I had a dangerous water-cooler discussion the other day. It was really useful because the person I was discussing with has been really thinking about the subject. Maybe he'll break away from the Pinheads or maybe not, but at least he was thinking.
Anyway we were drawing diagrams of liberty, property and I was trying to explain my views on the subject. His argument was that if I denied that there was such a thing as an absolute right to property, or to liberty, I was denying these as fundamental rights. I thought about his diagram and slept on it. And next thing I knew I had the image I wanted. He drew one circle on the board for liberty, one for Justice/adjudication, and another for property.
Each of us is a system within a system. Basically You draw a series of circles within the circle of life. Our property is the circle around our being. Our being can be thought of as a system of ourselves with our surroundings. Our "self" can be thought of as a process or system within that system of systems. Within that circle we each have inalienable rights to property, liberty, "pursuit of happiness." Where Governance comes in is where those larger circles include us, and where our lines of communication connect us. Those are the commons.
This is a two dimensional view. However, the fourth dimensional view is a swimlane in which each of us, along with an ever changing list of Properties" moves from birth to death, from one goalpost of existence to another. Our properties end where other swimlanes begin. And since we have to tread where others have gone before, our properties overlap too.
Each person has an inalienable right to life liberty and to pursue happiness. To privilege that life people need to be able to communicate, to traverse the commons, to acquire and surrender property as they do so. A good system enables each person to swim his or her own path. Oppression is when one person's swimlane is squeezed by anothers. Liberty is when the path ahead is open.
These rights begin and end with us being in a community.
Posted by cholte at December 26, 2009 06:25 AM