Foundations of a Free Society

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Paradoxes
2. Common Sense Realism
2.1 Reality
2.2 Human Understanding
2.3 Morality
2.4 Common Sense Realism Review
3. Individual Rights
3.1 Physical Body
3.2 Family
3.3 Property
3.4 Thought and Communication
3.5 Voluntary Association
3.6 Privacy
3.7 Individual Rights Review
4. Associations
5. Conflict Resolution
6. Government
7. International Relations
8. Subversion
8.1 Propaganda
8.2 Dialectics
8.3 Machiavellians
8.4 Ideological Subversion
8.5 Compromising Individual Rights
8.6 Technocracy
9. Eternal Vigilance
References

Introduction

Currently, the notion of freedom is universally praised and considered morally good. Thus, even societies which apply enormous amounts of force claim to be the true champions of freedom even though others see them as authoritarian.¹ Such a claim is possible because in any society there is always a need to apply coercion and force against individuals whether it is performed by government, associations, or other individuals. In order to determine the nature of freedom in contrast to authoritarianism, one key question to answer is when and how the application of coercion and force is justified. A free society justly applies force and coercion while an authoritarian society does not. Straight forward answers on how to organize society, such as anarchy or direct democracy, lead to paradoxes and authoritarianism. A more detailed examination of human nature and morality is required to have a foundation for a free society without any paradoxes.

In nature there is both cooperation and competition. It is not a war of all against all, and it is not a harmony of all beings living in peace.² The purpose and meaning of nature distinguishes beauty and harmony from ugliness and discord. For humanity, nature is not a mere scenic lookout. It is not something separate to be left alone and isolated from. Humanity is a part of nature with a purpose. The default state of nature is poverty. Along with the rest of nature, individuals engage in both cooperation and competition to lift themselves out of poverty and towards beauty and harmony. Individuals have agency to make moral decisions. There are many different beautiful songs and many different ways to live a beautiful, moral life in alignment with nature. Thus, competition is expected. It is natural and moral to both compete and cooperate. The notion of forming a society of free individuals based on human nature, including basic morality, became prominent at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th century.

The ideas of Classical Liberalism (as it is called today) were developed to support a free society.³ Classical Liberalism covers a wide range of ideas and thinkers between the 17th and 19th centuries with competing views of human nature and different conceptions of a free society. The United States was founded on one of the best foundations for a free society known as the Common Sense Realism school of philosophy from the Scottish Enlightenment.⁴ Here, “common sense” refers to the human ability to immediately sense the world. When combined with the ability to reason and communicate, this allows for humans to have a self-evident, shared understanding of a portion of reality. This shared understanding of reality includes a portion of objective morality knowable through human common sense which are the values of life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty. Of course, this notion of human nature does not mean all individuals have the same exact experience and understanding of the physical world and morality. For example, some individuals are born blind. The idea is that human nature includes the ability, to a certain extent, to have a common understanding of reality (including morality) that is self-evident. Thus, the foundation of a free society is where independent individuals cooperate together based on self-evident principles of reality, including basic morality. On top of this foundation, individuals are free to practice their religion, form associations, and live their lives. It is a society where individuals build a virtuous life of their own accord that is consistent with nature (including morality) as opposed to a society where individuals do whatever they please.

In this paper, the term “authoritarianism” is used in the broadest sense of the word to refer to all manner of unjust societies and unjust practices. An unjust society or practice goes against nature and objective morality. For example, an authoritarian society can have rulers who grant permission and limited choice[s] to individuals from an arbitrary basis.  Authoritarians unjustly use coercion or force while falsely claiming to act morally in the name of the “common good” or “social justice”. Instead of grand, all-encompassing notions of a common good that require everyone to believe the same thing or at least feign belief, a free society relies on only the most fundamental, undeniable, self-evident truths.

This paper examines Common Sense Realism as the foundation for a free society as well as how it resolves paradoxes found in other approaches. Building on this foundation, other aspects of a free society are examined including individual rights, associations, conflict resolution, government, international relations, and subversion.

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1. Paradoxes

Some conceptions of a free society lead to paradoxes. Karl Popper discusses several related paradoxes in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies.

• Paradox of Freedom: “The so-called paradox of freedom is the well-known idea that freedom in the sense of absence of any restraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.”⁵
• Paradox of Tolerance: “Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”⁶
• Paradox of Democracy: “Another of the less well-known paradoxes is the paradox of democracy, or more precisely, of majority rule; i.e. the possibility that the majority may decide that a tyrant should rule.”⁷

Popper attempts to resolve the paradoxes by holding tolerance itself as a foundational principle. “We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and accountable to, the public.”⁸

However, this proves to be a weak defense since tolerance is the result of holding other more fundamental principles of basic morality. Thus, authoritarians, such as communists and socialists, have undermined notions of tolerance and democracy to attack individual freedom. In his essay “Repressive Tolerance”, Herbert Marcuse accepted Popper’s claim that “tolerance is an end in itself.”⁹ From there he used different underlying principles to create different notions of tolerance. He created repressive tolerance and liberating tolerance to justify revolution against individual rights in support of authoritarianism: “Withdrawal of tolerance from regressive movements before they can become active; intolerance even toward thought, opinion, and word, and finally, intolerance in the opposite direction, that is, toward the self-styled conservatives, to the political Right — these anti-democratic notions respond to the actual development of the democratic society which has destroyed the basis for universal tolerance.”¹⁰

Common Sense Realism resolves the paradoxes Popper identified as opposed to holding tolerance as a foundational principal as Popper suggested. Tolerance in and of itself is not a virtue. For example, tolerance was not considered an explicit ancient Greek virtue¹¹ or a Christian virtue.¹² Common Sense Realism holds that objective reality, including basic morality, is directly knowable through human senses and reasoning.

The paradox of freedom is resolved by Common Sense Realism since it provides moral constraints on individual freedom.¹³ People are not free to do whatever they please. For example, people enslaving the meek violates basic morality. Common Sense Realism also resolves the paradox of tolerance. The reality of individual agency, meaning a person initiates their own actions,¹⁴ along with the reality of basic moral truths results in tolerance with limited, objective boundaries. These boundaries are not pragmatic or arbitrary. In other words, tolerance doesn’t provide understanding or moral guidance. Instead, objective reality and moral truths justly outline what is and is not tolerated. Finally, the paradox of democracy is resolved, because Common Sense Realism is not based on consensus or the outcome of a democratic process. It is not whatever is most commonly believed or agreed to. Common Sense Realism calls for individual responsibility that can’t be voted on or given away to a tyrant.

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2. Common Sense Realism

When Common Sense Realism is applied in education, in other institutions, and by individuals, the result is limited tolerance and a free society. The foundational principles of Common Sense Realism cover the broad areas of reality, human understanding, and basic morality. In general, separate individuals have their own consciousness and agency. Everyone has limited and imperfect knowledge, and everyone acts using their own reason in accordance with objective moral truths. Actions are guided by universal moral values of life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty. This is limited tolerance. In this usage, common sense does not mean a consensus or majority opinion, it refers to literal human senses and reasoning capabilities common to the human experience.

Common Sense Realism is not a complete worldview or religion. It values the individual as more important than the collective. It values a free society of individuals instead of a collective society controlled by authoritarians. Thus, within a free society there can be several religions as long as they are compatible with Common Sense Realism. Here religion is used in the broadest sense of the term to include world religions, spiritual practices, ideologies, worldviews, and even individual beliefs. In this sense, limits are placed on religious freedom, namely that it must be compatible with reality (including basic morality). This also allows for several different free societies all based on Common Sense Realism. The fundamentals of reality, including basic morality, is understandable by every individual without the need for experts or rulers and regardless of religious belief. A free society is held together through a recognition and ardent support of universal human common sense. In addition to Common Sense Realism, individuals have their own specific cultural and religious practices. A free society makes a distinction between fundamental reality (including basic morality) and specific cultures and religions. Whenever there is a dispute, individuals may appeal to universal human experience and basic morality, which is understandable by everyone.

In contrast, authoritarians want a complete worldview to dominate society such as a single culture, ideology, or religion. If they recognize universal basic reality at all, it has a lower precedent than the dominant worldview. Authoritarians ignore reality when it is useful for them to do so. Individuals in an authoritarian society have no recourse or appeal to universal human experience and basic morality. The rulers of society grant limited freedom to individuals, cultures, and religions as they see fit. Authoritarians dismiss Common Sense Realism or claim it is not strong enough to hold society together. Authoritarians rule on an arbitrary, pragmatic basis.

A free society of independent individuals requires adherence to basic principles from each area of reality, human understanding, and basic morality. This forms a strong foundation for a society while not prescribing a complete, singular worldview or religion. The following sections discuss each area in more detail as well as how authoritarians attack those principles.

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2.1 Reality

According to Common Sense Realism, there is an objective external reality which contains separate human individuals. Reality has an existing structure which includes meaning and morality. Each individual has their own independent consciousness and agency to act in the world. Individuals are a part of reality and the world. Moreover, there is a fixed human condition.¹⁵ This does not prescribe a specific theory of physics or exact details of the universe. This recognizes that individuals have their own independent thoughts and consciousness as well as the ability to act in the world that has structure, meaning, and morality.

Authoritarians argue against this view of reality in different ways. One way is to assert that humanity is primarily a global collective, a species-being, where humans are part of the larger whole of humanity. They argue the collective is more important than the individual. Agency should be dominated by collective agency and the need for collective well being.¹⁶ Of course, collective agency is simply what the authoritarians decide. A second way is to hold the nature of reality is formless and shaped by our thoughts.¹⁷ Reality does not have structure, meaning, or morality independent of human consciousness. Thus, if authoritarians can change the consciousness of everyone, then reality itself is changed. A third way is to claim that human nature is not universal, but that humans can change the nature of what it means to be human. Humans can consciously direct evolution to evolve humanity into a new species that is no longer human. In this case, individual freedom can’t be allowed to stop human progress from advancing the species itself.¹⁸ A fourth way is that the question of reality should be ignored altogether. Power is all that matters.¹⁹ From there, well anything goes.

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2.2 Human Understanding

According to Common Sense Realism, humans discover objective reality, including basic morality, through their senses and reason.²⁰ This includes both moral and physical senses. However, human knowledge is imperfect and will always be imperfect. Thus, humans have a fallible knowledge that corresponds directly to objective reality. Importantly, this includes the ability for humans to determine what things are closer to objective reality than others.

