To properly observe the Live and Let Live Principle, and to promote freedom and peace, we must allow others the exact same right to also peacefully live their lives on their own terms. We must let others live even if we disagree with the peaceful choices they make. The cost of achieving peace is letting others do what you also have the right to do; to own and control their own lives. This is especially important when we find their choices to be immoral, unhealthy, unwise, or against their self-interest. We must legally respect the rights of others to peacefully do things we disagree with.

To aggress against another person’s body, property, money, or time is to violate the other person’s right to live their lives. Each competent adult owns their own life and the property they peacefully accumulate.

Therefore, The Live and Let Live Legal Principle prohibits all aggression and can be described with the simple phrase, “Don’t be an aggressor!” As a legal principle, this phrase is not a suggestion. All laws ought to be in harmony with the Live and Let Live Legal Principle such that aggression, whether engaged in by any person, group, organization, corporation, or government, ought to be absolutely outlawed.

To outlaw aggression means to outlaw all initiations of force, all fraud, all coercion, and anything that creates a substantial risk or threat of harm to another person or their property. The Live and Let Live Legal Principle applies to all people equally, even if they form groups, organizations, corporations, or governments. We should never legally tolerate aggression regardless of the source.

In summary, we believe in the phrase, “live and let live” as a way for us to live together peacefully. That phrase, and several others such as, “live the golden rule” describes an underlying principle we refer to as, “The Live and Let Live Principle.” The Live and Let Live Principle can be divided into a “moral” principle and a “legal” principle.

The Live and Let Live Moral Principle seeks to inspire people to be good humans. The people in the Live and Let Live Global Peace Movement agree on and promote the aspirational values described by this moral principle. However, we also recognize, and would defend, the legal rights of people to entirely reject the moral principle so long as they are peaceful.

The Live a Let Live Legal Principle seeks to outlaw all acts of aggression whether engaged in by any person, group, organization, corporation, or government. As such, The Live and Let Live Global Peace Movement supports all laws that outlaw aggression, and opposes all laws that are calculated to achieve other goals. While we energetically advocate for other goals, we must achieve them peacefully and voluntarily rather than imposing our personal morality on others through the law.

In short, to live and let live requires that we each resolve to advocate for our own personal moral goals from outside the law while calibrating the law only to outlaw all acts of aggression from whatever source. There is no other way to achieve either freedom or peace.

The Live and Let Live Principle applies to all people equally regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, religiosity or lack thereof, sexual orientation, economic status or any other immutable characteristic. We are all brothers and sisters. We should celebrate our diversity as we celebrate our lives. The path to global peace is clear, let’s simply live and let live!