Welcome to the 'NAM, this website is a small repository of Libertarian ideas. Feel free to explore the projects here, and visit our forums to participate in adding to the 'NAM. One of our most important projects is the Little Black Book of Bills wiki, please visit and contribute your ideas.

My name is Phoebus Apollo, I'm the creator and curator of this website. My only "agenda" with this webpage is to expose people to the idea that our political culture - both liberal and conservative - is not based on healthy or consistent ideologies. Religion, socio-economic status, race, lifestyle, the way people are raised: these things have more of an impact on someone's political views than the actual implications of their political ideas. We've seen an abandonment of political philosophy in favor of attitudes and traditions. As a direct result, our government has grown large, weighty, inconsistent, regulatory and this continued unchecked expansion threatens our freedoms.

The American Founding Fathers created a system for government based on very clear, very well documented political opinions. They believed that government should be limited and used the turmoil of thousands of years of the centralized, autocratic rule of kings as an example as to why that should be. Government's role in our lives should be clear, it should be defined. That is why they gave the new government a Constitution and Bill of Rights, and why they made a Declaration of their principles.

Modern American politics has been changed by various political movements since the Revolution, not all of them consistent with the Revolution's ideals. Socialism, which rose in the late 1800's, coupled with the changes of national depression and the two World Wars have greatly impacted today's common ideas about the role of government. Technological growth and the spread of new forms of media have also had a strong impact. As government has grown in scope and size, authority is now more centralized than ever in our "federal" government, while the importance of state governments dwindle. In thinking about our government, Americans have stopped asking questions like "what is the role of government?" and "what limitations should we place on government action?", and in their place ask questions like "what would I do if I ruled the country?" and "how can I use government to solve my problems?" This fundamental shift in the way people think about government favors the rise of tyrants and oppression, yet people think little of the difference.

All that I ask is that people take care in considering the implications of their ideas, and ask themselves if those ideas are based on something more than an attitude or moment's whim. Centralized ruling classes, like the political parties in America today, are not healthy expressions of a free society. They are caricatures of the true feelings of Americans, and they allow polarized interests the opportunity to steer American domestic and foreign policy. Many Americans are discontent at the general political process, but do not have a clear political ideology to guide them towards a better system. It is part of the New American Myth to think this is the type of system we should continue supporting, and to change things, we must embrace the possibility for change.

To make my biases clear, this website supports the libertarian view that we should have a small government with strictly limited authorities, a view endorsed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. To learn more about the philosophy that backs my website's political ideology (one which I hope is acceptable to Americans regardless of race, religion, socio-economic status, and creed), read on...

Libertarianism is a new philosophical movement with some very old roots. It is based largely on the philosophies of American Founder Thomas Jefferson as well as elaborations by other Founders and participants in the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence is considered one of Libertarianism's most important documents. Classical Liberalism of the American Revolutionaries is in many ways the very basis for Libertarianism today. Libertarian market theories stem from the same Enlightenment era, largely influenced by founder of free market capitalism, Adam Smith.

The basis for the philosophy has been elaborated by free market theorists and civil liberty philosophers ever since the American Revolution and has formed into a very coherent and stable international movement. Internationally you might also refer to Libertarianism as Liberalism, but in the United States, Liberals diverged from the classical Liberalism of our founders in the late 1800's - during the rise of Socialism - and today the word Liberal is largely disassociated from the old politics. "Libertarianism" is the modern culmination of the old-age classical Liberals who have migrated under different banners for the last 100 years, largely in obscurity as government grew and modern politics developed into something definitely not classically Liberal.

But what is Libertarianism, the "Philosophy of Liberty"? Unlike other ideologies, it's based on a fairly simple series of ideas, with several complex - but powerful - implications. Not only is liberty the most practical system today, it is the most humanitarian and ethical foundation for human action. Because it is a fully featured political philosophy, once the basic principles are understood, one will quickly understand many sets of entire political platforms that would be associated with it, and how it can be practically applied to the government we see today. That is because it focuses on explaining the role of government, instead of showing government as a means to some unspecified end.

If you have 10 minutes you may want to watch this animation on the Philosophy of Liberty. It is provided to you courtesy The International Society for Individual Liberty.


[click here to view]

You own yourself, to deny this is to imply others have a claim on your life that is above your own. The self-ownership principle is the starting point in liberty-based philosophy. You have the right to own yourself, your mind, your body and your time on this Earth. You decide what you want to do with your life on your own volition.

