What is Natural Liberty? Why is it important?

Natural liberty comes from the simple fact that you exist. Your liberty does not come from another person or group. Another person or group can, of course, infringe upon your liberty, just as you can infringe upon another's. But your natural liberty belongs to you, period.

Natural rights stem from natural liberty. Because you are a free man or woman, you have the right to remain free, to defend your life against threats, and to accumulate property, provided you do so without depriving others of their rights. A natural right is something you have, something inherent to your existence, unless it is taken away from you by someone else. For example, you have the right to speak freely, unless that right is taken from you by another. You have the right to associate with other individuals of your choosing, unless that too is deprived of you.

Your most important right, at root, is to yourself. You own yourself. That may seem odd, or obvious, but it is actually quite profound, and has great implications. Because you own yourself, you own your mind, your body, and your time--the time you spend on various interests and pursuits you may have. For someone to assert that another group or person has a claim on your mind, body, or your time is to deny your right of self-ownership.

Suppose now we introduce the idea of a new right, the right to medical care. Is that a natural right? Only in the sense that you use your own time and resources to procure treatment if you become sick or injured. But if the right to medical care means that others must come to your aid when you are sick or injured, whether they want to or not, or that others must pay for you’re the aid you receive, whether they want to or not, how does your right to medical care dovetail with their rights? The answer is that it doesn't. If you have the right to medical care provided by others, that right can only come from depriving them of their rights to self-ownership, their rights to decide how to spend their time and resources. The right to medical care, a manufactured right, here trumps the right to self-ownership, a natural right. This is a profound immorality, in my view. How can a manufactured right be more important than a natural right?

It is perfectly fine, laudable even, for someone to volunteer to come to your aid. It is perfectly fine for you to engage a medical professional to treat you in exchange for something you own. But enslaving a doctor to care for you, or compelling someone else to pay the doctor to care for you, is simply might over right.

Most of the arguments about what government should and should not do are really about which manufactured rights should be allowed to trump natural rights. These arguments are usually couched in emotional language, involving needs, fairness, greed, rich versus poor, etc. The true nature of the battle, between natural and manufactured rights, is rarely, if ever discussed. Some disguise this struggle between natural and manufactured rights by calling the former “negative rights” and the latter “positive rights.” By their selection of terms you can tell which side they’re on.

In a democracy, a majority of the people decide which manufactured rights will be allowed to trump our natural rights. As unconscionable as this is, it’s routine. Natural rights should never be subject to a vote. But it happens, and it’s properly called mob rule. Over time, mob rule replaces our natural rights with manufactured rights. And it brings the tyranny needed to enforce them.

The policeman who catches the thief who stole your iPad and returns it to you has defended your right to property, but who defends you when the government seizes a third to a half of your earnings against your will, and squanders the stolen loot on stuff you disagree with? This tyranny is exercised against you every day by the government itself. And it’s called—get this—the “consent of the governed”.

Liberty today in America means that you are somewhat free when it comes to choosing your occupation, where you will live, and your preferred brand of soap, cellphone, or NFL team. And TV shows—there are plenty of those to choose from too. For many people this is enough, judging by their relative contentment. A cynic might say it’s all the liberty they can handle.

If the consequences of manufactured rights trumping natural rights were benign, maybe we could continue to look the other way. But destructive results are everywhere to see:

• A swelling hoard of government dependents ready to riot at the slightest grievance.
• A generation of dumbed-down youths with few skills besides texting and expressing their feelings.
• A growing group of voluntary and involuntary retirees nervously eyeing their pensions and savings.
• A small cadre of overlords pulling the legislative strings and reaping the benefits of confiscatory taxes and a central bank-funded stock market bubble.
• And shouldering the burden of it all, a shrinking class of the productive—workers, managers, business owners, and entrepreneurs.

In the end you retain all of the natural rights you are prepared to defend. You’d prefer to keep them by reasoning with those who would prefer to take them. But what exactly are we to do when reason is not enough?