Private liberty

This essay was originally titled "Private integrity."
We often ask people what they would do to solve dysfunction in American living, then listen carefully to the answer. If the person shares experience and observations, we state the mission of our work: to establish actual no-harm private liberty with civic morality. Notice that "civic" implies willing good behavior, whereas "civil" implies coercion if not force.*****

Often, the person responds, “That is a packed phrase: say it another way.”

We offer, “We seek mutual, comprehensive safety and security, hereafter Security, so that each citizen may work to discover his or her person’s happiness rather than submit to social coercion or civil force.”

If the other responds quizzically, we say, “Privately live such that willing others may privately live, with civic offenders constrained by statutory justice.” Statutory justice is discovered in the-objective-truth rather than opinion, which can be manipulated for injustice. Most people seem candidates for further iterative collaboration, and one person responded, “John Locke wrote about private-liberty.” That suggestion prompted this study.

Has “private liberty,” in our usage, been expressed before? Or did John Locke and others instead debate civilizations with monopolies on coercion, intended or not? Do each of the modern forms of government employ coercion/force to control citizens? Communism obviously uses force, but what about the other major political regimes: socialism, liberalism, democracy, republicanism? Writers have used "private liberty" respecting property and family, however not as an essential for civic morality.

We found that one historian, Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, uses the phrase “private liberty,” but not our complete goal: private liberty with civic morality. Sometimes we initially express actual no-harm private liberty with civic-morality, but then drop the actual no-harm phrase for brevity. Perhaps "private liberty" is sufficient in Foner’s context. Perhaps private liberty cannot exist without civic morality, but I doubt “private liberty” explicitly conveys that message. Yet it seems to me Foner's overall message about the four centuries of civic reforms in America reflects the quest for private liberty with civic morality. One other point readers contend with: In a civic culture, harm to self is un-civic, so readers who inform me that harm to self is civil don't get the point: Fidelity to self is essential to civic morality. Comments about the reader's concerns would be appreciated.

The civic task and each newborn’s private duty

            Since the human is born un-informed, coaching an infant to comprehend and embrace private liberty with civic morality must be the responsibility of a civic people---people who comprehend and are willing to share the understanding. However, rare, fortunate newborns take charge of private learning. In other words, they manage their acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, with or without coaching to that end. Many classical-liberal writers use terms like “state of nature” to express the infant’s condition and “civilization” of the child to represent the necessary education or, on failure to educate, coercion/force to limit offensive individuals’ liberties. Let me say that again, the present system of education constrains the newborn's possibility of perfecting his or her unique person.
           The civic questions are: what teachers should teach, how to teach, and how to motivate the child to comprehend and understand beyond the knowledge that is taught. To put this opinion another way, a person should not trust inculcation and should take responsibility for his or her learning.            
           Different civilizations have evolved into their cultures of coercion. The aboriginal people of Australia have protected their proprietary culture for perhaps 30,000 years or even 80,000 years through rhythm, song and serenity, while worldly Australians participated in global trade and prosperity. The male life expectancy in 2012 were 69.1 years and 79.7 years, respectively.* Existing civilizations influence people to socially conform rather than personally cultivate private-liberty-with-civic-morality. Only when a civic culture emerges can society conform to the shared human-need for broadly-defined-civic-safety-and-security, and that society must still constrain dissenters---those who cause actual harm.

The leading edge of what humankind understands is unknown to some peoples and dispersed throughout humankind rather than concentrated in any one culture, and therefore is out of reach for most newborns; the newborn is totally uninformed, egocentric, and inarticulate.[1] It’s likely for some children to discover either personal liberty or civic morality, but unlikely for most individuals to envision the interdependency of liberty and morality without appropriate coaching.The necessary coaching is hard to find, primarily because most people are civilized by social morality. Social morality, or coercion, needs reform to civic-morality.

While humankind exponentially advances technology, psychological progress seems slow if it exists. Some civilizations still operate on sheer force or tyranny, suppressing education. Often, a country's education program focuses on training the workers needed more than developing persons who value personal integrity much less public integrity. With public integrity, a person knows and feels free to express that the earth's rotation on its axis will un-hide the sun tomorrow rather than "the Sun'll come up tomorrow," but few adults care to understand actual reality.
Consequently, every person lives in a confused, conflicted world, and many persons do not comprehend the facts. To have private liberty, the newborn might, within about eighty years lifetime, establish actual no-harm personal autonomy, embrace collaborative association, and appreciatively participate in civic transactions and connections. For best chances, comprehension and basic understanding may be acquired in the first three decades of his or her life. Only a few persons survive early death (before age 65) and only a few develop psychological maturity---achieve freedom from both external constraints and internal limitations,[2] or harm. 
Systematic, iterative collaboration for private liberty with civic morality could decrease misery and loss and increase psychological maturity for a civic people, regardless of the sub-culture an individual may prefer. For example, preferences for either black Christianity, white Christianity or colorless Christianity can each flourish in a civic culture (recall the actual no-harm constraint). The key is coaching the infant and adolescent person in integrity at least through age 25, when the body has completed construction of the wisdom-cultivating parts of the brain. 

