The Ten Principles of a Free Society

by Ron Paul

This is the from the appen­dix to Ron Paul’s book, “Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom”.

1. Rights belong to indi­vid­u­als, not groups; they derive from our nature and can nei­ther be granted nor taken away by government.
2. All peace­ful, vol­un­tary eco­nomic and social asso­ci­a­tions are per­mit­ted; con­sent is the basis of the social and eco­nomic order.
3. Justly acquired prop­erty is pri­vately owned by indi­vid­u­als and­vol­un­tary groups, and this own­er­ship can­not be arbi­trar­ily voided by governments.
4. Government may not redis­trib­ute pri­vate wealth or grant spe­cial priv­i­leges to any indi­vid­ual or group.
5. Individuals are respon­si­ble for their own actions; gov­ern­ment can­not and should not pro­tect us from ourselves.
6. Government may not claim the monop­oly over a people’s money and gov­ern­ments must never engage in offi­cial coun­ter­feit­ing, even in the name of macro­eco­nomic stability.
7. Aggressive wars, even when called pre­ven­ta­tive, and even when they per­tain only to trade rela­tions, are forbidden.
8. Jury nul­li­fi­ca­tion, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the peo­ple and the court­room norm.
9. All forms of invol­un­tary servi­tude are pro­hib­ited, not only slav­ery but also con­scrip­tion, forced asso­ci­a­tion, and forced wel­fare distribution.
10. Government must obey the law that it expects other peo­ple to obey and thereby must never use force to mold behav­ior, manip­u­late social out­comes, man­age the econ­omy, or tell other coun­tries how to behave.

h/​t Lew Rockwell