(from a series of letters I wrote in 1995)
This section is about the way liberty relates to individuals dealing with each other. It does not consider the relationship between government and individuals. Governments will be considered in section two.
Source of Liberty
Some of the books I have read have attempted to explain where
the rights of man come from. There are a number of different ideas.
Some say men have natural rights because they are human. Others say
men have rights because, from a utilitarian point of view, they feel there
are benefits. Many say governments grant rights. However, as
members of the church, we believe our rights come from God. Specifically
God granted to those of us that chose the correct side in the war in heaven,
life and free agency. President Benson said "Reason, necessity, tradition
and religious convictions all lead me to accept the divine origin of these
rights. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by
government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can
be denied by government" (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson wrote
in our Declaration of Independence "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" (emphasis added).
Range of Liberty
There are legitimate limits to our freedoms, but before considering
the limits it is important to understand that the range of agency should
be as great as possible. First, agency should not be limited because it
is a gift from God. God allows us great latitude in the use of our
agency. As it says in one of our hymns "God will force no man to
heaven." There is lots of wickedness in the world that God could stop if
the principle of agency was not so crucial. Another reason we must
be left free to choose is that, if righteousness was forced, we would not
learn nor would we be rewarded for the acts we perform. Satan presented
a plan to take away our agency; we rejected his plan. He continues
to pursue his goal. Therefore, we must think very carefully about
the limits we desire to place on other individuals.
Legitimate Limits on Liberty
We should be free to do whatever we choose, as long as we do not
infringe on another individual’s freedoms. Therefore, the only time
an individual can justifiably take life or limit liberty is to protect
life or liberty. In other words individuals can only use force defensively.
The only other case where force may be appropriate is in teaching and raising
children, but we cannot use force on adults except to protect ourselves.
There are many examples where the use of force by one individual
to limit the liberty of another individual is clearly immoral. We
do not go into our neighbors' homes and attempt to compel them to act in
ways we desire even if the actions we desire would benefit them or others.
We cannot coerce others to give money, goods, or service to us even for
righteous causes. It would be wrong to control where our friends
shop, what they buy or how much they pay. If we are with a friend
when we see someone asking for money, we can reach into our pocket and
give willingly but we can't reach into our friend’s pocket to help him
give. We believe that alcohol and tobacco are bad, but we do not
try to force others to stop using them. We would not want our neighbor
to control the shows we watch, the books we read, or the people we associate
with. We don't want him to select the church we go to or the things we
believe. As individuals we generally should not try to control each
other.
The Relationship between Property Ownership and Liberty
As free individuals there are numerous ways we can use our liberties
to acquire property. We can trade our labor for property, we can trade
things we already own for other goods, we can give or receive gifts from
others. Liberty gives us the right to own things, all types of things,
land, cars, houses, clothes, food, etc. To be clear I would like
to offer a definition of ownership: The owner of an object is the individual
that can decide what to do with the thing that is owned. The owner can
sell, trade, destroy, improve, save, or do anything else desired with his
property.
Because liberty allows us to own property, using force to protect
property is equivalent to protecting liberty. If someone attempts
to steal our property or take control of it, we have the right to use force
to keep it.
Additionally, property ownership draws a line when there are conflicts
between individuals using their liberties. Because the owner of an
object has the right to control it, we can not claim that liberty allows
us to do what we want wherever we want. In our own homes we have
almost no limits placed on our liberty. When we invite others into
our home, they must abide by our standards or we can make them leave.
When we are in another person’s home our liberties our significantly restricted.
Conclusions
Because I have said we can use force to protect life, liberty
and property, does not mean I advocate, a system where each of us individually
must constantly resort to force for protection. The point I am trying
to make is that we will always have the right to use force defensively.
Nothing can take away our right to protect our families, our friends, and
our property.
To summarize, Liberty is a gift from God. We should place
the minimum limits necessary on liberty. The only legitimate use
of force is to protect life, liberty, and property. Property ownership
draws a line when there are conflicts between individuals exercising their
liberties.
In my next letter I will try to show how these principles of individual
liberty relate to the proper role of government.