If this is true for you, it's equally true for everyone. So as much as you have a natural and unalienable right to own yourself, others own themselves. If you infringe on someone's self-ownership by initiating force against them, you invalidate your own claim, then we enter into a system where everyone owns others based on force, violence and fraud.

This is an elaboration on why the American Founders believed the British government was not the most perfect union. The Founders believed we all had unalienable rights and that it was government's explicit goal to protect them. They believed this so strongly they called it "self-evident truth", some even proclaiming it was ordained by a creator as a part of man's natural free will.

If government becomes destructive to the end of protecting our unalienable rights, we will be living in a world devoid of self-ownership. This is a state of chaos and oppression our Founders wanted to avoid, so they made us a Constitutionally limited government within a Democratic Republic, a system shown to be very stable, especially compared to others in the past (like Dictatorship, Despotism, Anarchy, Feudalism, Monarchy). In this system the people could limit government and fix it peacefully should it go astray. It was from this the Founders gave us our Federal government.

If we all own our life and are naturally entitled our liberty, then we also own the product of our life and liberty - our property. In this way property rights are the same thing as individual rights, they are both based on the self-ownership principle. Force or fraud against our property is similar to force or fraud against our person, and equally as immoral, irregardless of who perpetrates it.

To take life is murder. To take liberty is slavery. To take property is theft. These are the things our Founders meant to protect us from when they created our government, they wanted to protect our "unalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". These threats to our liberties is force - the only morally justified use of force is self-defense or retaliation against those who revoke their own self-ownership by violating these very simple principles.

In this way, government was founded as an agent of force to end all force. It punishes those who murder, enslave or steal, and stops murder/slavery/theft where it is found. Just as we are subject to these rules, officials of government are people as well, and are subject to them. No official may ever murder, enslave or steal, no matter how imaginative the label for their actions. Officials initiating force are immoral no matter of how minor the infraction may seem to some, or how many people support them. A small government with minimal authorities would keep such infractions at an all-time low, allowing society to grow and develop at its natural pace.

For instance, if one hundred people voted to enslave one, it is equally as immoral as if the one enslaved the hundred. Government should protect everyone from ever being enslaved, and in kind, government itself should enslave no one. This argument was the one used by civil rights activists who eventually won liberty for black slaves in America, as they correctly argued that American slavery contradicted unalienable rights. In this way the system the Founders created, however imperfect at the time, worked to ensure greater liberty and we became a more perfect union because of it.

As time passed things changed, and so did people's ideas about government. Socialism, a rival and diametrically opposed philosophy, claims the public is the ultimate arbiter of ownership, and that all people are subject to the whole. If one hundred people vote to enslave one, it is a moral agreement under Socialism, so long as the hundred can justify how it would mutually benefit them all. Fascism and Communism, both controversial political systems often ruled by dictators and central planners, are examples of models which have suffered historical failure because they decline to address the important issue of the role of human liberty in their society.

So we have today where there is a mix of these ideas clashing together. The political "Left" advocates maximum personal liberty (at the expense of economic regulation) while the political "Right" advocates maximum economic liberty (with the condition of greater social control): Libertarianism sticks by the Founder's path and advocates maximum personal and economic liberty. This is true freedom, but it can sometimes be difficult to attain.

The Zero-Aggression principle protects a free society from abuse by its government. As we have shown, it's not moral for anyone - even government - to initiate force against others. The Zero-Aggression principle is the simple idea that this applies absolutely to everyone, especially government officials. Thus, if you support this principle, you should support a system of government most likely to refrain from engaging in unnecessary economic regulation, foreign entanglement, and domestic/social control. Thus, the Zero-Aggression principle is a big part of Libertarian policy as we seek to continue the Founders vision of a more perfect union, as Libertarianism is directly derived from the Founder's ideas about government.

For more, explore this website with the navigation on your right and visit the homepage of the United States Libertarian Party Homepage. The Libertarian Party is a third party that adopts these ideas as it's entire platform, and it is America's 3rd largest political party. It does regularly elect candidates to minor offices, and frequently runs Presidential candidates in all 50 states, thus if you are interested in these ideas you may wish to support it as it makes for a great alternative in situations where the Democrat or Republican party candidates do not merit your support. The 'NAM will discuss Libertarianism a lot as we seek to debunk the New American Myth.

To get a rough idea where your views currently stand in relation to the philosophy of liberty, please take this very short quiz, it's so short in fact, it's called the World's Smallest Political Quiz. It will give you a very rough idea where you stand in the world of politics today, whether you are a modern liberal or conservative, or whether your ideas are centrist, statist or libertarian. This test is fairly unbiased, but it is provided by the Advocates for Self-Government, a libertarian organization.