What is liberty?
Turning to the study, what might humankind know about liberty? It seems useful to consider various schools of thought, and we review libertarianism, conservatism, paternalism, and the founding American story according to Foner, hoping for collaboration by readers to further reduce our ignorance respecting how to establish a civic people. We paraphrase and quote the articles leaving it to readers to go to the references for more information if they wish. We do not cover a useful modern essay, Carl Eric Scott's five American liberties: natural rights, communitarianism, economic-autonomy, national progressivism, and personal-autonomy.** Scott did not seem to consider public integrity. Our objective is to discern past thought that might correspond to private liberty with civic morality, whether use of the-indisputable-facts-of-reality[3] or actual reality is recommended by the writer or not. We boldly paraphrase and sometimes quote the articles reviewed below. When ideas inspire our collaboration, we express our idea in brackets. Not all scholars think that “liberty” means free to act while “freedom” means free from imposition or oppression. For example, “religious freedom,” as statutory law, imposes religion. In the literature, there seems to be word equivocation, but we do not attempt to evaluate usages or discern their "liberty" from their "freedom."

We think writers including Foner tacitly focus on the classical liberal debate: nature’s state versus social order; nature vs reason. In other words, self-reliant versus "civilized." Authenticity vs subjugation. Our writing uses the contentious phrases "the-indisputable-facts-of-reality," "actual reality," "the-objective-truth" and "civic morality," not to antagonize or annoy but to communicate new ideas. Often, writers who lean toward "nature" urge responsibility and fidelity to their society, whereas writers who lean toward "social order" urge democracy, often restricted to democracy among theists. Modern thinkers, liberal democrats for example, want to restrict democracy to their wishes. Our work separates nature from any theoretical "creator" or praiseworthy Creator and from “science,” which is only a study, by referring to the-objective-truth, which exists and may be discovered by humankind and used beneficially. Additionally, we divide inhabitants as a civic people and dissidents, in the USA, “We the People of the United States.” A civic people willingly manage civic connections so as to neither impose nor suffer force or harm yet remain alert to defend, whereas "we, the people" attempt to steer democracy for personal favor. In other words, a civic people willingly “live and let live” with actual no-harm rather than dominate through political opinion yet use a monopoly on force to constrain crime and other alienation from civic-morality.
Our work makes the assumption that, given a well-grounded practice, most United States citizens are, by nature, willing to iteratively collaborate for private liberty with civic morality. In other words, we assert that humans tend and prefer to be good unless they learn to be bad. There remains the problem of dissidents within and without, so statutory law and enforcement seems necessary into the foreseeable future.

Libertarianism[4] respecting “liberty”

            It seems libertarians advocate liberty respecting political power: public affairs of a people. Libertarians seem to admit that liberty must be constrained, yet any coercion/force must be justified. In other words, constrain liberty but only when absolutely necessary. When is law and enforcement justified? In other words, what justifiably limits personal-liberty? Perhaps modern libertarianism fails civic-morality.

            John Rawls advocated a basic “equality” as though equality defines liberty: “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of equal basic liberty compatible with a similar system for all.” [Rawls' notion seems to ignore a person's responsibility and duty to fidelity to the-objective-truth. I want to study Dr. Norman Francis's assertion for equity and compare it with Rawls's fairness. See "LSU: Moment or Movement." ]  Isaiah Berlin suggested negative liberty. For example, if I decide I can fly to the moon, no person can constrain my attempt unless they have compelling reasons; my opportunity is not arbitrarily negated. Positive liberty allows exercise of personal autonomy as perceived by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others. Autonomy implies life-long self-management rather than satisfaction of appetites or conformity to custom, according to Gerald Dworkin. Dworkin-Rousseau seems to correspond to "private integrity."
            Socialist, R. H. Tawney would extend positive liberty to require preferences of the rich to be made available for the poor, for example, requiring membership in a Country Club. In other words, because the rich want something, the poor should have it, whether they want it or not. Economist F. A. Hayek asserted, “freedom and wealth are both good things…they still remain different.” There’s lots of confusion about equality as liberty. I do not support the equivocation of liberty and equality.

             Philip Pettit promotes republican liberty---ideas of Cicero and Machiavelli: not living in subjugation to the power of another. [In contrast, Foner, below, perhaps sees republicanism as a person behaving for civic morality.] In Pettit’s practice, each person has equal, ungrounded power. In other words, no one’s opinion can be imposed on others, and neither opinion is to be judged by a standard. [Herein is a differing feature of our proposal: opinion must yield to the-objective-truth. In other words, when the facts are known, there is no need for opinion. When the facts are not known, opinion is held in doubt, especially if the opinion is not consistent with the interconnected theory of facts. For example, the earth rotates about its axis daily and about the Sun annually and the moon rotates around the earth every 27.3 days: there is no need for opinion about these facts.] Gaus seems concerned about potential imposition of opinion, including market opinion. Quentin Skinner held that republicanism is synonymous with liberalism. [Living in the same time and place imposes iterative collaboration to establish another person’s liberty to behave according to civic morality. In other words, if one person delivers the ultimatum---either agree with me or I will not talk to you---iterative-collaboration for civic morality has been arbitrarily terminated. Stonewalling prevents iterative-collaboration.]