Authoritarians argue against this view of human understanding in different ways. One way is to argue it’s not possible to know moral facts. It’s possible to know things about the physical world such as predicting when Hailey’s comet will appear in the sky, but it is impossible to know moral truths. There’s no way to know that murder, rape, fraud, etc. is objectively wrong.²¹ Similarly, another way is to argue that moral facts can only be known through the one correct religion. There is no universal or human sense of morality, it only comes from divine revelation, from the one true religion. Thus, society can’t allow individual freedom, and society must be based on the one true religion. Another way is to argue human knowledge is subjective even though reality may be objective. It’s not possible to know if one thing is closer to reality than another thing. Human understanding is all completely subjective. This is where cultural relativism and extreme forms of multi-culturalism come from. There is no way to judge one culture or behavior as better than another.²² This is also where scientific paradigm shifts come from. Science is just whatever the latest paradigm all the experts are following, and it will shift arbitrarily over time.²³ Thus, there is no way to approximate moral truths or any universal truth that corresponds to objective reality. In short, some authoritarians claim there is no common, universal shared understanding of morality and reality.

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2.3 Morality

According to Common Sense Realism, each individual has agency to act in this world according to universal, objective morality. A subset of morality, a basic morality, is directly accessible through human senses and reasoning. It is always best for people to understand morality on their own and act morally of their own accord. Independence is a moral good, so generally speaking people are not forced or coerced into acting morally. However, force or coercion is justified in some cases. Moreover, people have imperfect knowledge, and there are many different ways to act morally. Taking action to force or coerce people is not be done lightly and has its own considerations.

Basic morality from common sense is limited in scope, and individuals expand on this further with religious beliefs and practices (again in the broadest sense of the term religious). Basic morality is grounded in direct, visceral senses of objective morality that are part of human nature and built on with reason. From the literature on Common Sense Realism, there are six values of basic morality: life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty.

The first value is life. Each individual human life is sacred, a blessing, and to be preserved. Each individual has a right to security. No individual inherently deserves to be killed or be harmed.²⁴ The second value is individual agency. Each individual has their own agency and is capable of thought, communication, movement, and behavior of their own accord.²⁵ No individual inherently deserves to be enslaved or imprisoned. The third value is family. Parents have the sole responsibility to raise their children until they reach adulthood. This includes providing nutrition and education for their children.²⁶ The fourth value is private property. Private property is when an individual controls how resources are used along with the ability to transfer control of their resources to someone else. This is necessary for individuals to remain independent and utilize their agency to act in the world. Individuals are responsible for their property including maintenance and improvements. Individuals have the ability to acquire property and transact in order to improve their life and that of society.²⁷ The fifth value is honesty. It is human nature to live together in a society with multiple individuals that rely on each other. This fundamentally requires honesty to coordinate behavior and communicate reality.²⁸ No individual inherently deserves to be manipulated or deceived. Finally, the sixth value is duty. Each individual has an obligation to act morally and to improve their understanding of morality through experience and reason.²⁹ Moral excellence is the measure of a man.³⁰

Authoritarians argue against this view of morality in different ways. One way is to claim the human condition is not universally the same for everyone.³¹ That some people are inherently better, so much so, as to deserve more power and freedom than others. They argue that people of a certain race, genetics, intellect, or class are inherently superior to other people almost as if they are a different species. Thus, other people are considered sub-human, cockroaches, untouchable, etc. A second way is to not value individual agency. It is ok to force or coerce people to do what is in their own best interest or societies’ best interest as determined by authoritarians. Science and ethics keep advancing and everyone should follow the best practices according to the best human knowledge laid out by the experts who are approved by authoritarians. Individuals can not choose their experts or think for themselves.³² Sometimes this is additionally justified with a utilitarian or consequentialist ethic where the authoritarians calculate the greatest good for the greatest number based on their metrics and measurements.³³ When the science is settled by the authoritarians, people must be forced or coerced into compliance. A similar approach is to claim everyone must follow the one true religion (in the broadest sense of the term) practiced by authoritarians. Whether it is science that becomes dogmatic or a religion that becomes dogmatic, there is no room for individual agency. They argue people can’t be free to make the wrong choices to hurt themselves or society. Authoritarians claim individual freedom can not be allowed in order to ensure peace and prosperity.

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2.4 Common Sense Realism Review

Common Sense Realism provides the foundation for a free society of independent individuals covering areas of reality, human understanding, and basic morality.

• External reality existis
• Individuals exist with independent consciousness and agency
• The individual is more important than a collective controlled by authoritarians
• Objective morality exists
• Everyone has limited, imperfect knowledge of reality (including basic morality)
• All humans can reason and further develop their senses and understanding of reality
• There are six values of basic morality that apply to everyone regardless of their religion
  • Life
  • Individual Agency
  • Family
  • Private Property
  • Honesty
  • Duty
• Individuals are guided by basic moral values
• Individuals adopt a religion (in the broadest sense) that is compatible with basic moral values
• Independence and individual agency is a moral good, but the use of force or coercion is justified in some cases

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3. Individual Rights

Building on Common Sense Realism, the concept of individual rights clarifies how and when force and coercion is and is not used. For example, religious practice is voluntary. Any individual right does not itself require force or coercion and must be grounded in Common Sense Realism. For example, people don’t have a right to a variety of food and shelter such that others must be forced to provide it for them. Charity is a voluntary act for both giving and receiving. Freedom is not about having lots of choices, it’s more about being free from authoritarian constraint to choose for oneself. That said, there are constraints found in reality including basic morality (life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty). For example, an authoritarian may arguably provide more choices to people, but it is at the expense of freedom, individual responsibility, and basic morality. Freedom is about independence aligned with morality and not about having a variety of choices.

Individuals have agency to build a moral life and contribute to society of their own accord. Most of the time, people are not be forced to do good for themselves or others. People make mistakes and live with the consequences of their actions. A perfect world is not natural. For example, take gluttony. It’s possible to monitor what people eat and force them to eat a healthy diet or at least spare them from an extremely unhealthy diet. Such a detailed level of force and coercion over what and how people eat is immoral. Whereas, authoritarians argue people can’t be allowed to make the wrong choices and choose what they eat.

When it comes to interactions between people, there are times to use force or coercion to limit individual freedom. There is not a simple moral rule or maxim to follow to know the limits of freedom and tolerance.³⁴ For example, John Stuart Mill proposed the “harm principle” which roughly says one can act freely as long as others are not harmed. In addition to the difficulties of defining harm in a way that applies clearly to a wide range of human behavior and scenarios, even Mill recognized the harm principle alone could not justify restrictions on liberty.³⁵ Instead, it is best to examine in more detail self-evident moral truths and their implications to different aspects of life in order to determine the limits of coercion and force. In short, it’s important to determine individual rights based on Common Sense Realism.

The following sections are a brief discussion of individual rights and when the use of coercion or force is justified. This discussion is focused on rights most closely related to Common Sense Realism, though there are additional rights that also derive from Common Sense Realism. Sometimes people get caught up in advocating for a specific way of life instead of determining when and how force and coercion applies. For example, it’s the difference between advocating for a specific diet as opposed to dealing with fraud related to food products. That said, with every individual right there are debatable scenarios of exactly when and how to apply coercion or force. There is always a need for human discernment.

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3.1 Physical Body

Individuals have the right to control their health, what foods they eat, what medicines they take, and what medical procedures are performed on them. Individuals have the right to control their body movements, exercise, and are free to travel on their property and public lands within their borders. Coercion and force is used in cases to defend people from physical harm. Individuals have the right to self-defense and to protect their physical body.

3.2 Family

Parents have the right to raise their children according to their own beliefs and practices including control over their children’s nutrition, education, and religion. The involvement of government and others in raising children requires permission from the parents. Coercion and force is used against parents only in rare cases. For example, taking away their child due to clear physical child abuse.

3.3 Property

Private property, where individuals control resources, is necessary for individual agency and independence. An individual is responsible for their property and how it is utilized and improved. Individuals have the right to determine how and when to exchange goods and services in order to improve their lives and improve society.³⁶ Thus, stealing is immoral. Coercion and force is used to guard against theft.

3.4 Thought and Communication

Individuals have the right to cognitive liberty. People are free to communicate ideas through various mediums which requires the freedom to express information of their own choice and the freedom to receive information of their own choice.³⁷ People are not compelled to express information or compelled to receive information.

While deceit, dishonesty, and manipulation are immoral, broad freedom of expression must be allowed for general discussion and opinion. Force or coercion against communication in the attempts to protect against all dishonesty, hate speech, etc. must not be allowed. Since human knowledge is imperfect, a free society depends on dissenting opinions, the ability to hold powerful governments and associations accountable, and open discussions to get closer to the truth. Moreover, identifying false or incorrect information helps sharpen correct information and provides a record of thought to avoid in the future.³⁸

However, there are cases where coercion and force is used when communication goes beyond general discussion. For example, fraud, severe cases of slander or libel, and when expression is part of threatening behavior.

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3.5 Voluntary Association

Individuals are free to voluntarily create and join religious organizations, businesses, non-profit organizations, civic associations, and more. Similarly, associations voluntarily choose their members and conditions for membership.³⁹ The associations and any resulting hierarchies are formed voluntarily.

3.6 Privacy

Individuals have a right to privacy regarding their property and information about them. People do not have to share their thoughts or give access to their property even when they have nothing to hide. For example, individuals are to be allowed to explore ideas and information without outside scrutiny. There is a right not to be surveilled and a right not to have behavior tracked by governments or associations.⁴⁰ There is a right to communicate and transact anonymously. Privacy is more of a concern today given the advancements in technology to monitor and aggregate information.

