rights of its citizens against initiated physical force, using force only in retaliation against those who have already initiated or threatened that evil.

And finally, the Declaration elucidates core concepts of freedom:

Freedom: In any socio-political context, freedom means freedom from initiated physical coercion.

Rights: Rights are moral sanctions for individual action in a social context. Correctly understood, only individuals possess rights. Group rights invariably entail the violation of individual rights, namely those of the individuals who are not members of the group.

Capitalism: Correctly, this concept means Laissez-Faire Capitalism and not such aberrations as the oxymoronic Crony Capitalism.

Physical Force (or Coercion): This concept has two expressions: Initiated, an evil because it violates or threatens to violate individual rights, and Retaliatory, a good when brought against agents of initiated force.

To summarize, Foundational Truths, Fundamental Principles, and Core Concepts are three threads woven into the fabric of The Thomas Paine Institute’s Declaration of Freedom, the result of which is a document of great intellectual power.[1]

THE INDISPENSABLE DECLARATIONS

The earliest recorded Declaration of Freedom is America’s July 1776 Declaration of Independence. In January of that year, Thomas Paine, in his essay Common Sense, had galvanized the American colonists to act against British tyranny with the words “nothing can settle our affairs [grievances with Britain] so expeditiously as an open and determined Declaration of Independence.”[2] Thomas Jefferson, with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin supporting, rose to that challenge, and gave birth to America’s immortal Declaration of Independence. As a result, the thirteen original colonies became the United States of America with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

America would not have gotten off the ground without the Declaration of Independence with its determined and passionate exposure of British tyranny. History testifies that America’s Declaration of Independence, essentially a Declaration of Freedom from that tyranny, was indispensable.

Now, two and a half centuries later, as we approach the second quarter of the twenty-first century, the world is again facing the need to begin the world over again. Freedom is diminished throughout the world and extinguished in large portions of it. A new place must be found, or developed, from which to begin the world over again. Thanks to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, we have the means to get it right this time.

But as demonstrated in this essay, a Declaration of Freedom built on that philosophy is necessary to make it a reality. A new nation of freedom, any new nation of freedom, will not, cannot, happen without it. Nor will it survive long term without it.[3]

A Declaration of Freedom is Indispensable.

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