How To Advance Liberty

When I first started reading this essay I found it boring and was about to fall asleep on the third page. Then it started getting more and more interesting and when it finally reached the end, I just wanted it to keep on going.  Mr. Read is right about so many things, most of which I had never really thought about. So to explain my learning I am going to do a half summary, half commentary.  By this I mean I will write some ideas of his paper and then comment on them, and I will end with some of my favorite quotes from his paper.

People don't realize they a losing their liberties, because we thing we are in a normal condition. We have a political government who controls the life and the livelihood of every citizen. We will be free when authoritarism is abandoned.

  I had never really thought about how we really do think we are free living under a government. How we imagine that we have all of these liberties and that we live far away from a socialistic government. But no, our government IS a kind of socialistic government, maybe not as radical as the one in Cuba, but it is still socialistic. We cant really do anything we want and we don't own a lot of stuff. But what would happen if there was a 100% libertarian government (if it would even be called a government)? Would we be able to coexist in society? What does Mr. Read actually mean by a libertarian government? That anyone can do as they please?

He demonstrates his premise the following way:

To demonstrate his premise he chose the following question: what is man´s earthly purpose?

To answer this question he made the following assumptions:

• Man did not create himself, so he knows nothing about himself.
• Expansibility of the individual consciousness, so you can gain consciousness awareness and perception. 
• The morality of the individual spirit or consciousness (earthy moments are not all there is to existence)

With these assumptions he was able to answer his question and he reached the conclusion that man´s earthy purpose is to come close to realize those creative potentialities peculiar to self, each of us being unique as regards potentialities.

For each student of liberty:

• Adoption of a premise
• It is a necessary foundation for clear and consistent thinking
• Premises have to be in tune with human growth, emergence and evolution.

By building premises I think we are able to communicate better and to  learn how to express our ideas. I think we also have personal growth, I mean we are learning and reasoning things out by ourselves, so we are learning and growing. And by this growth we are able to share with others, as Read states it “It is through self improvement that one can have influence on the others”.  We are escaping ignorance.

But people don't always act like this because of the following reasons:

1. It goes against mans instincts.
2. No one wants to correct themselves they just want to correct others.

Each person tries to bring other people to their own imperfect state. This is very true, and I think something that everyone has done. This, I also think, is part of human nature. We think of ourselves as perfect or as almost perfect, but instead of trying to actually reach our perfection by the example of others, we try to bring those above us down. Maybe it is because of jealousy, but you can see this all through out history, movies, books, etc. opposed  to the human nature, liberty does not mean to change everybody to libertarian philosophy. By this I think it means to just have everyone believe and be whatever they want, even if they are not libertarian.

Read mentions that there are three ascending categories of leadership:

• First level: leader refrains from all ideological wrongdoing and understands local socialism.
• Second level: they are creative thinkers, writers, and talkers of the free market philosophy. They conceive ideas and master the subject.
• Third level: excellence in understanding and exposition.

This was kind of a shocker for me, since Read mentions that the third level leader is the minority, even though every one should be that way. For me, as long as someone is in the first level I guess it is something. Its a start at least, maybe from then on they can move to the third level, and if they don't make it then at least they will make it to the second level.

I also find it interesting the method he thinks it the correct one to engage other people into this kind of thinking. Read says that we should refrain from telling everything we know. Only answer what we are asked and nothing more. After one does this, people will then come looking for you. This is what he did with the story he tells at the end.

This is the advice that Read gives for advancing liberty:

1. Don't try to change the world. Work on your self improvement.
2. Avoid anger, depression, ect.
3. Achieve liberty by using different forces than your “enemy”.
4. By adopting the self improvement methodology, our ideological  controversy would disappear.
5. Go on your own power.
6. Enough enlightenment will develop eyes to see our freedom philosophy.
7. The individual who gives light is the person who is in an improving state.