            Classical liberal writer Gerald Gaus seems to hold private property essential to individual liberty, at least market liberty. Free persons can negotiate their labor, save and invest, and manage their investments. Additionally the government monopoly, according to F. F. Hayek, could not include the media, assembly places, and transportation. Taxation seems permitted “to protect liberty and property rights,” and perhaps infrastructure, to varying extent depending on the writer. Jeremy Bentham urged to better the working class but not by redistributing property. [Our work proposes to assure that the working class has enough income to convert labor into assets and to encourage the moral character to work, save and invest.]

                “Social justice” writer Michael Freeden would disconnect liberty from property. John Maynard Keynes thought balanced prosperity might be at risk. John Dewey held that governments seemed to plan economies after World War I, perhaps as representatives of the people. Yet, property ownership seemed to lessen the lot of the working class. John Stewart Mill and later John Rawls doubted that “personal liberty can flourish without private property.” [Market liberty exists with liberty to be both owner and consumer in free markets. The worker must save and invest so as to become part owner as well as consumer. A family does not own its members. Each member is a person.]

            Rawls proposed economic planning that would favor the group with the least income and wealth---reciprocity more than equality (Dworkin). Rawls sought a “property owning democracy” rather than a welfare-state. [Our urge to save and invest in assets might satisfy Rawl’s “property owning democracy.”] Hayek urged protection of the free-market, and Robert Nozick added that anything else prevents individual freedom [which I would not equivocate with "private liberty"]. [However, I do support Dona Bean's idea, individual independence with civic morality. Dona is my sister, deceased.] Rawls claimed to seek “political principles that are, or can be, the subject of consensus among all reasonable citizens” – “upholding basic civil liberties and the democratic process,” admitting, according to Gaus, “broader theories of ethics, value and society.” [Perhaps “reasonable citizens” approximates “a civic people.” Consensus by “reasonable citizens” is possible if iterative-collaboration for civic-morality is based on the-objective-truth rather than dominant opinion. For example, the notion that a "safety net" should support a person who is unwilling to work or would willfully subject children to single parenthood, taken to include every adult, drives the people to ruin.]
            Mill thought freedom empowers individuality and the human capacity for perfection. [No one should limit a human’s intent to perfect his or her person, in other words, develop integrity.] Perfectionists include also, T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, Bernard Bosanquet, John Dewey, John Rawls, Gaus, and William Galston. [Add Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Divinity School Address" and discover his reference: Jesus.] On 2/19/17 I realized the importance of this paragraph and the number of thinkers it lists.
            Challenging Mill are two moral contracturalisms. To Kant (and Sandel), mutually respectful persons live without either suffering or imposing “the good.” [Our work is in agreement with this principle. We employ personal choice within the-objective-truth rather than competitive opinion to define “the good.” The good is Security.] Reiman and Scanlon propose morality is a social rather than state responsibility. [We strive for neither social morality nor the imposition of a civilization but for the civic morality to provide Security.] “Suitably idealized individuals are motivated not by the pursuit of gain, but by a commitment or desire to publicly justify the claims they make on others.” [Modify from "to publicly justify the claims they make" to "to publicly appreciate the Security they enjoy."] Hobbesian contracturalism assumes self-interest with standards for rewarding social cooperation. Autonomy is required. However, immoral behavior remains an option, as noted by Hobbes’ “Foole.” [The reward for living according to the-objective-truth is discovering you lived the life you hoped to live before you could articulate personal preferences---or what you hoped for. It cannot be achieved through “social cooperation,” or subjugation. The human being is naturally opposed to subjugation and favors self-perfection rather than inculcation by society to subjugate. The culture founded on private liberty with civic morality---or civic integrity---has never been tried on Earth, to my knowledge.]
            Beyond liberal rightness, there seem to be three theories of value: perfectionism (objectivism), pluralism and subjectivism. These are mutually exclusive ends and matters of personal preference--determined by personal desire. John Locke wrote about appetites as particular to the person. People “rationally follow different ways of living,” and liberals exclude themselves from perfectionism. That is, liberals, by choice, may be pluralists or subjectivists but not perfectionists. [Our work seems objectivist but not conservative in the traditional sense. The difference is that rather than rational, scholarly opinion we propose to use the-objective-truth to discover civic-morality rather than dominant opinion to establish civil morality. Also, we like Emerson's idea that once a human discovers he or she may perfect his or her unique person---fulfill both fidelity and integrity---he or she will undertake that noble work: self-perfection.]
            Colin Bird resists individual liberty and yields to imaginary social liberty: collectivists, communitarians, and organicists. “Human beings . . . are the only real choosers and decision-makers, and their preferences determine both public and private actions.” [I heard this concept as "public opinion determines public policy," at LSU School of Mass Communications on October 4, 2016. When I opposed the notion I was instructed to go to college!] Herbert Spencer perhaps agreed: “the properties of the mass are dependent upon the attributes of its component parts.” [However, we contend that each individual wants Security so as to possess the liberty to live according to individual preferences.] Amy Gutmann revived “collectivist” as communitarianism, faulting individualism. Michael Sandel flawed Rawls’s assumption of “the pure autonomous chooser," who “might reject any or all of their attachments and values and yet retain their identity.” Kymlicka argued the possibilities. “We can be social creatures, members of cultures and raised in various traditions, while also being autonomous choosers who employ our liberty to construct lives of our own.” [Thus, the human with private liberty is capable of either perfecting or ruining his or her person. He or she needs to employ the-objective-truth. But in no case does social liberty serve the person; rather it serves the society. To civilize oneself to civilization beyond Security denies the possibility of self-perfection or developing integrity.]
            Mill argued that individual liberty does not work where there is no [iterative-collaboration]. Thus, barbarians must suffer despotism until they improve their attention to civic morality. Several thinkers consider such Mill thoughts an embarrassment. Inder Marawah defends Mills. Rawls argues some persons may be cooperative though not equal for more than basic human rights. Martha Nussbaum advocates moral universalism. [There remains the need for standards on basic rights, and we suggest the-objective-truth. Ultimately, everyone has the opportunity to exercise fidelity and integrity . . . or not.]
            Beyond individual liberty within society, moral universalism debates the state versus all humankind. “Immanuel Kant . . . argued that all states should respect the dignity of their citizens as free and equal persons, yet denied that humanity forms one political community.” Thus, there should be separate countries “in a confederation to assure peace.” Therein, borders do not affect morality, except when there is redistributive justice. [Given the diversity that evolution has wrought, just as each person must take charge of private liberty with civic morality, each country must cultivate its culture with actual no-harm toward other countries. It seems Kant may be the source of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s apparent obsession that he is lord of dignity and equality.]
            Respecting religion, in a liberal state some believers may need 1) exemption from state requirements and 2) exclusion from civil decision making. Liberalism accommodated Quakers, Mennonites and Sikhs, especially regarding education. Mill said not educating children is a moral crime. In Wisconsin vs Yoder (1972), Amish are allowed to remove their children at age 14 from public school to avoid secular influences. “According to Rawls's . . . ‘public reason liberalism’ . . . coercion cannot be justified on the basis of comprehensive moral or religious systems of belief.” [Note that the-objective-truth does not react to “public reason liberalism.” In other words, facts prevail.] On behalf of believers, Christopher Eberle argues that Rawls bars voting on deepest convictions. [Believers need to realize that just as the public should not brook votes on the basis of beliefs rather than the facts, believers should not brook public vote on beliefs.] Stephen Macedo asks believers to grow up, but Rawls only asks them to have public reasons for their votes, for example, against slavery and for civil rights. Gaus would allow a publicly justified law to be negated on reasonable religious conviction. [The-objective-truth does do not respond to “reasonable religious conviction.” In other words, facts prevail. I intend this repetition.]

