05.05 – Individual Sovereignty – Part 1

Natural Hygiene affirms that everyone is a sovereign entity unto him or herself. To be sovereign is to own, control, and govern yourself. Sovereign, literally translated, means ‘ruler of self’. It is based on the premise of Self-Ownership: You own and control yourself. This is obviously true. During your adult life on Earth among other individuals, if you do not own and control your mind and body… who does?

To be sovereign is to be autonomous, independent, able to choose. And free to carry out that choice, as you desire.

Everyone should be entirely free, unrestrained in any way, within the context of enlightened self-interest. Everyone must have the liberty to do whatever they choose to do, as long as their actions do not cause harm or impinge on the equal freedoms and rights of others.

Equal Freedoms and Rights is a very important principle that must be firmly upheld for any enlightened society to thrive. If freedom and liberty are to flourish across the land, it is required that no one shall have more rights or less rights than any other. To be morally consistent, the equal rights requirement must also apply to government ‘authority,’ or any other so-called ‘authority’. Those who work within government, along with those in any other social or business institution, shall not have any rights that all other free men and women do not have. Equal rights means equal rights… for everyone… across all of humanity.

Further, it should be understood that the opposite of freedom is slavery. It is commonly believed that slavery has been abolished. It has not. In fact, it has merely changed face. The core of this extremely important issue can be easily understood by examining the definition of slavery:

“Any claim of authority over another human being is a claim of ownership and control of the mind, body, actions, property, and/or productivity of that human being. This is slavery.”

In any situation, how can you tell if slavery exists?