Who owns you?
The definitive answer to this question is less likely to be found in a particular legal decision and more likely to be something that’s written on our hearts.
Butler Shaffer put it a slightly different way when he stated:
“Whether we live our lives as free individuals, or as collectivized subjects, depends on nothing so much as the state of our minds.”
It also means that the decision to embrace our personal autonomy is one that each of us must make for ourselves.
This is one of the reasons that a well-calibrated conscience is so essential to personal freedom.
A person who claims self ownership will voluntarily exercise internal control and self governance.
They don’t need coercive external control from others in order to live peaceful productive lives.
Of course, this requires self discipline and that’s a duty that not everyone is eager to shoulder.
Most of us view the idea of freedom as a positive thing but we don’t understand it well enough to claim it for ourselves.
If we’re waiting for someone else to give us permission to exercise self ownership, we are abdicating our individual responsibility.
We will only have as much freedom as we are willing to claim, use and defend.
If we wish to claim self ownership we have to know what it is and what it isn’t.
F.A. Harper said it perfectly:
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
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