                Thus, liberalism does not hold together among its advocates. In question are its nature, democracy, property, inclusion, and reach. However, liberty is at the crux of it all. At stake are equality, conformity, traditional value, virtue, and social order itself. In any case, all liberals reject political right. [Is liberty possible when some people’s actual no-harm life preferences are excluded? We don't think so. Civic people who are religious may be appreciated for their way of contending with unknowns such as each person's afterdeath. However, personal concerns do not dictate civic-morality.]

Conservatism[5]

                Conservatives oppose both liberal thought and socialist thought to defend traditional experience as reason and human perfectibility. John Gray thinks all three approaches emerged from England’s response to the French Revolution [but perhaps that view of history is too narrow; perhaps Jesus statement, "Be perfect," may be taken seriously]. Detractors against conservatism resist both authority and paternalism, which limit liberty. [However, actual reality limits liberty. For example, a person does not have the liberty to not sleep or not eat.]

                “Conservatism” is controversial. It is variously described as a political moderator “between liberalism and fascism”, against political reform; or on “human well-being.” However, philosophical defense seems weak after writers Gordon Graham and Robert Nisbet. [Perhaps they advocated that religious people must support each other above collaborating for Security or civic morality. If so, I oppose their opinion.]

                “Conservatism in a broad sense, as a social attitude, has always existed. It expresses the instinctive human fear of sudden change.” Narrowly, it resists reason in politics. Aristotle and Confucius were early conservatives, and later, David Hume, respecting means to an end. But modern conservatism emerged from Burke’s opposition to the French Revolution; he defended “organized religion.” The Industrial Revolution and free-enterprise defended open history to “enlightened reason” rather than a divine plan. Yet some conservatives claim to embrace modernism—“to live fully in the present.”

                Narrow conservatism opposes reason and revolution, favoring proof before change. [Proponents would turn narrowness into permanence, but the human being is too psychologically powerful to adopt obsolescent thought.] Burke rejects “claims to abstract natural rights,” on which to change society. “Conservatism and revolutionary Jacobinism are inter-dependent concepts that arose together, in conjunction with liberalism and socialism.” “Implicit in Jacobinism is what may be termed revolutionary utopianism, which allows the sacrifice of present generations for alleged future benefit.” [In this light, Alinsky-Marxist organizers (AMO) seem like revolutionary utopians, but the lives they sacrifice are not their own: they sacrifice the lives of their recruits. AMO may be avoided like the plague.] Conservatives regard society as too complex for sudden change; the radical intellectual is dangerous.
                 “According to Gray, conservatism’s fundamental insight is that persons’ identities cannot be matters of choice, but are conferred on them by their un-chosen histories, so that what is most essential about them is…what is most accidental.” [This seems the standard will vs destiny debate. Since I claim to be non-Christian, am I to think I am a non-Christian by destiny or that I am in fact a Christian despite my choice and awareness? I don't think so.] Conservatism rejects reform for freedom or equality unless there is evidence of benefit. Justice, freedom, and truth must be validated. [This argument seems dissolved by liberty constrained by the-objective-truth. Or am I doomed to eternity in hell? I don’t think so but don’t know. All the same, I cannot deny what I don’t know. I cannot admit to what I don't know.]

