Dear Friends,
It seems to me, no man can have liberty while the government is at liberty, and answering the great questions, leading to the advancement of humanity and the human condition, requires liberty as a prerequisite. The great questions are, what is Man, why are we here and what is the nature of the universe, can only be answered by free human beings. The great questions are a dancing landscape, a right answer today may not be tomorrow, and there are as many answers as there are people alive. It is clear, to me at least, that the aggregate of individual intelligence far outweighs even the smartest, wisest and most virtuous central planner. The great questions require liberty to be answered, because, every human being has a say in them, we all have a part of the puzzle, if we are told what to think, then in trying to answer the great questions we are putting a puzzle together, missing almost all the pieces. Liberty is the only way we can advance as a species, exploiting the cumulative knowledge and intelligence of every man woman and child, to the benefit of humanity, and can only be achieved through liberty.
It is an old political axiom that as the power of the state grows the power of the people shrinks. It is empirically proven by the mass of human history. Individual freedom can only exist in those places and times when the power of government is restrained. Liberty of the individual requires limited government but where government has liberty the individual cannot. To argue in favor of arbitrary rule, as progressives do, is to argue that a few ubermen are smarter than the whole of humanity, are more wise and more virtuous and therefore can guide humanity to a more human hearted place. To argue against arbitrary rule, as libertarians do, is to argue that people are best equipped to make the decisions that effect their own lives, better than someone at a distance, who doesn’t necessarily have the individual’s best interest in mind.
The great questions, what is Man, what is thought, why are we here, what is the nature of the universe, etc.. cannot be answered by a few ubermen for us but need to be answered by everyone for themselves. Philosophy can help but in the end everyone has to answer those great questions for themselves. In doing so we move as a species closer to the truth. Each time someone thinks about these questions and answers them for him or herself, then acts on their answer in their own life, we as a people move away from ignorance and closer to knowledge. It is only through our individual probing, probing that can only be done in a state of liberty, that we cumulatively reach consensus. Yet that consensus is fluid. As humanity grows in knowledge and wisdom that consensus evolves with us.
No individual, regardless of his or her intellect, wisdom or virtue, can match the aggregate knowledge, intellect and wisdom of the whole human race. To believe one is so is to be truly ignorant and arrogant. As a rope is stronger than any fiber within it, the human race is smarter when all work together rather than one alone. The way to create a smart rope of humanity is not to marshal people by the threat of violence, economic coercion or demand for social unanimity, to one end, but by allowing each the liberty to make their own decisions, right or wrong, to our own ends. Yes some will make bad decisions and fail, while others will make good decisions and win, that is the nature of the human condition and is the way we achieve consensus of what works and what doesn’t.
To eliminate failure and victory is to undermine the very mechanism in which humanity evolves. Each of us is a test subject, each city is an experiment, each nation is a trial and together we test, probe and experiment ways of living. Then we pragmatically examine those individual experiments to glean answers to the great questions. If we are all forced to live as the state wants, experimentation stops and humanity stultifies. We stop evolving and our very strength, our individuality is taken away. It is only in empowering our strength that we could ever have a prayer of answering the great questions. It is only through experimentation that we can get ever closer to the truth. Each trial, each experiment and each test brings us closer. Those experiments however can only happen when we have liberty. That is why the greatest advancement of the human condition has happened in times of greatest liberty.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
