Positive Liberty

Once upon a time, there was a country that loved democracy.

It was also the greatest country on earth. The world loved and respected the country’s scientists, writers, artists, and musicians. Its armies were unquestionably the strongest.

And as I said, it loved democracy.

It loved democracy so much that it was willing to go to war so that democracy might spread. What’s more, the country pointed out, the enemies in this war had attacked us first. And the country was entirely correct to say so.

Just look at them, the country declared: They are tyrants and religious fanatics; they represent everything that is backward and reactionary in the world. It was a reasonable argument.

The country in question, though, was the wave of the future, and it talked passionately about a revolution in human affairs. Our democracy-loving country, the one chosen by destiny, would bring light to the dark corners of the world.

But all was not well at the revolution: The civil liberties that the country championed abroad were crumbling at home. The country’s politics turned into a mess of squabbling and mostly idiotic factions. Intelligent people withdrew from public life in disgust.

People who fancied themselves conservatives in the truest and most modest sense of the word wrote dire warnings to our democracy-loving country. They urged it away from the course it had taken, but the country did not listen.

Patriotic citizens of that country talked in outraged tones about emigrants who wanted to leave the great, democracy-loving country. “Traitors,” they were declared. Yet some departed all the same.

But at first the war went well. The enemy nations were easy prey, in part because the democratic country had superior technology, excellent commanders, and a willing populace to support the cause.

The trouble, though, was with the subjugated peoples, who never really took to the idea of democracy, nor of liberty, which is if anything a much harder idea to grasp. At long last, after a bloody war of attrition, the democracy-loving country had to withdraw. In the end, many of its citizens wondered if this was the same country they had known and loved. They barely recognized it anymore.

The republics that our country had set up evaporated overnight in the heat of religious fanaticism and–dare we say it–love for tyranny.

For generations, these countries would mistrust freedom and democracy; for generations, they would equate liberty with fanaticism–and tyranny with order. The efforts of our democracy-loving nation would set back the cause of liberty for well over a hundred years.

Hey, don’t look at me like that. All I did was write… a summary of the French Revolution.

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