I challenged myself (some time ago now) to try and create a comprehensive set of core principles, to be used as an everyday mantra for the individual, and as something which could be applied to help clarify the right-mindedness of a much broader and impactful proposal of matters legislative, judicial and/or political. In action it should act as a pre-emptive net upon the former, filtering the essential truth of an idea before it becomes the concern of the latter. If you sense an aspect or scenario which cannot be sufficiently informed by these principles, or if these principles are still too cloudy then please do open the debate!
I. It is the right of every individual in society to live a life of peace and self-determination, where such actions do not contravene the responsibilities of Article II.
II. It is the civic duty of every member of society to reason and act with compassion, empathy and tolerance towards oneself, other citizens and living entities (natural and artificial), and to exercise a prime duty of care to the natural environment.
III. It is the responsibility of the system of community to afford reasonable opportunity and resources for every citizen, to enable and support their natural talents, such that the individual will know a means to maintaining their personal mental and physical happiness and wellbeing, and in so doing allow that value to extend to the benefit of other citizens, with an overall beneficial impact upon the extended community.
IV. It is the right of every citizen to hold (or not) to religious and/or spiritual beliefs in accordance with Article I, free from interference from fellow citizens. It is incumbent upon the practitioner to take personal responsibility for those beliefs and any actions so arising, in accordance with Articles I and II, respecting the rights of others as a priority of civility and peace for the extended community.
V. As we live, so too should the fundamental choice of the individual to die be respected, where it is clear that euthanasia is being mindfully chosen by the subject. In cases where the subject is incapacitated and the option is being administered, such a decision and action should derive from no other place other than right-mindedness and compassion, sanctioned under normal circumstances by the consent and unequivocal agreement of no less than a minimum five qualified and relevant individuals.
Arguably the CODE OF PRINCIPLES sets a higher standard of social behavior than the American CONSTITUTION (I, being AMERICAN ), however one might choose to live as Sartre rather than Madison.
ReplyDeleteReally the core ideal, if there really is one to this, is to ensure that people appreciate the value and power of their own capacity, and the responsibility which goes with that. It's often argued that freedom demands vigilance from the people within the system and this is just an attempt to bring some simplification to the table. One interesting thought which does occur is that one of the main points to this endeavour is to recognise that you cannot allow the system to arbitrate causality, meaning that said responsibility must derive from better education and recognition that people are utterly responsible for what happens. By this I mean that when the system itself is allowed to dictate (or be used to argue/justify) the reasons for an event or circumstance then you have a set up which is pretty much pre-destined to fail everyone. That's also the reason for embracing simplification of the "rules", though I use that term loosely. So much of what we lack is because people don't hold themselves up to a high enough standard, but to get that right also requires independent freedom of thought and inquiry, and not any one person dictating their opinion over others, as met by articles I, II and IV. Basically people have to get real about life. That will best be served by having proper clarity and meaning in education, rather than the p**s-poor situation we have presently whereby people are trying to include such matters in the chaos of others panicking about accountability to arbitrary numbers and spreadsheet charts. Such measurements ought to derive from the results of society's oft talked about but little truly appreciated "happiness" quotient.
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