Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

Liberty in Peril by George Leef I finished reading Prof. Randall Holcombe’s book Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in US History during the 2020 election. I have yet to hear any candidate say the word “liberty” and would be shocked if I did. We are bombarded with messages for candidates and messages merely imploring us to vote. Some Americans relish what they think they’ll get as a result of the election; others dread what they fear will happen. In any case, we accept that, for all its flaws, democracy is the way the United States is supposed to work. We almost never think about whether the policies the candidates favor are consonant with the freedom Americans were supposed to have — freedom to live their lives as they choose. In his book, Holcombe (professor of economics at Florida State) argues that democracy was not the way the country was supposed to work. Our founding philosophy was not that democracy should prevail, but instead that liberty should prevail — that the reason for government was to protect the individual’s freedom, not to subject him to the will of the majority. Over time, the philosophy of liberty has been shoved aside and today democracy rules to the point where, as the author puts it, liberty has an almost quaint air about it. Continued (and with an important afterword by Yours Truly): https://losthorizons.com/N/168.htm#4