Project Common Vision: The Freedom Declaration for Peace

The Freedom Declaration for Peace

When you strip away all that divides us - class, race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ideology and dogma -we are left with the essence of what it means to be human through our desire for freedom, our yearning for peace and our dream of prosperity for all.

Affirming this shared human experience is the starting point for the next major leap in human progress that builds on the wisdom of the past.

It represents the next phase of human progress that started with primitivism and superstition, enlightened through modernism, darkened through postmodernism almost to the point of extinction and re-awakened through a common vision.

It represents a new era of peace. This is the era of the shalom, salaam and the ohm shanti becoming more than hopeful greetings but a new reality, championed by a new generation of peacemakers affirming what we have always known but have neglected and forgotten.

***

1. We affirm that all human progress is the result of individuals cooperating freely and voluntarily for mutual benefit based on trust, underpinned by the four essential freedoms including: freedom of belief; freedom of expression; freedom of association and freedom to protest.

2. This cooperation cannot be coerced, enforced or directed because this requires the exercise of power. Systems built on the concentration of power—whether under socialism, communism, or authoritarian nationalism—inevitably fail because they erode trust and require coercion to sustain themselves until tyranny emerges and society collapses on a mountain of bones.

3. Over millennia of civilization we learned that certain behaviors build trust while others destroy trust. We refined the positive behaviors into moral values which we enshrined in our religions and belief systems labeling them as virtues and their opposites as vices.

4. This is the reason why we value and encourage love, loyalty, humility, honesty, generosity, compassion, kindness, decency, forgiveness and selflessness while rejecting and discouraging their opposites – hate, treachery, vanity, dishonesty, greed, callousness, depravity, resentment and selfishness. The former build trust, while the latter destroy trust and hence undermine our ability to cooperate for mutual benefit.

5. There is nothing relative about how the vices impact on our ability to cooperate based on trust. They are socially corrosive and personally destructive and this highlights the unintended consequence of a postmodern society unmoored from shared values—a vacuum that has allowed vice to be normalized and virtue to be ridiculed. The result has been widespread social decay and personal despair—outcomes no just society can ignore.

6. We instill the virtues through a process of socialization that starts with parenting, continues through schooling and then reinforced through personal experience in adulthood.

7. This is why the family unit should always be considered as sacrosanct with full and unencumbered parental rights. It is the nucleus of civilization and the primary building block of civil society.

8. Once the lessons are learned and internalized, they open the way to making better decisions and better life choices by expanding our awareness beyond the needs of the self and self-gratification, to include others through love, compassion and empathy.

9. The experience of living by the virtues while avoiding the vices - the moral life - was so profound that our ancestors concluded its origins must not be earthly but other-worldly; something linked to the eternal and unchanging  as expressed by the all-encompassing term: God.

10. The moral life is the pathway to enlightened freedom through self-mastery, lasting happiness through self-reflection and empathy, resulting in a sense of peace at the deepest levels of the human psyche we call the soul. 

11. Once peace is achieved it opens the door to living beyond the intellectual ideas of right and wrong, guided, instead, by an internal moral compass we call the conscience.

12. Peace awakens a new consciousness not just beyond the self but beyond time and even space as expressed in the biblical phrase: "the kingdom of god is within you", which is echoed in every great religion and resonates in every great belief system.

13. The solution to almost every social problem resulting from poor conduct is not bureaucrats dictating and directing behaviour, but rather improving human decision-making at both the personal and collective level, through a healthy socialization process, underpinned by open, peer-to-peer reputation management. 

14. The solution to antisocial behaviour is not bureaucrats controlling and regulating how we think, what we write or what we say, but rather a self-regulating society guided by feedback mechanisms and peer-to-peer reputation management that can be trusted.

15. The solution to corruption at all levels of society is not just bureaucratic oversight, which is too easily thwarted, but bureaucratic oversight supplemented by a process which ensures that only socially mature individuals are appointed to positions of influence and power as determined by community feedback.

16. The solution to social problems like inequality, injustice, prejudice and racism are not theories that divide society based on group identity that encourage hate and intolerance, but rather fostering empathy and humility through a socialization process based on the idea of a moral life.

17. Our ability to cooperate is represented by economic power which finds expression in the flow of financial capital in the free market economy, working towards the common good.