                Change must be gradual to avoid unintended consequences. As civilization evolves, injustice becomes apparent, but the tacit wisdom of the political abuses deserve respect! [What nonsense!] The wisdom of the past cannot be easily articulated. But change can be gradually effected by the astute, practical reformer. Some conservatives want life between “rationalism and fideism [belief based on faith].” [This is an interesting duality: belief based on faith vs belief based on evidence. I prefer the latter but do not object to another's choice so long as they contribute to Security.]

                “Conservatism’s “organic” social vision is inherently skeptical of the state, and puts faith instead in the family, private property and religion.” [Beliefs may be needed for salvation of the soul, but for salvation of life, fidelity to the-objective-truth, the self, immediate family, extended families, the people, the nation, the world, and the universe, both respectively and collectively, is essential.]

                “Conservatism has been equated with pragmatism or political realism . . . self-interested practice.” If socialism, feudalism or fascism is working for now, reform gradually. [This is an attitude of tolerating evil!] “. . . there is no such thing . . . as a ‘reasonably functioning totalitarian society’. . . liberals, for instance, stress the value of individual freedom, independent of burdensome constraints of tradition.” [Liberals value liberty.] However, conservatives value obedience. [Obedience begs woe respecting Security and produces only hope for the afterdeath---that vast time after body, mind, and person stop functioning.]

                “The anti-conservative Rousseau had an optimistic conception of human nature, blaming government and society for failings. Conservatives . . . regard human nature as weak and fallible, unalterably selfish rather than altruistic.” Conservatives value traditional allegiance rather than “individual liberty”; “real freedom” comes from obedience; paternalism. Burke held that allegiance or propriety was a pre-requisite to recognizing injustice and recommending reform:  Only a Blackstone (common law) authority could improve Blackstone---in other words, it is a circular argument. [If the people submit to this reasoning, the Blackstone authorities only need to stonewall the people to prevail. Also, if the authorities can lessen the influence of the-objective-truth, they can fool the people.]

“Burke mistrusted appeals beyond positive law, but [allowed] an appeal to natural law though not natural right. The Hobbesian conception of Reflections treats natural rights as pre-social, and incompatible with society. For Burke, liberty is precarious; to say that it is assured by providential order, and has an inevitable progress, is the kind of metaphysical principle he abhorred.” [This interpretation of “science” as metaphysical is at the heart of resistance to discovery and benefits through understanding the discovery.] But Thomas Paine considered personal liberty a natural right that opinion, past or present, could not limit. He advocated abolition of slavery and prevention of violence. Burke could not free himself from society. Winston Churchill thought Burke’s liberty and authority were socially and politically synonymous.

                [It seems that private liberty with civic morality or civic integrity has not emerged in conservative politics or philosophy.]

 
Paternalism[6]

                Paternalism would limit behavior when a person is irrational. [Obviously, the questions are: 1) who is to judge rationality, 2) how is rationality discovered, and 3) can rationality focus on the wrong object? I don't think the-objective-truth yields to rationality. The-objective-truth exists, and mankind may discover it but cannot construct it.]

                For example, a father arranges for oversight of a child’s inheritance because the child does not manage money; there’s no liberty issue, because the money is not the child’s in the first place. However, the father could tutor the child in finance and then give him or her the freedom to let error effect learning. Or consider a wife who hides sleeping pills from a suicidal husband, preventing his autonomy. In either of these cases, the responsibility rests with the person who is limiting the autonomy of another. The question is whether or not preventing another person’s wishes is ever justified. [This seems like an argumentative stretch. By all means preventing desires to murder or steal is justified. But the standards on murder and theft are established. Perhaps a human who wants to end his or her person’s suffering, with doctors’ practical advice, should be allowed to die.]

                Is nudging paternalistic? Does a warning label on cigarettes limit a person’s liberty? No. The person still has autonomy: but the public subsidizes the health risks. So nudging seems justified even when it fails. [Does the-objective-truth, for example, lung cancer, justify more than nudging? That's a question for iterative collaboration by a civic people. My opinion is that nudging is useful when exemplary living is not effective. Force is applied when harm is publicly evident and statutory law enforcement is possible.] “Paternalism” seems synonymous with “benevolence.” However, governments often manipulate rather than nudge; for example, taxes on smoking are heavy. [By using the-objective-truth to discover civic-morality and legislating law only when private liberty causes actual harm, the practice of nudging can be useful, but manipulation seems like tyranny.]