3.7 Individual Rights Review

• Individuals have agency to build their life in accordance with nature
  • Normally people can’t be forced to do what is good for themselves and others
  • In some cases, force or coercion is applied to restrict liberty
• Individual Rights
  • Physical Body – self-defense, control over health, ability to act in the world, free movement
  • Family – parents rights to raise their children including education and healthcare
  • Property – private property, free exchange
  • Thought and Communication – cognitive liberty, freedom to communicate ideas, and no compelled communication
  • Voluntary Association – freedom to join and organize religious, commercial and civic organizations with no compelled membership
  • Privacy – right not to be surveilled or tracked, right to be silent, right to be anonymous

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4. Associations

Associations, such as religious institutions, businesses, non-profits, political factions, etc. have a secondary priority to individuals. When associations are formed voluntarily in a free society, hierarchies naturally result that are primarily driven by merit. After goals are determined and rules are established, individuals are evaluated based on merit and decisions are made to achieve those goals withing the established bounds and basic morality that applies equally to everyone. For example, say Wilt Chamberlin makes a lot of money by traveling around to play basketball while people voluntarily pay to watch. Wilt is the star player and paid more than the other players and organizers.⁴¹ Another example, a local minister runs the local food bank for people to voluntarily give food to members of the community who reach out for help at his discretion. The minister knows the community and determines who is in need as opposed to who is trying to take advantage of the local church.⁴² Thus, there are differences in outcomes for various groups and individuals based on culture and individual choices which are morally justified. Life is not meant to have the same material outcomes or the same material starting points for every individual or group. This is morally desirable due to the natural variety of cultures, geographies, and choices that people make individually and through associations. This leads to different material outcomes which affect the starting point for the next generation and other different starting points across free societies.

There are situations where force and coercion are justified to use against associations to protect the rights of individuals or other associations. For example, force and coercion is used to guard against bribery, extortion, price manipulation, racketeering, market manipulation, treason, and more.^{43 44} However, it is unjustified to coerce individuals into exchanging their individual rights, such as privacy, in order to access a product or service from a government or association. In a free society, individual rights are protected and not exchanged.⁴⁵ On the other hand, greater transparency is required of governments and associations to expose potential unjust actions against individuals. Moreover, when individuals and associations voluntarily give up their responsibility in exchange for government protection from liability and other so-called advantages, the resulting government-created fictional entities, such as corporations and non-profits, are subject to extra scrutiny. Being wealthy, being a large association, or even being a monopoly is not inherently immoral or undesirable; people examine specific behaviors to determine when force and coercion is approriate.

Individual rights take precedent over associations, government, and government fictions. Ideally, a free society has individuals and associations with minimal dependence on government and minimal use of government fictions. Currently, government fictions, such as corporations and non-profit organizations, are used to minimize individual responsibility and accountability which is a key basis for independence and basic morality. For example, if most activity is done through government and government fictions, and if every person needs an identifier to participate in society that is issued by a government or government fiction, then most activity is subject to extra scrutiny, individual rights are less protected, and individuals have less independence. In short, it’s a society with less freedom.

In general, decentralization of government and associations helps improve a free society by increasing independence and minimizing the extent of the damage from corruption and unforeseen failures.⁴⁶ However, decentralization can be done in ways that are detrimental to freedom. Decentralization can lead to inter-dependence instead of independence where each decentralized organization is tightly coupled and dependent on other organizations. Inter-dependence is centralization with a flatter hierarchy.⁴⁷ The key to avoiding inter-dependence is having independent organizations that can operate and make independent decisions without undue coercion or reliance on outside influences. Furthermore, power can corrupt, and an independent small town or small business can be corrupted when power is concentrated in a few individuals with little to no oversight. Additionally, forced decentralization, e.g. redistribution of wealth, can be done by a more powerful, more centralized authority. In this case, the centralized authority doing the redistribution is then subject to corruption and failures. Finally, large organizations and bureaucracies are needed to accomplish larger tasks. For example, security for the survival of a free society. All of this is to say, that there is not a simple and easy way to organize society or obvious size limits to put in place on governments, associations, or wealth. There is no set of processes or way to organize a free society which perfectly guards against corruption, injustice, and failure. Individuals must take responsibility and utilize institutions and processes to help society function in accordance with Common Sense Realism. Individuals within a free society voluntarily and organically develop associations. As mentioned before, it’s best to focus on specific behaviors and to be transparent about the reasons for applying force or coercion. Later on in this paper, checks and balances will be discussed which are also applicable to guard against corruption and failures.

Authoritarians sometimes view society as split between oppressed and oppressor groups of people. They see collective identity groups, instead of individual agency, as the drivers of what happens in society and what happens to people within it. For the oppressed groups, authoritarians argue there should be no consequences for individual actions and that previous generations should not impact later generations disproportionately.⁴⁹ They argue for equity which means equal outcomes by identity group. Authoritarians determine what equity is by using their own measurements and group statistics while not accounting for individual behavior. Similarly, some authoritarians argue every group should start from the same place with adjustments made for historical disparities as determined by the authoritarians. It’s not about opportunity, agency, or consistent application of the law. Alternatively, for the oppressor groups, authoritarians argue for endless consequences for individual actions and the actions of previous generations.⁵⁰ For example, people should be fired for a social media post and pay reparations for slavery from hundreds of years ago.

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5. Conflict Resolution

Humanity has no shortage of guidance and advice for behavior. From Common Sense Realism, there is a basic morality everyone can understand: life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty. Moreover, there are numerous religious, philosophical, and spiritual practices anyone can follow. In a free society, individuals think for themselves, use their reasoning, and apply guidance to act of their own accord. However, with imperfect knowledge, complex situations, a lack of human will, and even nefarious intent, it is not in human nature to always do the right thing or even know the right thing to do. Thus, there must be ways to negotiate, resolve conflicts, correct mistakes, and have paths for redemption. The aim of a free society is not a utopia, not a perfect society. The aim is to find better ways to resolve conflict and to work with the human condition and nature by more closely aligning with Common Sense Realism.

Individual responsibility is a key aspect of a free society, so conflict resolution starts with individuals and associations working amongst themselves to resolve issues, apply reasoning, rectify errors, and make improvements by appealing to objective reality including basic morality. Ideally this is done voluntarily and honestly. Of course, individuals and associations may resort to coercion and even the use of force. This use of coercion or force may be done justly or unjustly. Conflict resolution can and is done by individuals and associations, including the use of coercion and force. Government is an additional means to resolve disputes and organize society that can also use coercion and force.

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6. Government

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. … In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” – James Madison⁵¹

Government in a free society is a secondary means to apply minimal coercion and force to protect society, protect individual rights, and resolve conflicts all in accordance with Common Sense Realism. It’s important to stress that government is secondary, and people work things out on their own when possible. This also includes people using force on their own, for example in cases of self-defense. Government is secondary due to the immense power it wields and history of governmental tyranny and corruption as well as the basic moral value of individual agency over the use of force or coercion. After all, government officials force other people to do things, and the officials don’t directly bear the consequences of their own decisions. Government officials can be incentivized against solving problems such as bureaucratic experts in poverty and homelessness whose career and livelihood depend on there being poverty and homelessness. However, individuals and unpopular groups also have a history of being tyrannized by the majority or powerful. Over time, various forms of government and practices have been discovered to help prevent government from becoming tyrannical. It’s important to reiterate that the aim and limit of government is to help align society with Common Sense Realism and not to impose arbitrary power.

The Magna Carta, which subjected the King to law in 1215, began a series of discoveries and advancements including individual rights, trial by jury, due process, and equal treatment under the law.⁵² The peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the concept of sovereign nations with territorial regional borders for political control.⁵³ The Revolution Settlement of 1689 established parliament as the sovereign instead of the King.⁵⁴ In 1789, United States founder James Wilson argued for popular sovereignty where the citizens determine the form of their own government, lend authority to it, and are free to change their government as needed.^55/span> The United States formed a constitutional republic with a limited government, an illustration of a free society based on Common Sense Realism that respects individual rights. The United States Bill of Rights made some of these individual rights and limits on government explicit. A mixed form of government was chosen to guard against tyranny,⁵⁶ including separation of powers along with checks and balances on power. Governmental power is separated across federal, state, and local governments as well as functions of government separated into different branches. The general idea being power is neither too centralized nor too isolated to prevent a single faction from abusing power.

Government in a free society serves in a defensive role to protect individual rights as well as a role in resolving conflicts. Government is a steward for a free society to help align it with nature and objective morality as opposed to a ruthless ruler that unjustly applies coercion and force. There are areas of life where government is simply not involved at all. For example, government in a free society protects private property; it does not redistribute property. When government has the power to redistribute property, to pick winners and losers, then contentious factions develop to control the government for the benefit of their own faction at the expense of others.⁵⁷

Over time, the United States has moved further away from a free society and towards authoritarianism. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson rejected Common Sense Realism and limited government by calling for a central government to manage the evolution of society. He viewed society as a whole, as an organism.⁵⁸ He held a collective controlled by authoritarians is more important than the individual. He helped establish the income tax, the federal reserve, the federal trade commission, and the League of Nations (precursor to the United Nations). In the 1930’s, Franklin Roosevelt helped pass the New Deal which included federal jobs programs, social security, insurance, and more.⁵⁹ In the 1960’s, Lyndon Johnson help pass reforms for a “Great Society” including: medicare, environmental protection, and a war on poverty.⁶⁰ In the 1980’s, Marxists lead by Henry Giroux worked to politicize US education, so schools emphasize training teachers and educating children to adopt authoritarian concepts and practices.⁶¹ In 2001, the Patriot Act passed and formalized mass surveillance. In the United States, the role of government has increased in ways detrimental to freedom. Many reforms are needed to correct this.

The practice of separating religion (in the broadest sense of the term) from government helps prevent a government from becoming tyrannical.⁶³ Additionally, this helps to strengthen religious practices by having voluntary, un-coerced participation as well as helping to prevent the corruption of religious institutions.⁶⁴ For example, this allows for a non-coercive Christianity because social order is maintained by appeals to the basic morality of Common Sense Realism. Otherwise, people can only appeal to their own specific denomination of Christianity to maintain any social order which in turn would also coerce their specific religious belief on to society. Of course, government coerces and imposes Common Sense Realism on to society, but it is not a complete religion or worldview. Moreover, government coercion and force is done with the consent of the people. Even in this case, individuals can appeal to human nature and morality that everyone can understand. For example, trial by jury allows for people to appeal to the common sense of their fellow citizens to help resolve conflicts. By contrast, in an authoritarian society, be it theocratic, socialist, communist, fascist, etc., individuals can only appeal to the experts approved by the authorities. For example, communists held show trials. Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s head of secret police, is attributed with the famous saying “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime”.

