This site is dedicated to a progressive view of liberty. It is an argument with the Tea Party, Republicans, and Libertarians who all pervert the modern meaning of liberty.

Books
The Founders' Real Views

Tea Party, Republicans argue that their view of liberty is based on and returns us to the view of liberty among the American founders. Not so.
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What is Liberty?

The question of what liberty is or should be to a society that cares about freedom and responsibility is not a simple matter as those on the Right make it out to be.
More to come...

Essays On Liberty

• Why Can't My Daughter Drive A Tank? 
• Why Milton Friedman Was Wrong...
• Did Thomas Jefferson Really Believe In Natural Rights?
• Can American History be the Basis of political decisions?
• Who Owns the Liberty Concept?
• Liberty Is Not Freedom...
• Beyond Liberty
• Natural Rights, Natural Responsibilities

More historical essays
More theoetical essays 

About Me



My journey from Seminary to Silicon Valley shaped my understanding and commitments to certain progressive ideas about liberty, capitalism, and religion. Read more....


Blog Topics
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Want to Contact me?

Feel free to email me your thoughts and perspectives.  

Reclaiming a Progressive and Liberal View of Liberty

Too much Right Wing discourse today in political discussion and on the Internet assumes that liberty means, and has always meant, free markets, minimal government and maximum individual rights.

This view represents a mistaken understanding of the liberty tradition and has destructive  consequences for modern life.  Read more...

The Right Wing Misconception of Liberty

The Right Wing conception of liberty distorts the liberty tradition and misunderstands the liberty concept. The Right Wing conception relies on:

• a simplisitic historical understanding of the liberty tradition and the American founding
• a narrow understanding of human nature
• a false understanding of religion and God
• a one-sided set of economic assumptions

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An Alternative View of Liberty

An alternative view of liberty does not end up with a view that liberty necessarily means "I can do what I want" or "small government."
 
It does not see government as by definition the enemy that is robbing me of my natural rights. It sees instead liberty as one conceptual construction in the modern world along with others that are equally important and critical, such as "responsibility." 

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