It’s been August of 2009 since I made a blog entry and even longer since I wrote something substantial on the topic of Liberty. Life is busy and putting current events and debates in a light of Liberty often feels like talking to a wall. I am just one person on the internet. Those with the megaphones are going to frame the issues in the light they want.

However, this just means I’ve been making my case in shorter messages on social networks that I frequent. I’m convinced some people have blocked my updates on their Facebook feeds. I have been unfriended and blocked on Twitter for bashing the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration.

But, I will not give into terrorists! The message of Liberty is too important. Besides, those who block and unfriend me are obviously not real friends. So there is the unintended benefit of weeding out the fakes.

Of the five latest blog posts that show up here, one of them is about the right to be naked. It is entirely coincidental that I am again writing about that six months later. This time, I am prompted by a tweet from one of my favorite–and real–friends. The NY Times ran a story about a nude window display in Greenwich Village, NYC.

Reading Right to be Naked will explain why laws disallowing nudity violate Liberty so I won’t go into that.

The question that we need to answer is not which opinion we have is the right one. They are both right. Whether you believe people should be allowed to walk around naked or not is not the issue. We cannot make laws for an entire population based on the whims of a majority or minority in any given time period. The question to answer is whether or not we are a free people.

I will quote a paragraph from the article and then smash it to pieces:

“If you’re walking down a street in New York City and someone is naked in the window — and so children and whoever can see it — you’re depriving people of their choice,” said Daniel S. Connolly, a managing partner at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, and a former lawyer for the city who handled public nudity cases. “That’s where you butt up against other people’s rights.”

This sounds good and reasonable. We obviously shouldn’t deprive people of their right to free choice. Afterall, if we do that, we are violating another’s rights and that is a problem. I have no qualms with that idea: it is the fundamental principle of Liberty. The problem is the way this is framed.

It is completely rubbish.

Which right is being deprived when there is a naked person on the street? Is it the right to see people naked or clothed? That is not a right. We don’t have a right to see people clothed or naked. If we did, that would mean we can demand someone take off their clothes at any time. This is ridiculous and no one would agree to it.

For argument’s sake, let’s replace naked people with clowns. Some people have a fear of clowns or, for whatever reason, do not like clowns. So a clown walks down the street and there are people around who do not want to see a clown. By the logic of Connolly at Bracewell & Giuliani, we should disallow clowns from walking down the street because it deprives people of their choice. How ludicrous is this?

Replace clowns with anything you want and it is all equally insane. No one is harmed, has their property stolen, or forced to do anything against their will. The choice we have is to walk away or look away. To demand that every clown or naked person be removed from the street because you have a problem with it is depriving people of their choice; not the other way around.

On a side note, the article continuously framed the right to be nude as something that is or is not protected by the first amendment. This is not a first amendment issue. This is an issue of property rights. Without property rights, every other right is moot. The right to free speech only makes sense if you have a right to yourself. You are the property of yourself.

Trying to make the case that the right to have your own body nude is not protected under the first amendment is meaningless. It is protected under property rights which underlies all other rights.

By Tommy Leung

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Tags: greenwich village, naked, nude, nudity, property rights

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