Transparency helps prevent government tyranny by showing what is does and holding people to account when they act unjustly. If people are going to be forced and coerced, even justly so, then it must be clearly shown how and why it is happening. Governments in a free society strive to clearly and effectively communicate all of their ongoings. There is not a need for special procedures or permission to know what the government does. Ideally, the people know everything about their government, and the government hardly know anything about them. A high standard is met by the government to clearly justify the actions it takes. This is why, figuratively speaking, it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be condemned by the government.⁶⁵

Authoritarians sometimes argue that specific factions must rule society. Everyday people are not to be trusted, and popular sovereignty is a mistake. There are arguments across the spectrum including expert rule, technocratic rule, Sharia law, Christian rulers, global government, and more. The general idea being that individuals are not fit to govern themselves and individuals are not fit to be free since they may make the wrong choices according to the authoritarians.⁶⁶

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7. International Relations

While the exact borders and size of nations is not predetermined and develop organically, a global government can only result in tyranny. A global sovereign can not practically be a form of self-government created from popular sovereignty, and it is more aligned with the authoritarian collectivist view that humanity is a monolithic species-being. There are many variations on the details of a free society in practice, and it’s impossible for all individuals in the world to align politically under a single sovereign.⁶⁷ A global government can only represent a small group of authoritarians that impose their will on the global population.

Furthermore, a free society does not force or coerce other societies from their authoritarian ways. For similar reasons as to why an individual are not forced or coerced into doing what’s best for themselves, a society is not forced or coerced to be free. Individuals within authoritarian societies develop their own understanding of common sense realism, individual rights, and government. They build a free society and form a government of their own accord. It is possible to do this without the need of any external influence as common sense realism is accessible to every human in any society. That said, free societies help to develop freedom in other societies through indirect support done in a moral way.⁶⁸

A free society defends its existence. For example, the American colonies, while they preferred to remain separate, united in order to survive.⁶⁹ This does not mean every society functions completely independent of all other societies where the world goes from nation states to a handful of super states. Instead, alliances are made between societies that support Common Sense Realism all with some form and degree of a free society. That said, as discussed earlier, inter-dependence is an issue to guard against. Furthermore, this does not mean there is an empire in the name of a free society that is an effective tyranny over other societies. For example, free societies do not engage in debt-trap diplomacy, covert influence campaigns, sponsoring terrorism, or sabotage operations. Free societies do not make alliances or trade with authoritarian societies. Free societies only engage morally and indirectly with authoritarian societies in so far as it supports their development into a free society with the support of their people. There are more alternatives than being completely isolationist or having a few societies with a dominant empire and tyrannical control over other societies. Generally speaking, there is an alliance of broadly free societies for self-defense and trade that indirectly advance the cause of freedom.⁷⁰

There are lots of international associations, both public and private, that span across nations such as the United Nations, non-profit foundations, corporations, secret societies, non-governmental organizations, and more. Even when corporations are headquartered in one country, they may have a larger presence outside of their home country and hold most of their assets around the world. Moreover, some countries have developed deep states (a.k.a. dual state, administrative state, or shadow government), which are permanent bureaucracies and/or affiliated organizations that pursue their own agendas with high amounts cooperation and low amounts constraint from elected officials.⁷¹ All of these associations mentioned above hold tremendous power and influence, even power above and beyond national governments in some respects. They act in their own interest and are not always aligned with a free society. All authoritarian international associations are treated by a free society as akin to a foreign society.

The primary tools a free society has to protect itself from authoritarian foreign societies, associations, and deep states are independence, transparency, and policy. Maintaining independence from authoritarians, including the use of force for self-defense, allows a free society to be uncompromising and not beholden to authoritarians. For any potentially nefarious associations operating within a free society, transparency requirements help to expose authoritarian elements which additional policy can then be used to hold them to account. In severe cases, authoritarian associations are shutdown or banned by a free society. For example, any deep state should be dismantled.

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8. Subversion

A free society guards against subversion, which is where a society is deliberately undermined or destroyed from within as opposed to having a direct conflict with other societies. Subversion is driven by people within a society or fostered with support from people in other societies. Several methods are used including propaganda, bribery, cultural revolution, crisis, armed revolution, and more. Subversive actions is taken over a short period of time or planned to commence over decades or longer. While every society must deal with subversion, the following sections are a brief discussion of subversion techniques most relevant to a free society.

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8.1 Propaganda

A free society holds to freedom of speech which allows for subversive actors to use propaganda. This lets them promote authoritarianism including the deceptive use of language and statistics such as logical fallacies, redefining words, removing words, using thought terminating cliches, revising history, gaslighting, and more.⁷² The Delphi Method is one common propaganda technique applied throughout society to get people to accept a fake consensus. It is used with algorithms to curate the information people see to give the impression of a consensus that is fake. It is also used in meetings, public forums, academic journals, and training sessions as a way to control the information and agenda to form a pre-determined and fake consensus while making people think a legitimate debate and exchange of information occurred.⁷³ Another propaganda technique used on society is Mao Zedong’s formula of unity-criticism-unity. First, a general desire is created in the population for unity. Second, those who oppose the subversive agenda are criticized as the cause of disunity and holding society back. People can also be put through struggle sessions and coerced to self-criticize. Third, unity is established by having the society at large agree to the subversive agenda.⁷⁴

A free society guards against this by allowing for more speech to promote integrity when using language and statistics. Moreover, a free society supports the individual right to choose which information to receive information. People are not compelled to be re-educated or consume propaganda. Education is another safeguard where people teach the foundation of a free society along with the threats it faces. This includes teaching about current propaganda along with techniques to guard against it.⁷⁵ For example, individuals can recognize a struggle session and refuse to participate in it. Finally, propaganda is commonly promoted by associations or governments whose actions go beyond freedom of speech and general discussion. In a free society, any seditious organization and its leaders are exposed, dismantled, and harshly dealt with.

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8.2 Dialectics

Dialectics is the driving force behind Marxism and its reactionary ideologies.⁷⁶ It also drives ideological descendants including Leninism, Maoism, Fascism, National Socialism, the current Chinese Communist Party, the current Progressive movement, and Stakeholder Capitalism. The essence of dialectics is a kind of divide and conquer strategy. People are divided into pairs of factions set into contradictory opposition with each other. The factions deliberately pushed into conflict in order to destroy something.⁷⁷ The target for destruction can be something independent of the factions, or the target for destruction can be one or both of the factions themselves. After the destruction, subversives can look to put something of their choosing in place or be content with the ruins. With dialectics, change and progress are made through destruction.

Subversives can intentionally create a dialectic. This means creating a single pair of contradictory opposites to destroy something. The following is a general formula to create a dialectic. First, a target to destroy is selected with the option of having something else to put in its place. Second, any existing views related to the target are reviewed. Of all the nuanced views, two are selected based on the potential to create emotional support and based on how contradictory they can be made to each other. If needed, subversives create a brand new view as a polar opposite to complete the pair. Third, subversives work to build factions to support both views. Fourth, subversives work to push each faction to take a more extreme position and push any nuanced views into an extreme view. At the same time, they are also working to push both factions to appeal to emotion instead of objectivity. Fifth, subversives work to intentionally put the factions into conflict with each other. Having emotionally charged factions with polar opposite and contradictory views leads to division and destruction. Attempts at objectivity, nuanced views, or conflict resolution are drowned out by the overwhelming emotion and contradictory nature of the two factions setup in the dialectic. Objectivity is lost to emotion. Nuanced views are ignored or pushed to the one of the extreme views. Conflict resolution fails when factions hold polar opposite, irreconcilable views. Sixth, this process is repeated until the desired target is destroyed. At which point, the subversives optionally work to put something else in place.

Controlled opposition is a crucial aspect to dialectics. Subversives always attempt to control both polar opposite factions of a dialectical pair either directly or indirectly. This is done directly with their own people in place inside of a faction, or this is done indirectly by controlling the framing of the issue and intentionally provoking the desired polarized response from a faction they don’t directly control.⁷⁸ Controlled opposition is important, because it is the clash of emotionally charged, contradictory factions that creates the energy and dynamic for the desired destruction. Moreover, controlling the opposition allows subversives to help ensure their desired outcome no matter the result of a potentially unpredictable dialectical conflict. First, when subversives want a particular faction of a dialectical pair to triumph, controlling the opposition makes the disfavored faction less effective and helps lead to their desired outcome. Second, if the faction subversives disfavor triumphs, controlling that faction as much as possible helps to minimize their loss and stall for more time. Third, when subversives are primarily focused on destroying a target, influencing both factions in the dialectical pair helps guide the conflict to destroy what they want regardless of which side triumphs.

For example, say the target subversives wish to destroy is hiring based on merit. Subversives create a dialectic between one faction that wants hiring completely based on quotas and another faction that wants hiring based on merit. Every hiring decision is used by subversives to spark a debate, organize protests, get media coverage, and put the factions into conflict. With every new controversial hire, subversives push the conflict to appeal to tribal emotional responses and away from attempts to objectively analyze the specific individual hired. Subversives continual push to move law and policy towards their goal, such as getting organizations to adopt hiring practices that allow for minorities (e.g. based on on race or gender) to be a factor in hiring. Over time, the merit faction becomes suspicious that any minority hired is unqualified, while the quota faction becomes suspicious that any non-minority hired is unqualified. Subversives push the extreme views of both factions along with more radical policies to eliminate merit from hiring decision. The conflict between factions creates the dynamic needed to increase division and destroy merit based hiring.

A target can also be indirectly attacked. For example, say the target to destroy is the US Constitution and individual rights. Subversives create a dialectic to claim the US was founded on slavery by racists where one faction claims the US is systemically racist and the other faction claims it is not. They push both factions to get into repeated emotional arguments over systemic racism. The goal of the repeated discussions is to broadly de-emphasize the US Constitution and implicitly call into question the value of anything created by slaveholders.⁷⁹

Critical Theory is a Marxist framework that was first developed by the Frankfurt School in the 1930’s. It is specifically designed to repeatedly apply dialectics to destroy all aspects of Western Civilization.⁸⁰ It has been further developed and continually adopted by subversives. Critical Theory calls to ruthlessly criticize everything in the West by over-exaggerating issues and making up artificial issues. Moreover, subversives don’t need to posit feasible alternatives to what they criticize. Vague hope and ruthless criticism will suffice. Endless division and destruction in order to destroy Western Civilization is the point of the Critical Theory framework.

The problem-reaction-solution paradigm is a specific kind of dialectic used by subversives to advance their agenda. Subversives have a pre-determined solution they want to put in place. They then proceed to create a dialectic with a problem and corresponding reaction that will eventually lead to the acceptance of their pre-determined solution. For example, say subversives want to put mass surveillance in place. If they went ahead and tried put it in place, there would be a public outcry. So they create a create a problem by removing law enforcement and easing punishment for crime. This leads to an increase in crime, the media runs sensation stories about crime, and the public reacts with anger wanting the crime to stop. This continues for awhile to make the public desperate to accept any solution to help stop the crime. At this point, instead of enforcing law and order as before, the subversives propose instituting mass surveillance to solve the crime issue. Instead of a public outcry, the public accepts mass surveillance.