American liberty[7]

                Eric Foner created an image of American, evolutionary civilization during the 200 years after 1607. Loyal European colonists, having experienced freedom from the oppression yet suffered by relatives still in the homelands, realized both that they were being enslaved and that England's "world’s best" liberty was false. Colonial life provided a private liberty that could not have been perceived had the colonists lived in their homelands. After 160 years, the people in their colonies called them "states" and created a confederation to express opposition to the king, the king’s church, and even the king’s god. Unrequited, they declared independence---changed their status from European Americans to Americans, not knowing where private liberty would take them. With liberty thrust on them [winning strategy and power provided by France at Yorktown, VA], they realized within six years that they could not survive as independent states, so the people in their states authorized a limited nation: the USA. They created a workable system in most respects, with glaring omissions in liberty itself: only landed men could vote (6%), the slaves were still slaves, religious freedom meant choice of Protestant faction, and liberty would derive from the vast lands still available on the continent. [In summary, the colonials experienced freedom from oppression, practiced liberty to live according to the-objective-truth, staked their lives and fortunes on independence, and set up a form of government that might lead to civic integrity. It seems in 2017, that the system that evolved is dysfunctional. Generations since then have left it to our generation to establish civic integrity.]

What do “the blessings of liberty” and “a nation conceived in liberty” mean? English colonials, loyal subjects, were well steeped in past and current debates about liberty. “Show me a man who isn’t a slave,” wrote Seneca. “One is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition.” Relief came through trusting in and committing to Jesus. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”; 2 Corinthians 3:17. There is simultaneous 1) liberty to not sin and 2) servitude to the Christian god.  [It is possible to trust in and commit to the-objective-truth, which may or may not involve Jesus.] “In a 1645 speech . . . Puritan . . . John Winthrop. . . distinguished sharply between "natural liberty," which suggested "a liberty to evil" and "moral liberty ... a liberty to do . . . good." Good meant submission to secular authority—civil law--as well. “When each man hath liberty to follow his own imagination," declared the Puritan minister Thomas Hooker, disaster inevitably resulted, for "all prejudice the public good." [Thus, they considered “public good” a matter of opinion. But liberty yields to the-objective-truth rather than to public opinion. Civic-morality is not bound to Jesus but to people who collaborate for Security. Jesus is offered for afterdeath while Security is needed for life.]

            Christianity was less powerful beyond the puritans. Yet, “On the eve of independence, ministers like Jonathan Boucher were insisting that "true liberty" meant "a liberty to do every thing that is right, and being restrained from doing any thing that is wrong," not "a right to do every thing that we please."[But how are right and wrong determined? How is civic-morality discovered?] “’Liberty,’ wrote John Locke, meant not leaving every person free to do as he desired, but ‘having a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power.’” [The collaborative “standing rule to live by” may be developed by discovering the-objective-truth rather than temporal, dominant opinion.] Factional Protestantism is the liberty the colonial subjects were accustomed to, and they were at war against Catholicism both in Spain and in France and more immediately in Canada [without admitting that both the doctrine of discovery and the Atlantic slave trade had originated in the Catholic Church and was mimicked by Protestant churches and kings].
             The British freedom manipulated a principle of consent: common law was purportedly not imposed. Also, Britons saw no hypocrisy in the Atlantic slave trade and placement of the slaves in the colonies. Britons themselves took classism for granted [and even in 2018 the idea that their society has no classism is disputed]. Only five percent of adult males could vote. Joseph Priestly wrote that civil liberty did not extend to political liberty. [In other words, a citizen was not free to be a politician---was not regarded as sovereign.] The British navy was manned by vagrants made slaves. Such practices stemmed from medieval liberty, denied the lower classes; it was copied in New York City with work rules favoring the “freeman.”

“One could . . . subdivide British liberty into its component parts. Political liberty meant the right to participate in public affairs; civil liberty protection of one's person and property against encroachment by government; personal liberty freedom of conscience and movement; religious liberty the right of Protestants to worship as they chose.” [Many Americans think this is a factional Protestant country and freedom of religion persists specifically for factional Protestants. However, the majority group in America is the non-religious people at over 23%. and the largest Christian faction is the Catholics at 20.8%. See pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ .]

            In both England and the colonies, crowds started expressing “liberty as resistance to tyranny.” "’We are Free-men--British subjects--Not Born Slaves,’ was a rallying cry of the Regulators, who protested . . . in the South Carolina legislature during the 1760s.” Political liberty seemed essential. “Republicanism held that as a social being, man reached his highest fulfillment in setting aside self-interest to pursue the common good.” However, it was assumed that “only property-owning citizens” had the character to be republicans. Perhaps this explains Benjamin Franklin’s claim, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom." [This perspective might change if most people agreed to iteratively collaborate for Security, leaving benefits beyond the civic to private preference. Did Locke somewhat agree?]

“The freedom celebrated by eighteenth-century liberalism was essentially individual and private. According to John Locke, the founding father of modern liberalism, government is established [and limited] to offer security to the ‘life, liberties, and estates.’Liberty, for Locke . . .  meant not civic involvement but personal autonomy—‘not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown Arbitrary Will of another Man.’" [This is enough to explain private liberty with civic morality and to reference Foner for the word “private.” Thus, government is established to offer Security so that each citizen has the private liberty to responsibly pursue actual no-harm preferences and develop integrity during his or her lifetime.]

