LR38: Is Personal Liberty Selfish?

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Liberty Revealed Episode 38 Show Summary

Mike explains how to show people personal liberty is not at all selfish.

Listen to Liberty Revealed Episode 38

Liberty Revealed Episode 38 Show Notes

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about how to handle liberty issues without being selfish.

I recently had an interaction in a Facebook group and it gave rise to what we are about to discuss. It showed me exactly how much the Libertarian party is failing at its messaging. The fact that people still have a completely erroneous idea of what Libertarians stand for is evident by the conversation I am about to share.

The person in question shared an article that described libertarianism as destroying our society. I immediately got intrigued because, to me, for that to happen, libertarian principles have to be prevalent in society and they are not. That’s what initially made me perk up and take notice.

Upon reading the article, it was apparent that the author didn’t understand libertarianism at all. The author (and the person I encountered on Facebook) looked at libertarians as being on the far right of the political spectrum. They viewed our stance on personal liberty as selfish. Why?

To me, there is just a very poor understanding of personal liberty and how it applies to society and in private. There is a failure to understand that personal liberty does have limitations when in a group.

The phrase “your rights end where my rights begin” needs to be understood in order to remove that “selfish” label.

Yes, we believe we should be allowed to do whatever we want as often as we want in the privacy of our own homes. However, upon leaving our homes, we must respect the boundaries others have. Just because it might be our right to do something a certain way doesn’t mean we have the absolute right to do that in public. As an example, some people like to walk around naked. That would be their right in the privacy of their own home, but not in public. In public, others have the right not to be forced to look at naked people everywhere. Their rights start where our rights end.

This very simple concept clarifies the meaning of personal liberty. When something has no effect on other people, it is our absolute right to handle it how we see fit. And why not? We are not causing harm to anyone else, so why shouldn’t we be allowed to partake in that activity?

It is important to note that everyone chooses what they want to do. Nobody is forced into doing things they do not wish to do. It is always their personal choice. That’s what personal liberty is all about.

Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.

That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time…stay free!