Liberty

By Feisal Mansoor1
The material fruits of association2 are the substance of being human
and alive. The utility to society of association consists in more than
the safety in numbers, and while this maybe seen as an actual limit,
it is neither the most desirable context of association nor its only
desirable outcome.
As humans we have associated to produce music, art and literature
as well as rocket ships and surface to air missiles. Decoding the
human genome has confirmed that every hair on our heads is
counted and each of us is an individuality of living expression,
unrepeatable and unique.
We all have nephews, nieces, sons and daughters who remind us of
relatives past and R D Laing pointed out that to the species the
individual is unimportant. Aldous Huxley reminds that we are each
an island-universe whose experiences are at best communicable
third hand. When experience transcends the individual the resulting
empathy informs the meaning of being human.
The extent to which one is compelled in any way other than the free
and unfettered exercise of ones will is the limit to the utility of
association. The protection of the weak from the strong and the
safety in numbers stems from the limits of an individuals strength
1

2007, 2015 Feizal Mansoor, All rights reserved but maybe circulated

without change.
2

An extension of the impetus to association might even propose that a will to

association is the primary motivation of experience: I was a hidden Treasure

and I wanted to be known therefore I created you so that you could know me.

against the many. This physical limit has been confused with the
weight of representative power when the local thug became the
village headman, the village headman the local baron, the local
baron the king and so on, till today we have a democratic republic
with power separated in to the executive, the legislature and the
judiciary3.
Mans survival as a species will depend on the extents we are
willing to go to protect the many from the few. The few who would
organize and direct us, bending our will to theres until we our
uncertain whose is whose or which is which.
The democratization of the role of authority has supplanted its
spiritual or metaphysical context, wherein those least worthy of
emulation set the standards for the polity, and the basis of the
association.
If association in this polity is compelled by mere accident of birth
then one cannot be said to born free or endowed with any right
other than to pay taxes for protection from the state4.
Several fiscal inventions proceeding by legal precedent can be
shown to be ultra vires the two most basic of legal principles,
contract and tort. These both consist in nothing more than
consideration for other people and their person, things we learn on
our mothers knee.

The legislative branch has the power to make the law. The executive branch

has the power to enforce the law. The judicial branch has the power to interpret
the law.
4

It is the government that will incarcerate you for not paying taxes.

"An economic system is the result of its legal system. All EWR(Early
Warning Report)

analysis begins with the two fundamental principles of

the old English Common Law. These two rules can be expressed
in 17 words: do all you have agreed to do and, do not encroach
on other persons or their property. The first rule is the basis of
contract law, and the second, the basis of tort law and some
criminal law."

Richard Maybury Talks About Law

In the expression of an individual will the only considerations for a

society is that neither the law of tort nor the law of contract are
violated. In other words the limit of civility is that my unfettered will
can necessarily not violate the will of another. In the teaching of our
forefathers, in Sinhala mutthas, this primary need required only that
in accordance with ones vocation one provided for the village to
maintain the infrastructure and physical and spiritual balance. If you
live in dhamma, Dhamma will protect you.
While in distant and more capable times there might have been
justification for a central authority dispensing a moral justice based
on a Supreme Commandment or Divine vice-regency, there is none
today.

The inherent nature of power5 is to arrogate to itself more and more.

A pyramidal hierarchy forms political elites that sequester the tools
of production, the knowledge systems and societys financial base.
Humanity stands on a mountain of human achievement. This
achievement is the natural inheritance of us all.
J W Smith6 describes society as a machine that provides the needs of
its components, one wonders if the Buddha said anything different?
Life as suffering is such an insufficient translation of dukkha. In fact
Tradition will have it that all living systems must be nurtured7: it
being the business of life to engender more life. We must maintain
our living environments in pristine condition so that consciousness
may dwell in an as many nooks and crannies as we can foster.
We traditionally worshipped the Sun as the primogenitor nonpareil
and imagined a way of life in keeping with His Shining Example.
The noble face of the Lion, arya elevated, enlightened, exemplary.
The argument is still between Aristotle and Francis Bacon. In the
classical ideal man is honourable and fatalistic and in the modern
honour has no meaning and the future is deterministic. Yet there is
no reason why the future cannot be both honourable and
deterministic and I would argue this is actually the function of man
on earth. Liberty is the freedom to make a choice to do or not do

See Power: a natural history of its growth by Bertrand de Jouvenal

See Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the 21st Century by J W

Smith
7

for life is a beneficence and one would be hard pressed to think it any thing

but, it is because I am alive that I have even the chance of debating the
question.

something. Mahasamatta says that this must be the right thing in the
right way.