this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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The core political belief I hold is that so long as you are not directly harming someone else, you should be free to do that. That said, I have a lot built up on that.
I do not extend it to corporations or government. I believe that regulation is undoubtedly necessary for a functioning society.
And with laws, nuance is in everything. Nothing is ever so black and white to have a zero tolerance policy.
The perverse ideas that money is speech and corporations are people can make a lot of simple common-sense statements suddenly completely insane.
I support free speech. Money is not speech.
I support personal freedom. Corporations are not people.
Why limit it to direct harm? There's tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.
Indirect becomes nebulous. At what degree of indirect harm do we set that limit. Almost every action we do may cause indirect harm to others. It might be better phrases as "physically" harms someone. I don't want to get into someone doing something to themselves like taking drugs and restrict it solely on the basis that it will hurt their family and friends to see what happens to them.
I use it as the core base of my beliefs, but that doesn't mean I don't think that freedom divests them of any responsibility for their indirect actions. It's the default position until something convinces me why it should be restricted or outlawed.
I also limit it to individuals working alone. Once they work in groups and organize the damage that can be done is different. Or doing it for commercial reasons. I believe private businesses can only exist under strict regulation.
My indirect harm litmus test would fall along the lines of like an OSHA style philosophy of regulation, for example for any kind of ledges we generally require rigid hand railings. If someone got hurt falling off a ledge at my workplace sure I didn't do anything to cause it, but I'd still be on the hook for their injury because I didn't take the required steps to reasonably prevent unnecessary injury.