“Protecting freedom required shielding a realm of private life and personal concerns--including family relations, religious preferences, and economic activity--from interference by the state. The public good was less an ideal to be consciously pursued by government than the outcome of free individuals' pursuit of their myriad private ambitions.” Repeating, John Locke stated that the public good was a consequence of the person's intentions rather than government's pursuits!  [Private liberty seems not opposed to Locke in this respect, according to Foner, excepting perhaps regarding family relations. A woman is a person and a child is a person and either one can object to un-civic family relations. Also, wealth cannot be hoarded when it is essential to the survival of a civic people.]

“’Liberalism,’ as the historian Pierre Manent puts it, ‘severed the 'citizen' from the 'man' the political realm of life from the social. Critics condemned it as an excuse for selfishness and lack of civic-mindedness.’” ["Civic-mindedness" represents loyalty to the civilization or the city rather than collaboration for civic-morality---Security in personal connections by persons here and now.] However, some republicans also commit to private liberty, perhaps even some who profess Protestant morality. Following Richard Price, “Those who did not control their own lives ought not to have a voice in governing the state.” But liberty was still tied to property. “Many years would pass before the idea that wage labor was compatible with genuine freedom gained broad public acceptance.” [But each person may convert labor into assets so as to build financial security.]

              Colonists, by 1765, expected to own land and leave it to their children. But that spirit did not include women, indentured servants, and slaves, not to mention natives. Nevertheless, the abundance of land made it possible for families to own property and experience autonomy. All of these considerations: land, less elite class, factional Protestantism, and political interest by the colonists empowered liberty and the declaration of independence from England, yet first principles were derived from English common law by previously loyal English subjects. Any reference to natural law was usually modified with English common law phrases, but as the mood for liberty intensified, even god power--the citation of "nature's god"--was turned against England and for “natural rights and universal liberty." [The Declaration of Independence, 1776, asserts the thirteen states' authorities in the world based on nature and nature's god. The Treaty of Paris, 1783, agrees that the thirteen states are independent.]

Free-thinker Thomas Paine portrayed America as “an asylum for mankind”---an “empire of liberty,” [and Benjamin Franklin designed his own spiritual morals].  The Declaration of Independence asserts "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" rather than British opinion. “The idea of liberty as a natural right became a revolutionary rallying cry . . . a universal, open-ended entitlement. And the contradiction between the ideal of universal liberty and the reality of a society beset with inequalities would bedevil American public life during the Revolution and long thereafter.” [This is a key problem with liberalism: liberty is not an entitlement. Liberty is a responsibility which must be accepted without tolerance for habitual infidelity or nourished appetites.] Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” opening ideas that each willing person can be equal to others [and Paine included the African slaves[8]]. “To John Adams, this egalitarian upheaval, including his wife's claim to political freedom, was an affront to the natural order of things.” Many citizens became involved in politics, especially stemming from the idea that one’s life is personal property. “The suffrage," declared a 1776 petition of disenfranchised North Carolinians, was "a right essential to and inseparable from freedom." But suffrage came decades or centuries later, depending on class. “By 1800, indentured servitude had all but disappeared from the United States, and apprenticeship was on the wane.” And leaders worried about how to preserve republicanism. "A general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property," proclaimed Noah Webster, "is the whole basis of national freedom." [Today, “assets” may replace “property” in the struggle for equity.]

“When Jefferson substituted ‘the pursuit of happiness’ for ‘property’ in the familiar Lockean triad that opened the Declaration of Independence, he tied the new nation's star to an open-ended, democratic process whereby individuals develop their own potential and seek to realize their own life goals. Individual self-fulfillment, unimpeded by government, would become a central element of American freedom.” However, subsequent thinkers have attempted to impose social definition of happiness. [A civic culture rather than society may produce justice with liberty but not private equality: private equality derives from personal autonomy respecting the person's own life. Justice with liberty involves equity more than equality.]

Such considerations motivated the constitution for the USA, a limited central government serving state governments. James Madison, fearing that free-enterprise would lead to a poor minority in conflict with the rich proposed the tripartite central government with complex protection of republicanism instead of pure democracy. The USA’s bounty and vast land would sustain equality and liberty. "’Liberty,’ Madison [wrote in Federalist No. 63], ‘may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.’ Or to put it another way, private liberty could be endangered by public liberty, personal liberty by political liberty--that is, by power in the hands of the people.” [Here is, perhaps, insight to Foner’s “private liberty.” Both the public and government might tyrannize the individual.] Thus, whether convinced by Madison or not, the framers attempted to save the people from the people. [The Madisonian civilization has evolved such that the nation now attempts to save the people from their states. The federal government now dictates personal lives and values. The person has been pushed out of the civic agreement spelled out in the preamble.]