The United States two party political system is an example of where dialectics have been applied on a large scale. Marxist subversives have worked to infiltrate the two major political parties going back to at least the 1930’s.⁸¹ A two party system does not have to be used for dialectics; however, it is a convenient setup for Marxist subversives to create a dialectical pair of polar opposites. Currently, Marxist subversives are working on advancing their agenda through the Democratic party as their favored faction while using the Republican party as controlled opposition.⁸² The Marxist subversives create multiple dialectical pairs on a range of issues and push Republicans and Democrats into contradictory polar opposite views. Again, infiltration occurs in both parties in order to help ensure their subversion efforts are effective. Dialectics used by Marxist subversives is one way the United States moves towards authoritarianism.

A free society guards against dialectics in the following ways. The first thing is identifying and calling out when a dialectic is being used. Any parts of a dialectic that are recognizable are identified: subversives involved, the polar opposite views, factions involved, the target for destruction, and any agenda to be advanced. This is especially useful for an indirect dialectic when the target for destruction is not directly one of the polar opposite views or factions. Second, delaying action is useful when a situation doesn’t require a quick response. The dialectic thrives on building tension between factions to get an emotional response. Delaying a response may reduce tension and allow for an objective response. Third, call out the affordance trap that the only options are the two polar opposite views in a dialectic. Ask for more details and explore other options. Reject a dialectical framing which attempts to control the terms of discussion. For example, reject the idea of a political spectrum going from the Left to the Right. Instead, a more detailed view to classify politics is the horseshoe theory. This places political views around a horseshoe. The two toes of the horseshoe represent the authoritarian collectivist extremes, one toe for Fascism and the other toe for Communism. At the heel of the horseshoe is the individualist view of Common Sense Realism. Fourth, ensure the response to a dialectic is not under-inclusive. Identifying a dialectic is not enough. Effective action must be taken which includes actions against those funding and organizing dialectics. Finally, similar to propaganda, dialectics are commonly used by associations or governments whose actions can be treasonous or unlawful. In a free society, any seditious organization and its leaders are exposed, dismantled, and harshly dealt with.

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8.3 Machiavellians

Machiavellian subversives claim to have an advantage because they value power above all else whereas adherents to a free society abide by objective morality. Machiavellians argue that, in the long run, the side that cheats and violates any and all morality to achieve power will inevitably end up winning. So they reason everyone should join the winning side ahead of time. This claim of the Machiavellians is misguided for the following reasons.

First, in a Machiavellian society, everyone is subject to arbitrary power of authoritarians. Suppose a Machiavellian side promises to do whatever it takes to gain power in order create a free society. Further suppose the Machiavellians win the day and take control. Once in power, the Machiavellians continue to violate objective morality, coerce citizens unjustly, and use all manner force in order to retain power and satisfy their every caprice. Any promise of a free society is left unfulfilled. Those who value power above all will not implement a free society aligned with nature and based on objective morality. The Machiavellians have no reason to stop being immoral, and now they have even more power to do so. People in this society are then subject to the most pernicious kind of arbitrary Machiavellian power.

Second, there’s no guarantee the Machiavellian side will win eventually win the day due to their immorality. In fact, their immorality makes it easier to guard against. When Machiavellians act immorally, this is identified and used to hold them to account.

Third, the cynical Machiavellian tactic of “make the enemy live up to their own book of rules”,⁸³ is meant to force society to focus pedantically on procedure while ignoring the intent and reason behind a rule. For example, the Cloward-Piven strategy⁸⁴ works to overwhelm institutions by having them mindlessly follow procedure in order to have a detrimental impact on society. In response to unforeseen abuse, a free society focuses on the intent behind a procedure, responds accordingly, and makes any formal revisions as needed.

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8.4 Ideological Subversion

A free society relies on people in the society having a common understanding of reality and basic morality (life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty). Ideological subversion targets the citizens of a free society. It is designed to incrementally undermine belief in a free society, undermine an understanding of the foundational ideas of free society found in Common Sense Realism, and eventually lead to overt action to overthrow society. Ideological subversion is not done by presenting clear facts and straight forward arguments against a free society and Common Sense Realism. Instead, ideological subversion attempts to go undetected, denies that it is occurring, and seeks to avoid a direct examination and exchange of ideas. In debates, subversives are not aimed at the truth but use rhetoric designed to obfuscate, make people look bad, and appeal to emotions.

Ideological subversion can work slowly across decades or longer and is designed to imperceptibly make progress. For example, the soviet process to completely subvert a free society had four stages: demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization.⁸⁵ Demoralization attacks Common Sense Realism and any sense of purpose by removing an understanding of reality and instilling hopelessness. Destabilization makes society worse through increased crime, economic issues, and increased identity politics. Since this stage is drawn out over years, it’s hard for some to fathom that destabilization to intentionally make society worse is purposefully done. Destabilization culminates in a period of crisis where a free society collapses. This leads to the final step of normalization where authoritarians take control, stabilize society, and normalize their rule with authoritarian measures.

Another example of ideological subversion is the United States Central Intelligence Agency 1983 manual Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare.⁸⁶ The general process is to infiltrate covertly across society and key organizations, spread ideological propaganda to shift public consciousness, conduct mass protests driven by subversives with the appearance of popular support, and finally build enough momentum to where subversives direct a mass protest to overthrow the government and society.⁸⁷ Subversives brainwash recruits and parts of the general population to adopt their ideology through the use of group discussion for indoctrination and self-criticism of not doing enough for the cause.⁸⁸ Protests are organized by subversives who get the general population to participate through emotional appeals and to support simple slogans for justice. The general population is unknowingly participating in a revolution to overthrow their government and society. Their participation makes the protests appear spontaneous and organic.⁸⁹ Additionally, subversives infiltrate organizations and recruit their leaders in the name of social justice in order to slowly bring them in. When the time is right, they reveal to the recruit the true revolutionary purpose to overthrow the government and society.⁹⁰ Another aspect of this ideological subversion is to make the general population feel they are under the constant threat of violence and that the police are ineffective and unable to enforce the law.⁹¹ This helps the subversives weaken support for the existing government. As more protests are held, subversives mix in shock troops to intentionally turn protests violent.⁹² All the while, protests conceal the goal of revolution and are done to support banal notions of justice the local population can relate to. Finally, once the subversives have enough organizations captured, enough support in society, weakened support for the existing government, the subversives then direct a mass violent protest into open revolution and government overthrow.⁹³

Ideological subversion is organized by combining aspects of a cult religion, an intelligence agency, and a mafia. Broadly speaking, a basic cult hierarchy is established of an inner circle, inner school, and outer school.⁹⁴ The inner circle remains protected behind the scenes and sets the overall philosophy, plans, strategy, and funding priorities. The inner school works to learn the philosophy, implement the strategy, and execute plans. The inner circle and inner school are driven by their ideology in order to have moral authority or at least they go along with the ideology. While the outer school has not completely adopted the subversive ideology, they tolerate subversive action they personally oppose and adopt some of the subversive plans. They slowly start to identify with the ideology, lend more support, and gradually get sucked in to the cult. Similar to an intelligence agency, subversives are loosely organized and covertly operate throughout society in government, business, education, religion, media, and entertainment.⁹⁵ Instead of a purely top down structure with direct connections between all people and organizations, subversives operate in more isolated groups within organizations they control or they operate as parasites within organizations they don’t control. Instead of direct communication, smaller subversive groups and individuals take their cues indirectly from the latest propaganda put out by the inner school and larger, more powerful subversive groups. In addition to covert direct orders from the inner circle, subversives organize by mimicking behavior and looking for indirect cues in propaganda. Finally, as ideological subversion takes hold in a community or institution, they employ mafia tactics of coercion and/or overt force to strengthen their power with the aim of taking over or destroying it.

Ideological subversion employs propaganda techniques, dialectics, and more.⁹⁶ Subversive visions, programs, and tactical instructions may be openly published and available to everyone. In part, this is used as predictive programming which prepares the public for what is coming to minimize shock and resistance. Additionally, the public information communicates to subversives exactly what to do when the right time comes.⁹⁷ Subversive activities do not always have a precise plan or timeline. For example, the Fabians discussed operating in secret and taking advantage of crisis as they arose in order to slowly convert the United States into a socialist country.⁹⁸ Subversives engage in a range of activities including waiting for events to take advantage of, recruiting leaders from events, opening new front organizations when old ones are exposed, trying out various propaganda messaging, and more. Ideological subversion is a relentless assault.

A free society guards against ideological subversion by exposing subversive ideas, plans, strategies, and holding any factions and people behind them to account. Again this requires education in subversion techniques, how subversives organize, and how to guard against them.⁹⁹ Additionally, this requires a strong grounding in the foundations of a free society: Common Sense Realism, individual rights, conflict resolution, and governance. Taking effective action against subversion is also paramount. Holding people to account must not be an overreaction, e.g. chopping off hands for theft, or an under-reaction, e.g. a slap on the wrist. Holding people to account doesn’t always involve the government or legal action. Individuals in society uphold Common Sense Realism on their own with the assistance of government only as needed. For example, subversive actors are exposed, disgraced, and permanently removed from positions of power and influence in society. Most importantly, the seditious coordination of people in the inner circle and inner school of various organizations are identified and harshly dealt with. This includes shutting down organizations, imprisoning organizers, and banishing people as needed. It is not enough to deal solely with combating low-level provocateurs and actors such as rioters posing as protestors, propagandists posing as media, social experimenters posing as educators, and the like. These are not isolated actions of individuals. The co-ordinated plan and high level organizers must be exposed and destroyed.

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8.5 Compromising Individual Rights

Another subversive technique is to get a society to trade freedom for safety or convenience. However, no such tradeoff is needed. A free society protects individual rights while also providing safety and convenience. This applies to both government and associations. For example, authoritarians want people to give up privacy to use the latest technology or to accept government surveillance for perceived safety. Technology can and should be designed to ensure privacy, and security does not require surveillance. A government in a free society is not there to exchange or take away freedoms but to facilitate their protection.

