My Manifesto

A MANIFESTO

Applying moral principles to limiting government

by Les Govment

December 16, 2020

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1. Human beings have a right to life (note: that right can be forfeited if a person, without justification, is engaged in a physical act of aggression or violence against another person/persons). All human beings have a natural-born right to self-defense and a right to defend others.

2. All human beings have a natural right to live their lives as they choose, provided their choices and actions do not violate other people or their property or create a hazardous condition for others.

3. All human beings have a natural right to freedom of speech. (Slander and ongoing verbal harassment are both separate issues.)

4. Human beings have a natural right to privacy, and therefore have a right to not be subjected to searches of themselves or their properties or possessions without probable cause.

5. People have a natural right to be secure in the ownership of their property (land, houses, barns, motor vehicles, household items, etc.). It is immoral for government or law enforcement to confiscate privately-owned property, except in cases where the specific item was stolen or acquired through fraud, or to facilitate paying restitution to the victim of a crime committed by the item's owner. It is immoral for government to confiscate legitimately-owned property based on the owner's failure to pay taxes. (Government coins money, which is taxable. Government does not produce houses, cars, etc.; therefore, it has no moral right to tax property or to confiscate legitimately-owned property.)

6. All human beings have a natural-born right to associate, or to not associate, with people of their own choosing. No one should be forced to associate with people against his/her will.

 

7. Consenting adults have a natural right to form relationships of their own choosing. Government-- at any level-- has no moral authority over the institution of marriage or its definition.

8. Every child deserves-- and is essentially owed the right-- to be conceived and raised by a responsible mother and a responsible father in a committed relationship. There is no such thing as a natural right to use artificial means (such as artificial insemination) to conceive offspring outside of a committed, opposite-sex relationship. Also, surrogate motherhood is immoral and should be classified as medical malpractice.

9. Government should not control education. Parents bear responsibility for the education of their children. Parents have a natural right to home-school their kids.

10. There is no such thing as a natural right to adopt children. People should have to fulfill certain moral and financial requirements, in addition to being physically and mentally abled, in order to be allowed to adopt children.

11. There should be no race-based government laws or policies. While we should acknowledge that the human race is made up of a variety of ethnicities with obvious differences in physical traits, ultimately, there is only one race: the human race.

12. Government should treat all adults equally under the law, with very limited exceptions for those who are handicapped, infirm or mentally ill. Because of their respective conditions, such people might in some cases be unable to comply with a law or be unable to understand a law; they should be treated in accordance with their condition. Having established those very limited exceptions, there should be no "protected class" laws that provide special privileges or protections for entire groups of people, with only one important exception: minors. Obviously, it's legitimate for government to protect children from abusive adults, and to protect children from products or services that are suitable only for adults.

13. We, as citizens, have no moral obligation to treat all of our fellow citizens equally (we don't have a moral obligation to befriend everybody we meet; we don't have to enter into business relationships with everyone who makes a business proposition; we can use our own discretion concerning whom we will be charitable toward; etc.). There isn't anything in the U.S. Constitution that requires citizens to treat each other equally.

14. Business owners/operators have a natural right to turn down any request for their services, as they choose. There is no such thing as a right to other people's services. (In the US, involuntary servitude is forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment.)

15. Government does not have any legitimate authority over terms of compensation agreed to between employers and employees (enforcement of contracts is a separate issue). Employers have no moral obligation to pay employees in the same job the same amount. (For example, it's perfectly moral for an employer to pay a man or woman with five kids more than a man or woman with no kids. Paying more to the employee with a family can reasonably be construed to be an act of charitableness on the employer's part.)  (Another example: Seniority is a perfectly valid reason to pay one person more than another in the same job.)

 

16. Government should not subsidize anything and should not give out money to foreign governments. (It is immoral for government to give tax dollars to private-sector organizations, businesses or corporations. And it is all-the-more immoral for government to give tax dollars to foreign governments.)

17. There should be no taxpayer-funded government assistance programs. People in need of basic necessities or medical treatment should be helped voluntarily through private charity from individuals, charitable organizations, corporations, etc.

 

18. Societies and communities have a natural and moral right to shun or stigmatize bad behavior, and to shun or shame or ostracize people who persist in bad behavior. (It's perfectly legitimate for society to shun or shame sexual harassers, for instance.)

19. It is immoral for government to initiate a war of aggression against another nation.

20. When in the course of human events, a government becomes too oppressive or tyrannical, the people subjected to that government have a right to displace it. //

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