Antifederalists argued that liberty comes from “smaller communities pursuing the common good,” whereas “a distant federal power [would protect] private interests.” [Perhaps Foner lost track of “private liberty,” as a “private interest” or maybe his “private” refers to proprietary insiders. In some cases, states might prevent private liberty and therefore need federal oversight.] 
Unfortunately, compromise was reached to negotiate a bill of rights, another British practice mimicked in some early state constitutions. Consequently, most Americans focus on the Bill of Rights more than the rest of the constitution, including the preamble. “Rights are simultaneously . . . democratic in that they can be claimed by everyone [and] undemocratic in that they need to be protected against abuses of power, including the power of the people themselves.”[The media boast that "public opinion determines public policy" begs woe. Ultimately, the constitution determines public policy in the USA.]

“Jefferson, who fervently believed that ‘liberty depends on freedom of the press,’ also insisted that those who misled the public by printing ‘false facts’ should be liable to punishment.” [I support the Louisiana Constitution in that regard, as it holds that free expression entails responsibility for consequences. It is commonly held that a person should not cry “fire” in a public assembly.]

“As in other realms, the Revolution catalyzed a movement that transformed the meaning of religious freedom.” [The USA was created by the people in their states, where theism is encouraged if not nudged, it is false to say the nation’s preamble to the constitution is secular rather than neutral to religion.] “’In a free society,’ Madison wrote, ‘the security for civil rights must be the same as for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests and, in the other, in the multiplicity of sects.’ Thus, the Revolution democratized not only American Christianity but also the idea of religious liberty itself.” [However, what needs to be constitutional is the individual duty to develop integrity rather than subjugation to religion.]

“The current of freedom swept away not only British authority but also the principle of hereditary rule, the established churches, long-standing habits of deference and hierarchy, and old limits on the political nation. Yet . . . freedom's antithesis--slavery--emerged from the Revolution more firmly entrenched than ever in American life.” Readers are encouraged to read Eric Foner's work, so as to remove my unintended interference (my mistakes in understanding Foner).

 Conclusion

These few pages of review are insufficient to suggest comprehensive knowledge or review of “liberty.” However, it seems to clarify that private liberty with civic morality is specific. It promotes liberty as a private task for each person and invites the reader to help discover civic morality---mutually willing moral connections by people in this time and place. No scholarly system of opinion that we considered proposed civic integrity. However, each person can use the-objective-truth to discover civic morality and behave accordingly. We think 2/3 of American citizens have the cultural acumen to iteratively collaborate for public-integrity without further delay. All we need is the idea, and a willing people may make it happen.  

Addendum

On 9/21/16 I had completed an initial search for past use of "private integrity" to define a civic culture. I have not found past use, but want to share results so far.
I like Stanford's online*** and there found this thought: "The pursuit of adequate personal integrity often depends, not so much on understanding who one is and what one believes and is committed to, but rather understanding what one's society is and imagining what it could be.” I think the thought is close to mine, but not quite parallel. I might mimic the the though as follows: In practicing private integrity the person willingly considers possible harm to self, other people, and the universe, and neither brooks nor imposes harm. On 2/19/17, I view that last sentence as describing public-integrity; see below.
 "Private integrity" by Ron Rolheiser**** boils down to a standard argument against applying Pascal's wager. The person who bets knows his or her motives. Also, believing in the wrong god might beg woe.
 There are some modern applications that seem more like spam, not really worthy of consideration.
On 9/21/16, I wrote: Consider private integrity a concise expression of private liberty with civic morality. Thereby, one can help discover, and benefit from, the-objective-truth rather than try to impose an opinion on a civic culture. A civic culture collaborates for Security (comprehensive civic safety and security). 

* Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, online at aihw.gov.au/WorkArea
/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129548468 .

** Carl Eric Scott, "Five Conceptions of American Liberty," National Review, No. 20, 2014, online at nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-five-conceptions-of-american-liberty .

***Cox, Damian, La Caze, Marguerite and Levine, Michael, "Integrity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/integrity/>.  

**** Online at ronrolheiser.com/private-integrity/#.V-LavK3QNIQ .***** [Before 9/6/16, private integrity did not occur to us, but we studied and discussed that phrase. In online dialog with William Bonin on October 10, 2016, we realized that public integrity better expresses private-liberty-with-civic-morality, because private-integrity does not explicitly invoke civic duty. See the dialog at theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_c4331eda-800b-11e6-bffd-0779ed43ea0e.html?sr_source=lift_amplify .]
 
Copyright©2016 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised on July 4, 2018

---

[1] H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind. 1949.

[2] Orlando Patterson. Freedom:  Volume I: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture. 1992.

[3] The-indisputable-facts-of-reality exist and are immutable. Humankind works to discover the facts and how to benefit, either by invention of new technology or avoidance of risk. Science is a study and reality is the object of study. Reality makes no allowance for pseudo-science, rationalizing, beliefs, or any other imposition of opinion.

[4] Gerald Gaus. Shane D. Courtland. Liberalism. 1996. 2014. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online at plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism .

[5] Andy Hamilton. Conservatism. 2015. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online at plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism .

[6] Gerald Dworkin. Paternalism. 2016. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online at plato.stanford.edu/entries/ paternalism/ .

[7] Eric Foner. The Story of American Freedom. Norton. 1994. Online at washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/storyofamericanfreedom.htm . Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University.

[8] Thomas Paine. Letter, “African Slavery in America,” 1775, online at constitution.org/tp/afri.htm