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8.6 Technocracy

A free society is susceptible to turning into a technocracy where most of the people become dependent on technology controlled by the government and large associations.¹⁰⁰ In the worst case, society loses all its freedom. First, people are not effectively represented by their government. Second, politicians and bureaucrats spend their entire careers in civil service. Third, most everyday people aren’t able to pushback in a meaningful way. This leads to all of the choices people have determined by technocrats in government and large associations. People are coerced by authoritarians with rewards for compliance and punishment for disobedience. A society of dependent individuals with highly centralized institutions and power becomes more and more authoritarian since people loose their agency. They can’t effectively stand up for their individual rights, the government doesn’t protect their rights, and popular sovereignty is lost.

A free society guards against technocracy by empowering individuals, by protecting privacy, by not centralizing power, by ensuring technology for convenience also protects individual rights and individual agency, by supporting measures for independence over dependence, by using technology to enhance the human experience instead of controlling or degrading it, and by ensuring government is representative and accountable.¹⁰¹

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9. Eternal Vigilance

“But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.” – Andrew Jackson¹⁰²

While institutions, checks and balances, and other processes are important to have and to refine, ultimately, a free society can not be mechanized. There is no guarantee or surefire guard against subversion or direct attack. Individuals must study the foundations of a free society: common sense realism (external reality, objective knowledge, human fallibility), basic morality (life, individual agency, family, private property, honesty, and duty), individual rights (privacy, self-defense, association, communication, and more), and self-government (limited scope, consent from the people, checks and balances). Individuals must exercise their freedoms to pursue a moral life, participate in society and self-government, learn about propaganda and psychological warfare, take effective action against subverters, and build stronger institutions and practices. All of this and more is the eternal vigilance required of individuals to maintain a free society.

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References

1. “[Isaiah] Berlin, himself a liberal and writing during the cold war, was clearly moved by the way in which the apparently noble ideal of freedom as self-mastery or self-realization had been twisted and distorted by the totalitarian dictators of the twentieth century — most notably those of the Soviet Union — so as to claim that they, rather than the liberal West, were the true champions of freedom.”
Carter, Ian, “Positive and Negative Liberty”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/#ParPosLib

2. “Rousseau had committed the error of excluding the beak-and-claw fight from his thoughts; and Huxley committed the opposite error; but neither Rousseau’s optimism nor Huxley’s pessimism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of nature.”
Kropotkin, Petr. Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution. Porter Sargent Publishers Inc., 1955, p. 5.

3.  “Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.”
Duignan, B. “Enlightenment.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 June 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history

4. “Perhaps John Witherspoon’s most lasting contribution to American political culture was his introduction of Scottish Common Sense philosophy into American life. This body of philosophical thought that Witherspoon brought over from Scotland soon became dominant in American seminaries and universities. It helped shape the language of the Patriot cause during the American Revolution and seems to have, in concrete ways, influenced the Constitution.”
Wirzbicki, P. (2024). “John Witherspoon, the Scottish Common Sense School, and American Political Philosophy.” Theology Today, 80(4), 395-405. https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231207542 (Original work published 2024)

5.  Popper, Karl. The Open Societies and Its Enemies. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962, p. 279, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.59272

6.  Ibid.

7.  Ibid.

8. Idem. p. 280

9. Marcuse, Herbert. “Repressive Tolerance”, A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Beacon Press, 1969, pp. 95-137, https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html

10. Ibid.

11. “…Homer’s epic poems the Iliad and Odyssey promoted not tolerance but informed judgement.”
Anhalt, Emily Katz. “The Limits of Tolerance and Ancient Greek Mythology”, Yale University Press London The Blog, 28 September 2017, https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2017/09/28/the-limits-of-tolerance/

12. “According to this longer scheme there are seven ‘virtues.’ Four of them are called ‘Cardinal’ virtues, and the remaining three are called ‘Theological’ virtues…They are PRUDENCE, TEMPERANCE, JUSTICE, and FORTITUDE…The three Theological ones are Faith, Hope, and Charity.”
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. Samizdat, February 2014, pp. 44, 71, https://archive.org/details/MereChristianityCSL

13. “Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right.”
Sayre-McCord, Geoff, “Moral Realism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/moral-realism/

14. “In short, every agent has an authority over herself that is grounded, not in her political or social role, nor in any law or custom, but in the simple fact that she alone can initiate her actions.”
Buss, Sarah and Andrea Westlund, “Personal Autonomy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/personal-autonomy/.

15. “…just as I know ‘Many human beings other than myself have before now perceived, and dreamed, and felt’, so each of us has frequently known the different but corresponding proposition ‘Many human beings other than myself have before now perceived, and dreamed, and felt’…”
Moore, G.E. Philosophical Papers. Routledge, 2013, p. 36, https://archive.org/details/moore-george-edward-philosophical-papers

16. “Karl Marx later provided the most succinct statement of the collectivist view of the primacy of social interaction in the preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: ‘It is not men’s consciousness,’ he wrote, ‘which determines their being, but their social being which determines their consciousness.’”
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “collectivism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 March 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/collectivism

17. “On Kant’s picture (or at least on one influential way of reading it), there is a world that exists independently of human minds, so we do not have to go so far as to say that we created the world. But in and of itself this world is structureless: it is not broken up into things, kinds of things, or facts. We impose structure on the world by thinking of it in a certain way, by having one set of beliefs about it rather than another.”
Boghossian, Paul A. “What is Social Construction?” Philpapers, NYU Arts & Science, 2001. https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/boghossian/Boghossian_Social-Construction.pdf

18. “Contrary to the Panglossian view, current evidence does not warrant any great confidence in the belief that the default course of future human evolution points in a desirable direction. … The only way to avoid these outcomes, if they do indeed represent the default trajectory, is to assume control over evolution. … Long-term control of evolution requires global coordination.”
Bostrom, Nick. “The Future of Human Evolution”, Death and Anti-Death: Two Hundred Years After Kant, Fifty Years After Turing, ed. Charles Tandy (Ria University Press:  ,  , 2004): pp. 339-371. https://nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution

19. “In the middle of the twentieth century, many readers (more or less casually) received this[will to power doctrine] as a deeply unattractive blunt claim that ‘Might makes right’, which they associated with disturbing social and political tendencies salient in the era (see, e.g., Beauvoir 1948: 72).”
Anderson, R. Lanier, “Friedrich Nietzsche”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2024/entries/nietzsche/

20. “[Thomas] Reid, after all, affirms core rationalist claims, such as that there is a body of necessary moral principles that are self-evident to the ordinary person.”
Cuneo, Terence, “Reid’s Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/reid-ethics/

21. “Moral skepticism must, therefore, take the form of an error theory, admitting that a belief in objective values is built into ordinary moral thought and language, but holding that this ingrained belief is false.”
Mackie, John. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin Books, 1977, pp. 48-49.

22. “Of all points of view, my point of view is ‘privileged’, in the sense that reality comprises the fact that p if and only if the proposition that p is true from my point of view.”
Merlo, Giovanni and Pravato, Giulia. “Relativism, Realism, and Subjective Facts”, Synthese 198 (9):8149-8165 (2020), https://philarchive.org/rec/MERRRA-2

23. “The standard empiricist conception of theory evaluation regards our judgment of the epistemic quality of a theory to be a matter of applying rules of method to the theory and the evidence. Kuhn’s contrasting view is that we judge the quality of a theory (and its treatment of the evidence) by comparing it to a paradigmatic theory. The standards of assessment therefore are not permanent, theory-independent rules.”
Bird, Alexander, “Thomas Kuhn”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/thomas-kuhn/

24. “From this I think we may conclude, that, although the degeneracy of mankind be great, and justly to be lamented, yet men, in general, are more disposed to employ their power in doing good, than in doing hurt to their fellow-men.”
Reid, Thomas. Essays on the Active Powers of Man. Printed for John Bell, Parliament-Square, 1788, p. 53, https://archive.org/details/essaysonactivepo00reid

25. “…bodily motions proceeding from the mind are not properly actions of the body; because, in regard to them, the body is only the passive instrument of the soul. — The power of beginning motion, exerted of choice by a rational and intelligent being, may be called volition or will.”
Beattie, James. Elements of Moral Science, Volume 1. W. Creech and T. Cadell and W. Davies, London, 1807, p. 147, https://archive.org/details/elementsmoralsci01beatiala

26. “God having made the parents instruments in his great design of continuing the Race of Mankind, and the occasions of Life to their Children, as he hath laid on them an obligation to nourish, preserve, and bring up their Off-spring…The nourishment and education of their Children, is a charge so incumbent on Parents for their Childrens good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it.”
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 329-330, https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.53777

27. “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
Mason, George. The Virginia Declaration of Rights. 1776, https://gunstonhall.org/learn/george-mason/virginia-declaration-of-rights/the-virginia-declaration-of-rights-ratified-version/

28. “From these observations it follows, that if no provision were made by nature, to engage men to fidelity in declarations and promises, human nature would be a contradiction to itself, made for an end, yet without the necessary means of attaining it. As if the species had been furnished with good eyes, but without the power of opening their eye-lids.”
Reid, Thomas. Essays on the Active Powers of Man. Printed for John Bell, Parliament-Square, 1788, p. 454, https://archive.org/details/essaysonactivepo00reid

29. “The result of the whole is, that we ought to take the rule of duty from conscience enlightened by reason, experience, and every way by which we can be supposed to learn the will of our Maker, and his intention in creating us such as we are. And we ought to believe that it is as deeply founded as the nature of God himself, being a transcript of his moral excellence, and that it is productive of the greatest good.”
Witherspoon, John. Lectures on Moral Philosophy. Princeton University Press, 1912, p. 30, https://archive.org/details/lecturesonmoralp00withrich

30. “We ought to use the best means we can to be well informed of our duty, by serious attention to moral instruction; by observing what we approve, and what we disapprove, in other men, whether our acquaintance, or those whose actions are recorded in history…moral excellence is the true worth and glory of a man, so the knowledge of our duty is to every man, in every station of life, the most important of all knowledge.”
Idem. pp. 370-371

31. “Much of eugenics ideology was reductionistic in nature, with many eugenicists assuming that social and behavioral conditions, such as poverty, vagrancy, or prostitution, were inherited as genetic traits rather than shared as common social situations.”
de Melo-Martin, Inmaculada and Sara Goering, “Eugenics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/eugenics/