18. The definition of the common good should be extended beyond profit generation to include social capital in all its forms, ensuring that capital flows to areas of greatest social value as well as to areas of greatest financial profit.

19. To ensure greater fairness, economic power, rather than residing in the hands of the few, should be democratized to better suit the needs of the post-industrial society.

20. We now have the technology to expand and strengthen liberal democracy beyond national borders to help make better decisions in the interest of all people, not just in the interest of nation states.

21. The future is not governments redistributing wealth through taxation, but rather a self-managing society where people help themselves and help others directly through an economic model that puts people first.

22. The future is not big taxing, big spending and big footprint government but rather the exact opposite. Small footprint government that understands how a technology-empowered, peer-to-peer society in a free market economy can enable more people to live meaningful lives in peace, prosperity and the greatest freedom.

23. The future is not about humans competing with robots for jobs. The future is about utilizing robots to end the need to work for a living with new ways of sharing, cooperating and participating in global prosperity.

24. The future is not about the elites using their power and influence to shape the world in their own image. The future lies in rejecting the idea that freedom must be subordinated to suit the goals and ambitions of the rich and powerful.

25. We are not just vehicles for profit-making. We don’t always act rationally in our own self-interest. In fact, it is when we forsake our self-interest that we become truly human, through self-mastery become truly free and through freedom become truly happy and at peace within ourselves, with our neighbors and with the eternal and the unchanging.

DESIGNING THE FUTURE TOGETHER

The American Declaration of Independence was the product of a small group of great minds, defining a nation and the American identity unilaterally.

In contrast, the Freedom Declaration for Peace can be the product of the collaboration of potentially millions of minds connected by the Internet.

As such, this is a work-in-progress and will evolve through feedback and discussion. 

THE GREAT SIGNING

A new declaration of independence for a new world—and an end to the chaos.

When Lenin was asked how the Bolsheviks gained power, he famously said:

“Power was lying in the street. We picked it up.”

That’s where we are now—globally.

  READ MORE

REVITALIZING DEMOCRACY

Project Open Democracy is set to revitalize democracy by giving people an opportunity to vote for representatives based not on catchy slogans and promises that are quietly shelved once the election is over, but on a common vision that charts a path forward into the 21st century and beyond.

WHY TRUMP, PUTIN & ORBAN WILL NEVER SIGN

In an era marked by rising authoritarianism and the hollowing out of democratic institutions, strongmen like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Orbán have gained prominence by presenting themselves as defenders of tradition, sovereignty, and order. But scratch beneath the surface, and their power reveals a darker truth: it thrives not on unity or renewal, but on division, scapegoating, and the relentless concentration of power in their own hands.

This is precisely why none of them would ever sign the Freedom Declaration for Peace. To do so would be to reveal themselves as the political charlatans they are—modern-day Wizards of Oz, cloaked in noise and bluster, hiding the lack of moral and philosophical substance at their core ... READ MORE

A SPECIAL APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS IN A TIME OF GLOBAL CRISIS: THERE IS ANOTHER WAY

As a Christian observing from Australia, I understand the powerful appeal of Donald Trump—especially to believers who see a world spinning off its moral axis. In a time marked by cultural confusion, political corruption, and growing spiritual emptiness, it’s tempting to place our hopes in leaders who promise to fight back, restore order, and uphold traditional values.

Now that Trump has returned to the presidency, many Christians feel vindicated. After all, doesn’t he oppose the very ideologies that have caused so much damage—radical progressivism, moral relativism, globalist overreach?

And yet, I believe we are at a dangerous crossroads. READ MORE

ENDING THE POSTMODERN COLONIZATION OF HUMANITY

Human civilization has been colonized by an alien philosophy called postmodernism - a philosophy of despair and nihilism that should never have escaped the confines of student politics but is now holding humanity back from the next major leap in progress.

It is time bring this colonization to an end, as the starting point for a new type of society and economy that is more just and more fair than at anytime in history.

AUSTRALIAN VOICE REFERENDUM

Australians voted No! to the Voice referendum and attempts to introduce it by stealth by the States are failing miserably. Yet there is a solution to the real problems of the indigenous community as outlined in After No! What comes next?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

For additional background reading please see the founding essay entitled: Towards a grand narrative for the post-everything society