Ten principles of freedom

by Professor David Flint AM

National Observer Australia’s independent current affairs online journal No. 83 (June – August 2010).

To be free, and to enjoy that freedom, man must live in an ordered society. We cannot live in a state of anarchy or a state of nature where, as Hobbes famously put it, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.[1]

An ordered liberal society allows mankind to lead a full life. This was recognised eloquently by the Founding Fathers of the United States when, believing that their rights as Englishmen were being denied, they declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[2] Continue reading