32. “Because of Lysenko’s political power, Soviet geneticists abstained from criticizing his theories at their conferences in Moscow in 1936 and 1939. Finally, after the VASKhNIL conference in August 1948 (during times of general repression, denunciation, imprisonment, and murder), the principles of classical genetics were suppressed in the Soviet Union. … Lysenko’s ideas found their way into textbooks and were taught in schools and universities.”
Uwe Hossfeld, Lennart Olsson. “From the Modern Synthesis to Lysenkoism, and Back?” Science 297, 55-56 (2002). DOI:10.1126/science.1068355

33. “… whether an act is morally right depends only on consequences (as opposed to the circumstances or the intrinsic nature of the act or anything that happens before the act) … whether some consequences are better than others does not depend on whether the consequences are evaluated from the perspective of the agent (as opposed to an observer).”
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, “Consequentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/consequentialism/

34. “Reid, by contrast, rejects ethical monism, maintaining that there is no such master principle, but only a variety of moral principles that are self-evident and irreducible to one another.”
Cuneo, Terence, “Reid’s Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reid-ethics/#RatPriAct

35. “Later, Mill makes clear that harm prevention is necessary but not sufficient to justify restrictions on liberty.”
Brink, David, “Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/mill-moral-political/

36. “Societies with private property are often described as free societies. Part of what this means is surely that owners are free to use their property as they please; they are not bound by social or political decisions. (And correlatively, the role of government in economic decision-making is minimized.)”
Waldron, Jeremy, “Property and Ownership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/property/

37. Hudson Jr., David L. “Right to Receive Information and Ideas”, The First Amendment Encyclopedia at Middle Tennessee State University, 1 January 2017, https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/right-to-receive-information-and-ideas/

38. “But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Third Edition, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1864, p. 33, https://archive.org/details/onliberty00inmill

39. “The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his fellow-creatures, and of acting in common with them. I am therefore led to conclude that the right of association is almost as inalienable as the right of personal liberty.”
De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve, George Dearborn & Co., 1838, p. 175, https://archive.org/details/cihm_18597

40. “Norms of informational privacy allow people to control who knows what about them. The knowledge other people have about us shapes the ways in which we can present ourselves, and act around others. Informational privacy is thus essentially linked to individual freedom and autonomy since it enables different forms of self-presentation, as well as enabling different forms of social relationship (see Roessler 2001 [2005: 111–141] for more detail).”
Roessler, Beate and Judith DeCew, “Privacy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/privacy/

41. “The season starts, and people cheerfully attend his team’s games; they buy their tickets, each time dropping a separate twenty-five cents of their admission price into a special box with Chamberlain’s name on it. They are excited about seeing him play; it is worth the total admission price to them. Let us suppose that in one season one million persons attend his home games, and Wilt Chamberlain winds up with $250,000, a much larger sum than the average income and larger even than anyone else has. Is he entitled to this income? Is this new distribution D2, unjust? If so, why?”
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Basic Books, 2013, p. 161, https://archive.org/details/robert-nozick-anarchy-state-and-utopia

42. “To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it, and how large, and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.”
Lechterman, Theodore M., Emma Saunders-Hastings, and Rob Reich, “Philanthropy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/philanthropy/

43. “Antitrust laws in the United States are designed in such a way that fair competition is encouraged among businesses, and monopolistic practices that could cause harm to consumers, create unfair market advantages, and unknowingly suppressed economic freedom, are prevented.”
Madu, Kelechi. “Antitrust Law and Democratic Capitalism: Balancing Market Competition and Economic Freedom”, Georgetown Law Denny Center Blog, 23 September 2024, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/denny-center/blog/antitrust-law/

44. “In the United States, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. History had taught them that men in power might falsely or loosely charge treason against their opponents; therefore, they denied Congress the authority to enlarge or reshape the offense. Treason against the United States ‘shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort.’”
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “treason.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 May 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/treason

45. “Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured.”
Paine, Thomas. The Rights of Man. Pamphlet translated from French, 1791, p. 45, https://archive.org/details/PaineRightsOfMan

46. “Nevertheless local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it.”
De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve, George Dearborn & Co., 1838, p. 42, https://archive.org/details/cihm_18597

47. “The result, as Thomas Wright describes it, is a world where unprecedented levels of interdependence are combined with continued jockeying for power, so that states that are unwilling to engage in direct conflict may still employ all measures short of war. Global economic networks have security consequences, because they increase interdependence between states that were previously relatively autonomous.”
Henry Farrell, Abraham L. Newman; “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion.” International Security 2019; 44 (1): 42–79. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00351

48. “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto.”, Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

49. Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left. As to the scope of this tolerance and intolerance: … it would extend to the stage of action as well as of discussion and propaganda, of deed as well as of word.”
Marcuse, Herbert. “Repressive Tolerance”, A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Beacon Press, 1969, pp. 95-137 https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html

50. “It should be evident by now that the exercise of civil rights by those who don’t have them presupposes the withdrawal of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise, and that liberation of the Damned of the Earth presupposes suppression not only of their old but also of their new masters.”
Ibid.

51. Madison, James. The Federalist Papers. Number 51, The New American Library, Inc., 1961, p. 322, https://archive.org/details/federalistpapers1961hami

52. “The Magna Carta eventually settled that the king is bound by the rule of law. In 1215, the Magna Carta was part of the beginning rather than the end of the argument, but by the mid-1300s, concepts of individual rights to trial by jury, due process, and equality before the law were more firmly established.”
Courtland, Shane D., Gerald Gaus, and David Schmidtz, “Liberalism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#DebAboLib

53.“Some scholars of international relations credit the treaties with providing the foundation of the modern state system and articulating the concept of territorial sovereignty.”
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Peace of Westphalia.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 May 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Peace-of-Westphalia

54. “Generally, Parliament placed sovereign promises under its control…”
Hodgson G.M. 1688 and all that: property rights, the Glorious Revolution and the rise of British capitalism. Journal of Institutional Economics, 2017;13(1):79-107. doi:10.1017/S1744137416000266, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/1688-and-all-that-property-rights-the-glorious-revolution-and-the-rise-of-british-capitalism/D2ABDB81ECE1CF9708638A652C8852F0

55. “Permit me to mention one great principle, the vital principle I may well call it, which diffuses animation and vigour through all the others. The principle I mean is this, that the supreme or sovereign power of the society resides in the citizens at large; and that, therefore, they always retain the right of abolishing, altering, or amending their constitution, at whatever time, and in whatever manner, they shall deem it expedient.”
Wilson, James. Lectures on Law. Part 1, Chapter 1, 1789, https://contextus.org/James_Wilson’s_Lectures_on_Law_(1789_to_1791)

56. “Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”
Hamilton, Alexander. Remarks at the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, 1787, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0108

57. “As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.”
Bastiat, Frederic. The Law. Mises Institute, 1850, pp. 11-12, https://cdn.mises.org/thelaw.pdf

58. “There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive co-ordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.”
Wilson, Woodrow. The New Freedom. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm

59. “The Social Security Act enhances the safety net of the elderly and later the disabled and other groups by providing retirement pensions for all Americans regardless of economic standing.”
Editors. “New Deal Timeline”, Encyclopedia Britannica, Accessed 29 May 2025, https://www.britannica.com/summary/New-Deal-Timeline

60. “…Johnson proclaimed his vision of a “Great Society” and pledged to redouble the ‘war on poverty’ he had declared one year earlier. He called for an enormous program of social welfare legislation, including federal support for education, hospital care for the aged through an expanded Social Security program…”
Editors. “Great Society”, Encyclopedia Britannica, Accessed 29 May 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Society

61. “Giroux deserves the most blame for this unlikely feat, however, since he personally worked through the first half of the 1980s to see that at least one hundred Critical Marxists were tenured as professors in the colleges of education.”
Lindsay, James. The Marxification of Education. New Discourses, 2022. pp.7-8

62. “The Patriot Act opened the backdoor to hell: Warrantless wiretaps, bulk data collection, secret courts (FISA) rubber-stamping government spying, metadata hoarding by the NSA, backroom deals with Google, AT&T, Apple, and every other tech giant with their hands in your pocket and your private life.”
Steele, Maureen. “The Patriot Act: America’s Trojan horse for tyranny”, American Thinker, 27 May 2025, https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/the_patriot_act_america_s_trojan_horse_for_tyranny.html

63. “Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion has produced among its several sects. Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease. The American Theatre has exhibited proofs that equal and compleat liberty, if it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the State.”
Madison, James. Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163

64. “…the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time…”
Jefferson, Thomas. Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. 1779, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom/

65. “Fourthly, all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously, for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
Blackstone, Sir. Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 2. J. B. Lippincott, 1753., Chapter XXVII, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sharswood-commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-in-four-books-vol-2

66. “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But some times you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946, pp. 47-48, https://archive.org/details/animalfarm00orwe_0

67. “In the world, by contrast, there is no common political community and thus no international consent of the governed.”
Spalding, Matthew. “America’s Founders and the Principles of Foreign Policy: Sovereign Independence, National Interests, and the Cause of Liberty in the World”, The Heritage Foundation, 15 October 2010, https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/americas-founders-and-the-principles-foreign-policy-sovereign-independence

68. “We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.”
Jefferson, Thomas. “Second Inaugural Address,” in Jefferson: Autobiography, Notes On the State of Virginia, Public and Private Papers, Addresses, Letters, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Library of America, 1984), p. 518.

69.  “A key weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that it did not create sufficient capacity for security, and a central purpose of the Constitution is ‘to provide for the common defense.’”
Spalding, Matthew. “America’s Founders and the Principles of Foreign Policy: Sovereign Independence, National Interests, and the Cause of Liberty in the World”, The Heritage Foundation, 15 October 2010, https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/americas-founders-and-the-principles-foreign-policy-sovereign-independence

70. “The Founders sought to advance liberty not directly by imperial expansion or by using force to change other nations, but indirectly—even secondarily to our primary obligations and interests as a nation.”
Ibid.

