Individual Sovereignty
First, great piece of writing, Rayzer. May I quote you elsewhere?
I notice that some people are already mad at you because you are self-sovereign and dare to say so.
Individual liberty does mean individual sovereignty. Each person is a self-owner, and must constantly choose between good and evil. I noticed that Theo completely ignored Rayzer's statement that this human self-ownership, brought about by human nature is part of the natural law. But further, Theo misunderstands the nature of individual sovereignty when he claims that individual sovereignty means the sovereignty of one human being over others, or even human power to change the natural law. For example, Theo says:
This whole idea that man is sovereign really fits into the hands of elitists, both nationally and globally. They, of course, believe they are sovereign over the masses, and therefore, they can tell them what to do and how to live. To them, they can control the media, the banks, the food supply, and everything else involving the affairs of men, according to their whims.
Notice here that Theo says "this whole idea that man is sovereign" has no object. Theo does not state what he thinks Rayzer's individual sovereignty applies to, and thus sets up a convenient straw man. A careful reading of Rayzer's original statement makes it clear that Rayzer was claiming his sovereignty over himself, and recognizes the same for others; but Theo conveniently neglects that in order to get up onto a religious soapbox. He has a particular notion of G-d ("Trinitarian Dominionist") that he says we all "must recognize." In other words, he wants to force us to recognize his particular theology.
I for one, do not agree with it. And as a self-sovereign person, my non-agreement is Theo's problem, but not mine. As Thomas Jefferson recognized:
. . .that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness . . . (Preamble to the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom, 1785)
Again, Rayzer's claim of sovereignty was that each person is himself sovereign and need recognize no other human being as sovereign over any other. This is the meaning of liberty, and this recognition of individual sovereignty originating from the natural law is the basis of the non-initiation principle. Since each person is self-sovereign, then one person has no right to initiate force against another because that would be a violation of that other person's sovereignty.
That free human beings can and must decide how to respond when another uses force against them in order to subjugate them does not for one moment obviate that person's sovereignty over himself. That choice of how to respond (whether to fight or to live to fight another day) is not an abdication of self-sovereignty but rather an exercise of it; this is something that the great religious martyrs understood well. There is a point where one must choose to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees. But where that point is located is the decision of each individual, and his alone.
Contrary to Theo's argument, self-sovereignty is man's proper nature, and the only guarantee against tyranny and oppression. It is the idea that some people are not self-sovereign that produces the elitism that Theo is concerned about.
