ABOUT FREEDOM PARTY INTERNATIONAL'S LOGO

Freedom Party International’s logo is comprised of a stylized “FP”, encircled by a depiction of the asterisms ursa minor (also known as the “little dipper” or "little bear") and Ursa Major (also known as the "big dipper", the "great bear", the "drinking gourd", or the "plough"). The stars in the logo represent Freedom Party International's philosophy.

Freedom Party International's Philosophy

Philosophical knowledge has a hierarchical structure. That which is true about reality (metaphysics) includes what is true about the way in which man obtains knowledge (epistemology). That which is true about metaphysics and epistemology implies what is true about what an individual should and should not do (ethics). That which is true about metaphysics, epistemology and ethics implies what is true about what should be the nature of relations among human individuals (politics).

Every political party affiliated with Freedom Party International is founded on the principle that "Every individual, in the peaceful pursuit of personal fulfillment, has an absolute right to his or her own life, liberty and property". The meaning of the founding principle is: to ensure that relations between individuals remain consensual, it is morally right for an individual or government to use physical force to prevent people from obtaining the use or control of a person's life, liberty and property without the person's consent, and that it is morally right for his or her government to ensure that justice prevails when the use or control of a person's life, liberty or property has been obtained without the person's consent.

Freedom Party International determines and advocates the metaphysical, epistemological, ethical and political philosophies from which the founding principle is derived:

Metaphysics (Reality): Freedom Party International stands on the axiom that the universe exists independent of any consciousness and is not affected by what one merely thinks, prays, wishes, or hopes about the nature of reality. Freedom Party International regards nothing as supernatural or magical: that which exists, exists physically and naturally. Freedom Party rejects the notion that there are contradictions or paradoxes in the universe. Things are what they are, and any conclusion that the universe contains a contradiction or paradox is the result of false or arbitrary premises on the part of the person drawing the conclusion. We assert that every change has a cause, and reject the notion that a change can be causeless or random.

Epistemology (Reason): Man cannot obtain knowledge of that which exists except by using the faculty that separates him from all other living organisms: his ability to reason. It is man's rational faculty that allows him to think rationally about his perceptions of the world around him, and about the concepts that his rational efforts have allowed him to discover.

Ethics (Self): Freedom Party's ethical philosophy holds that one's own life is ones highest value, that ones own happiness is ones highest purpose in life, and that ones own happiness can be achieved only if one thinks rationally (which implies thinking for oneself). Freedom Party's ethical philosophy holds that it is vile to sacrifice ones self for others, or to sacrifice others to ones self. In our philosophy, it is morally right to put ones self first.

Politics (Consent): Freedom Party asserts that all relations between and among individuals - and between governments and those they govern - must be consensual. To ensure that every individual can pursue his or her own happiness by rational means, force should be used to prevent people from obtaining use or control of another person's values - including the person's life, liberty, and property - without the person's consent. It is morally right for individuals or their governments to use physical force to prevent such non-consensual seizures of values. It is morally right for governments to use physical force, pursuant to objective laws, to ensure that justice prevails after a non-consensual seizure of values has occurred.

Why Ursa Major and Ursa Minor?

The last star on the little dipper's handle is named Polaris (also known as the "North Star" or the "Pole Star"). In the Freedom Party International logo, Polaris is accentuated with a five-pointed star to distinguish it from the other stars that comprise Ursa Minor.

Used by sailors for centuries to navigate the globe’s northern hemisphere, Polaris’ unique trait is that it is situated almost directly over Earth’s North Pole. The result is that, as Earth spins and rotates about the sun, Polaris’ position in the sky remains largely unchanged. Polaris is therefore a fixed and unchanging reference point in the sky which, with the assistance of navigational tools such as a sextant, sailors can use to determine their latitude on a map. Doing so is necessary if they are to determine their position and their proximity to their intended destination.

For Freedom Party International, Polaris represents an absolute and unchanging political philosophy: that the use and control of an individual's values must never be obtained except with the individual's consent. Accordingly, in the Freedom Party International logo, Polaris represents consent.

Polaris is a dim star, and one that can be difficult to see. For this reason, those who have attempted to find earth's north have often used two "pointer stars" in the Ursa Major asterism to find Polaris. If one draws an imaginary line through the two stars on the outer brim of the bowl of Ursa Major and follows the line to Ursa Minor, the line will lay almost directly over Polaris:

Freedom Party's use of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor is neither accidental nor unprecedented. In the 1800s, enslaved individuals and their captors in America's south knew that the way to freedom lay to the north. However, to prevent slaves from escaping to the north, their captors attempted to keep them from obtaining the information they needed to find their way north. As a result, those who were attempting to help slaves escape from their captors taught them songs the words to which contained a code of directions to find their way to the north. One such song was called "Follow the Drinking Gourd" (a drinking gourd is a gourd cut into the shape of a ladle, from which one can drink water). In the song, the drinking gourd was a reference to ursa major, which it resembles. The song encouraged those who were escaping their captors to "follow the drinking gourd", because it's outer bowl would point to Polaris, which marks the way north:

A gourd and a drinking gourd.

The drinking gourd, pointing to Polaris, the north star

Freedom Party International's logo accentuates the two "pointer stars" on the outer brim of Ursa Minor's bowl with five-pointed stars. The first pointer star represents our acknowledgement of reason as man's only faculty for obtaining knowledge. The second represents our recognition of the primacy of ones self in ones ethical philosophy. The pointer stars are accentuated because they point the way to Polaris. In doing so, they symbolize the fact that Freedom Party International's commitment to consent is the logical result of recognizing reason as man's sole faculty for obtaining knowledge, ones self as ones highest value, ones own happiness as ones highest purpose, and rational thought and action as the sole means by which ones own happiness can be pursued.

Freedom Party's commitment to a wholly physical and natural, non-contradictory reality is implicit in the Freedom Part International logo. The stars in the sky are physical, not mystical, in nature. They exist, and their nature is entirely unaffected by what any person merely thinks, believes, wishes, hopes or prays about them. Freedom Party International's decision to use these stars to represent our philosophy is indicative of our commitment to reality.

The four concepts that we regard as most useful and definitive of Freedom Party International's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics are: reality, reason, self, and consent, respectively. Accordingly, those four words comprise the balance of the logo, as explicit keys to Freedom Party International's philosophy.