My Permie Homestead Unified Beliefs, Part 4: Political Ideas

This post is Part 4 in my "Permie Homestead Unified Beliefs" series.  If you are new to my site and haven't read any of the posts leading up to this one, you can catch up on the other ones by visiting the introduction.  This is the second to last post, where I will be talking about some of my political views.  This will be the last post where I describe my own various beliefs.  In Part 5, the final part in this series, I will try to explain how permaculture ties all of the beliefs I shared with you in the first post together.

Because my political beliefs are complicated, I think it will be best to describe them by describing the political party I sometimes think about trying to start.  A few years ago, when my environmentalism began to reach full stride, a friend and I were talking about the fact that my beliefs were somewhat "hippie" and somewhat  conservative.  We joked about starting a political party called the "Hippublicans."  Problem is, "hippie" can be somewhat of a derogatory term, and I don't want my party to be associated with the Republican party even in rhyme.  So, I filed the idea in the back of my mind, and forgot about it for a while.

Later, I started reading about some of the original tenets of libertarian thought.  Notice again, dear readers, my use of the lower case "l" in libertarian.  The Libertarian party is a bit wacko, but the original libertarian ideas have some merit.  I realized the conservative thoughts I had were much closer to original libertarian thinking than to today's so-called conservativism.  And my "hippie" thoughts mostly have to do with ecology, so I finally came up with the name of my party.  The Ecotarian party.  Or so I thought.  I typed Ecotarian into Google, and found out that it's already taken by a movement similar to the localvore movement.  So, I have a philosophy that weighs environmentalism/ecology and individual liberty both very heavily, but I can't come up with a good name for it.  If you have an idea for me, let me know.  For now, let's call it the Eco-liberty party

To summarize my political beliefs before going in-depth (design from patterns to details, right?), the Eco-liberty party would be a hybrid of the Green Party and original libertarian thought, taking the best from both sides and mashing them together.  It would definitely be what most American's would consider a 3rd party.  In my political science studies, I have always seen the defining principle of a 3rd party as focusing on individual liberty, and not on expansion of government powers.  In my mind "traditional" parties, such as the Republicans and Democrats, focus on overly large social structures, globalization, and disempowering the individual by creating structures of dependence on the government.  3rd parties seem to be the parties that focus on manageable social structures (community level), localization, and individualism (as well as individual responsibility for solving problems such as those described in part 2 of this series), and independence from sluggish governmental/social structures.  If you are a permaculture enthusiast, and you describe yourself as a Republican, I urge you to learn about the original ideas of libertarianism.  I bet you'll be surprised.  Likewise, if you are a permaculture enthusiast, and you describe yourself as a Democrat, I urge you to learn more about the Green party.  If you do check these out but you don't change your mind, that's fine with me... at least you will have observed and interacted, and probably learned something and expanded your mind a little, as well as strengthened your knowledge about your beliefs.

Now, to get into a little more detail.  I believe that nothing is more important than the environment, including the most serious human/social issues we face.  Without a healthy and balanced environment, none of those issues would even be possible.  I'm sure I'm mostly preaching to the choir on this one, but in case I have new readers who're new to permaculture and environmentalism, I want to be sure to stress that everything is part of the environment.  The economy is built on products created from resources gathered from the environment.  The service, sale, and transfer of those goods takes place within the environment.  It should go without question that the economy is part of and subservient to the environment.  Questions of whether dealing with climate and environmental issues would "cripple" the economy are moot, because without a healthy environment, the economy will eventually fall to pieces anyway.  For my own personal cherry on top, I like to point out the etymology of the word economy.  Economy comes from the Latin oeconomia which meant "household manager."  And what is the environment if not the largest household of which we are all a part?  To have a healthy economy, you have to manage a healthy "household," and the earth and it's environment is everyone's household.

Second only in importance to the environment is individual liberty.  Every person should be free and entitled to provide for themselves, their family, and their community to the best of their abilities.  This is where my libertarian thoughts come into play.  I feel strongly that individuals should be allowed to do almost anything that they please to improve their life.  There is of course an important caveat that can be summed up perfectly by a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said "the right for me to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."  I interpret this to mean that you are free to do whatever you like, as long as you don't negatively impact those around you.  Speak freely, produce food, make money, store and conserve resources, etc.  But of course while you can, you should not speak to harm anyone, steal or hoard food or resources, focus solely on making money, or think only about yourself, because then by exercising your own liberty, you may be impeding on the liberty of others.

I believe so strongly in individual liberty that I believe it should be carried out to all possible extremes, within the boundary of not infringing on the individual liberty of others, or damaging the environment.  I believe all people have the complete and inalienable ownership of their body.  This means women should be free to get an abortion if they so choose, and no person or organization has the right to force anyone to ingest any substance or incur any physical interaction that they do not wish to.  I believe drugs should be legalized in similar ways to alcohol and tobacco, and that people who choose to partake have the liberty to do so.  I believe people should be given the opportunity to produce the healthiest food they possibly can for themselves, and that healthy food should be made available and affordable for those who do not produce it; or they can eat all the junk food they want.  And I believe that other people should not be allowed to infringe on any person's right to do those things, unless of course by doing so they are stepping on someone else's toes.  This of course can be a gray area in some situations, and I don't pretend to have answers for all of those, but I think when in question, we should err on the side of an individual's rights above anything else (other than the environment, of course).

Finally, I know this post didn't go into nitty-gritty detail, but I think what I have said probably answers most other more detailed political questions.  My own guideline usually goes something like "If I were alive 20,000 years ago, was I free to do this?"  Almost always the answer is yes.  I next ask, "by doing this, am I creating or inviting harm/hurt/danger into someone else's life?"  If the answer is no, I proceed to "By doing this, am I causing harm/hurt/danger to the environment?"  If my answer to the last question is no, then I usually have my answer to almost any political or individual liberty question.  Try it yourself!

In my next post, I will try to summarize what all of the ideas I have shared in these previous posts have to do with permaculture, my homestead, and why I have chosen these as the direction for my lifestyle.  I expect that my 5th and final post could push 2000 or more words (and I don't want to break it into two parts, this has gone on long enough!), so bare with me while I work on it.  I of course want it to be a quality post.  Thanks, as always, for reading!