Willem IV- What are gaps for freedom and how can understanding them make you wealthier, more successful, and more fulfilled as a human being?
A phrase we often use at The Freedomist is “gaps for freedom.”
We live in an increasingly less and less free world. This is true in America, where The Freedomist is based, and around the world. And it’s not just something political. In fact, the political aspect of freedom is the least of our concerns: most of the hindrances to you enjoying a life of freedom with unlimited prosperity are not “political” in nature.
We do identify and confront the hindrances to freedom, from the corporate dead-end of wage slavery to cultural authoritarianism from the press. But, that being said, our creative energy is focused more toward identifying and imparting gaps for freedom and how to profit from using them.
So what is a gap for freedom?
A gap for freedom is some method or means by which you can be self-sufficient and enjoy your inherent spiritual sovereignty as a human being created in the image of God without external manipulation or control in an otherwise unfree environment where most people are not enjoying freedom.
The tendency of human beings who are not constrained by moral and ethical limits and accountability thereto is to gather power unto themselves at the expense of others. The robber baron, the dictator, the overbearing boss, or the machismo man lording it over wife and kids are all symptoms of this malignant trait.
It is necessary to see freedom beyond mere politics. Non-political hindrances to your freedom as a spiritually sovereign person include relationships that aren’t healthy, overbearing bosses, wage slavery in a dead-end job, social pressures that shun you for otherwise moral or legal conduct, and the list goes on.
We often refer to liberty as defined by the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Rights as one of the three principles of freedom. The other two inlcude a virtue founded on four core ideals and common decency and independence founded on material and financial self-reliance, including mutual self-reliance through some form of freewill participatory association with other people.
As to virtue, these four core ideals include Unity in diversity, Popular sovereignty, Democratic equality, and Rule of law as understood from a Judeo-Christian worldview and as applied in a balanced manner with one another. Any relationship or association and any form of system of governance that gets these in right balance according to a more enlightened definition of their deeper meaning has a great chance of being successful.
As to independence, this really means you either individually or through purely voluntary freewill participation in some relationship, association, or community of trust can meet your basic human needs without any dependence kn anything or anyone that doesn’t respect yout, your values and beliefs, and your dignity as a human being.
Virtue, Liberty, and Independence are the three legs of freedom as we understand and promote it. Our application of this kind of freedom is balanced and harmonious and it is comprehensive, multi-faceted, and multi-dimensional.
With this in mind, therefore, gaps for freedom include whatever allows you to acheive this kind of freedom in your life, regardless of what society around you is tolerating and choosing. If all your neighbors are wage slaves struggling to make ends meet and stuck in their jobs without any hope of advancement, you don’t need to be yourself. If your neighbors are happy to conform to social pressures by celebrities or the press or even college professors, you can wave your banner of independency and choose your own moral code without caving in to any of that.
A gap for freedom is some legal means by which you can obtain freedom, using virtue, liberty, independence as your guide, even when everyone around you is not walking in freedom.
Here is an example in the US.
You desire what humans have always desired since our creation: to cluster together in the closest proximity with people you can trust deeply because they share your beliefs and convictions and because they care for you as much as you care for them.
Assume you have a band of 20 families and aorund 5 single adults who share these same convictions about how to live and who want to all live next to each other in a small but private neighborhood. Legally, if you built such a neighborhood with 20 houses and 5 apartments you could not restrict the future sale or leasing of those spaces to people who are in your little community of trust.
But through a mutual benefit corporation, whereby the members of your little band of like-minded people, you could actually make identification with your community a requirement of membership. In that case, each member owns shares of the corporation, which in turn owns the buildings, but membership in the corporation is limited to your trust community.
It is important to state here that Freedomists do not advocate large-scale communities like this which would tend to balkanize society.
In our ideal free and pluralistic society model, many clusters of up to 120 or so adults in private neighborhoods plus housing as we have it today (based on the fair housing act, which we support) would form communities of diverse sociocultural communities of trust whose members all respect the basic dignity and freedom of all other members of that pluralistic community.
We vehemently oppose using race as a basis of these clustered living neighborhoods and we would never countenance denying housing to anyone based on things like race or sexual orientation or religion.
You can use MBC (mutual benefit corporation) as a gap for freedom to exercise your freedom to cluster around what amounts to a form of an extended familial community of people. If, however, you abuse this gap for freedom to promote racism or intolerance toward others outside your trust community, then you are becoming a hindrance to the freedom of others.
The use of this gap for freedom can both give you a legal means of enjoying this instinctive human need to cluster and increase your wealth and happiness. An MBC properly organized can substantially reduce costs to obtain land and build housing both through the power of collective buying and if members participate in the work with expert oversight. When, say, 30 families and 10 singles adults all contribute to a fund owned by an MBC, they may have options on real estate opportunities that none could have as individuals.
For almost any situation where it seems there is something that prevents you from exercising freedom there are legal devices, like an MBC, or financial and other means, like a mutual assurance fund for health care, that create the conditions whereby you can exercise your virtue, liberty, and independence in peace and prosperity.
When you connect to other people of a like mind and based on freewill participation to build these gaps for freedom, you increase the odds that you will enjoy freedom in peace and prosperity.
You can be MUCH MORE FREE than you currently are, if you do not feel very free right now, by identifying and using gaps for freedom. This is especially true if you connect with other people who have similar beliefs and convictions and who also desire such freedom.
Hopefully by now you understand what a gap for freedom is. In these pages we will identify gaps for freedom individuals can use and groups of people, using freewill participatory association, can use to exploit these gaps and use the principles of freedom to prosper and become fulfilled human beings.
To recap: gaps for freedom are legal methods, means, and devices (like self-employment, the MBC, or a mutual assurance fund) that give you a way to experience real freedom even if society around you is not choosing or experiencing freedom.
At The Freedomist, one of our main lines of content development is focused on identifying and explaining gaps for freedom and imparting techniques for exploiting them in the most resource-efficient manner possible. Becoming a subscriber means you want to become free as a spiritually sovereign person created in the image of God and in whatever form of freewill participatory association you deem suited to your convictions and lifestyle.