71. “Always, the term [deep state] implies that unelected officials and bureaucrats can undermine elected leaders and shape policy undemocratically and without public scrutiny.”
Parenti, Christian. “The Left-Wing Origins of ‘Deep State’ Theory”, Compact Magazine, 28 February 2025, https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-left-wing-origins-of-deep-state-theory/

72. “…the abuse of political power is fundamentally connected with the sophistic abuse of the word, indeed, finds in it the fertile soil in which to hide and grow and get ready, so much so that the latent potential of the totalitarian poison can be ascertained, as it were, by observing the symptom of the public abuse of language.”
Pieper, Josef. Abuse of Language – Abuse of Power. Ignatius Press, 1992, pp. 32-33, https://archive.org/details/abuse-of-language-abuse-of-power-josef-pieper

73. “Your social media feeds are essentially automated Delphi panels, constantly showing you ‘evidence’ that reinforces predetermined conclusions while making you think you’re seeing organic consensus.”
Turner, Courtenay. “The Algorithmic Oracle”, Courtenay Turner’s Substack, 25 June 2025, https://courtenayturner.substack.com/p/the-algorithmic-oracle

74. “That is, he sought to induce in people a ‘desire for unity’ so they would join his socialistic cult, and then once that desire was strong enough, criticism and struggle  sessions would begin to cement adherence. Finally, through criticism, struggle, and study, unity with the socialist cult would be achieved.”
Lindsay, James. “Mao, Criticism, and Unity”, New Discourses Bullets, episode 43, 20 March 2023, https://newdiscourses.com/2023/03/mao-criticism-and-unity/

75. “The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”
Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. Vintage Books, 1973, p. 25, https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512

76. “Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and) Marxism. This is the ‘aspect’ of the matter…”
Lenin, Vladimir. “On the Question of Dialectics”, Marxists Internet Archive, Accessed 29 June 2025, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/misc/x02.htm

77. “The splitting of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts is the essence of dialectics.”
Ibid.

78. “As an act of dialectical political warfare, which is their battle logic, Leftist agitators will provoke a reaction, control the framing around that reaction to a watching audience, and use the reaction as justification to advance their cause.”
Lindsay, James. “Reaction is the Real Action”. With Liberty & Justice For All, Session 2 of 3, 28 September 2023, https://newdiscourses.com/2023/09/reaction-is-the-real-action-james-lindsay/

79. “This targeting of the Founders is used to delegitimize the nation they fought to create and the Constitution they formed to run it. As the narratives are structured to suggest, how can institutions created by such evil and fundamentally flawed white men be given respect today?”
Coughlin, Stephen and Higgins, Richard. “Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America”. Unconstrained Analytics, 2019, p. 111, https://unconstrainedanalytics.org/report-re-remembering-the-mis-remembered-left-the-lefts-strategy-and-tactics-to-transform-america/

80. “Critical theory simply brought this drive forward and operationalized it in keeping with the motto, ‘AUFHEBEN DER KULTUR’ which signals a commitment to the relentless negation of the West, including America.”
Idem. p. 85

81. “There have been places where we sent them into the Democratic Party or the Republican Party to operate as Republicans and Democrats, you know, but to operate as Communists within their organizations.”
Dodd, Dr. Bella. “Investigation of Communist activities in the Columbus, Ohio, area. Hearings”, United States Congressional Testimony, 1953, p. 1767, https://archive.org/details/investigationofc1953unit/page/1766/mode/2up?view=theater

82. “By submitting to these [Democrat] narratives, establishment Republicans first become pliant, and then obedient to the Left, accommodating it through ‘words that work’ that create the illusion of opposition while actually signaling surrender in the information battle space. In that role, regardless of the mandates that got them elected, establishment Republicans will defend the issues that got them elected in deliberately under-inclusive manners that conditions those issues for dialectical negation while demoralizing their base.”
Coughlin, Stephen and Higgins, Richard. “Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America”. Unconstrained Analytics, 2019, p. 3,
https://unconstrainedanalytics.org/report-re-remembering-the-mis-remembered-left-the-lefts-strategy-and-tactics-to-transform-america/

83. Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals. Vintage Books, 1989. p. 128, https://archive.org/details/RulesForRadicalsSaulAlinskyOCR/

84. “Widespread campaigns to register the eligible poor for welfare aid, and to help existing recipients obtain their full benefits, would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments. These disruptions would generate severe political strains…The ultimate objective of this strategy–to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income–will be questioned by some.”
Piven, Frances Fox and Cloward, Richard. “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty“, The Nation, 2 May 1966, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty/

85. “… the FOUR STAGES OF SUBVERSION: I) DEMORALIZATION, 2) DESTABILIZATION, 3) CRISIS, 4) ‘NORMALIZATION’… The only trouble is- they are ‘stretched in time’. In other words, the process of subversion is such a long-term process that an average individual, due to the short time-span of his historical memory, is unable to perceive the process of subversion as a CONSISTENT and willful effort.”
Schuman, Thomas. Love Letter to America. Almanac Panorama, 1984, p. 21, https://www.docdroid.net/h8U48r0/yuri-bezmenov-love-letter-to-america-pdf

86. Tayacan. CIA Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. PDF version by Grog, 12 August 2022,
https://archive.org/download/CIA_-_Psychological_Operations_In_Guerilla_Warfare/CIA_-_Psychological_Operations_In_Guerilla_Warfare.pdf

87. “Our psychological war cadres will create compulsive obsessions of a temporary nature in places of public concentrations, constantly hammering away at the themes pointed out or desired, the same as in group gatherings; in informal conversations expressing discontent; in addition passing out brochures and flyers, and writing editorial articles both on the radio and in newspapers, focused on the intention of preparing the mind of the people of the decisive moment, which will erupt in general violence.”
Idem, p. 49

88. “Such a political awareness and motivation is obtained through the dynamic of groups and self-criticism, as a standard method of instruction for the guerrilla training and operations. Group discussions raise the spirit and improve the unity of thought of the guerrilla training and operations. Group discussions raise the spirit and improve the unity of thought of the guerrilla squads and exercise social pressure on the weak members to carry out a better role in future training or in combative action. Self-criticism is in terms of one’s contribution or defects in his contribution to the cause, to the movement, the struggle, etc.; and gives a positive individual commitment to the mission of the group.” Idem, pp. 4-5

89. “In this action one or several people of our convert movement should take part, highly trained as mass agitators, involving innocent persons, in order to bring about an apparent spontaneous protest demonstration.”
Idem, p. 52

90. “Established citizens-doctors, lawyers, businessmen, teachers, etc.- will be recruited initially as ‘Social Crusaders’ in typically ‘innocuous’ movements in the area of operations. When their ‘involvement’ with the clandestine organization is revealed to them, this supplies the psychological pressure to use them as ‘inside cadres’ in groups to which they already belong or of which they can be members.”
Idem, pp. 6-7

91. “In a revolution, the individual lives under a constant threat of physical damage. If the government police cannot put an end to the guerrilla activities, the population will lose confidence in the government, which has the inherent mission of guaranteeing the safety of citizens. However, the guerrillas should be careful not to become an explicit terror, because this would result in a loss of popular support.”
Idem, p. 21

92. “Shock Troops. These men should be equipped with weapons (Knives, razors, chains, clubs, bludgeons) and should march slightly behind the innocent and gullible participants. They should carry their weapons hidden. They will enter into action only as ‘reinforcements’ if the guerrilla agitators are attacked by the police. They will enter the scene quickly, violently and by surprise, in order to distract the authorities, in this way making possible the withdrawal or rapid escape of the inside commando.”
Idem, p. 53

93. “The mass assemblies and meetings are the culmination of a wide base support among the population, and it comes about in the later phases of the operation. This is the moment in which the overthrow can be achieved and our revolution can become an open one, requiring the close collaboration of the entire population of the country, and of contacts with their roots in reality.”
Idem, p. 8

94. “Within the cult, the general organization can be split into three circles: initiates (‘Outer School’), adepts (‘Inner School’), and disciples and leaders (‘Inner Circle’). ”
Lindsay, James. “Wokeness and the Structure of Cults”, New Discourses, 22 March 2023, https://newdiscourses.com/2023/03/wokeness-and-the-structure-of-cults/

95. “[Herbert] Marcuse goes on to say that from the college campuses, networks can be extended into the government and the various business sectors where students who will be future employees. They will become competent in their line of work as they build up a network of interactive interlocking counter-state operations…”
Coughlin, Stephen and Higgins, Richard. “Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America”. Unconstrained Analytics, 2019, p. 75,
https://unconstrainedanalytics.org/report-re-remembering-the-mis-remembered-left-the-lefts-strategy-and-tactics-to-transform-america/

96. Boyd, Andrew and Oswald Mitchell, Dave. Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution. OR Books, 2016, https://ia600504.us.archive.org/4/items/BoydAndrewEdBeautifulTroubleAToolboxForRevolution/Boyd_Andrew_ed_Beautiful_Trouble_A_Toolbox_for_Revolution.pdf

97. “In fact, Leftists proudly publish and disseminate activist guides for their agenda like the book Beautiful Trouble that spell out for anyone how to do ‘transformative’ activism through deliberate and strategic troublemaking.”
Lindsay, James. “Learning and Countering Leftist Strategy”, New Discourses Podcast, episode 127, 15 September 2023, https://newdiscourses.com/2023/09/countering-leftist-strategy/

98. “Confession of intent to revise the Constitution in America of the eighteen nineties appeared more visionary than alarming. If it was ever to be accomplished, it would have to be done obliquely, secretively and gradually over a period of years by a Socialist elite schooled to take advantage of every local and national crisis for their own covert ends.”
Martin, Rose L. Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A. Western Islands, 1966, p. 137, https://cdn.mises.org/Fabian%20Freeway%20High%20Road%20to%20Socialism%20in%20the%20USA%20-Digital%20Book_3.pdf

99. Pincourt, Charles and Lindsay, James. Counter Wokecraft. New Discourses, 2021.

100. “These techno-populist lure the voting public in with well-tuned rhetoric but then eventually lead with an eye towards globalist, authoritarian, top-down control.”
O’Fallon, Michael. “The Deceptive Rise of Techno-Populism”, Public Occurrences, episode 112, 3 April 2023, https://sovereignnations.com/2023/04/03/deceptive-rise-of-techno-populism-public-occurrences-ep-112/

101. “The future hinges on choices: prioritize privacy, equity, and oversight, or risk a world where surveillance is ubiquitous and AI outpaces humanity. By understanding these community design models’ trajectories, then hopefully we can steer toward innovation without sacrificing freedom or control.”
Turner, Courtenay. “The Path to Mass Surveillance and Technological Singularity: How Community Planning Visions Could Shape an AI-Driven Future”, Courtenay Turner Substack, 19 May 2025, https://courtenayturner.substack.com/p/the-path-to-mass-surveillance-and

102. Jackson, Andrew. Farewell Address, 4 March 1837, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-4-1837-farewell-address

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