“No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law — i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.”
Immanuel Kant, Theory and Practice (1791)
On April 26, 1710, English philosopher of “common sense” Thomas Reid was born. A highly influential figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, and well-known critic of Hume before Kant, his major works were An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, and Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Reid died in 1796.
The Scottish “common sense” approach (shared by Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart) continued, in varying forms, into the 19th and 20th centuries in the works of William Hamilton, Herbert Spencer, C.S. Peirce, G.E. Moore and George Santayana.
Grover Norquist makes a good case:
Instead of civilization being artificial, it is a part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. The modifications mankind have undergone, and are still undergoing, result from a law underlying the whole organic creation; and provided the human race continues, and the constitution of things remains the same, those modifications must end in completeness.
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), Chapter 1, § 4.
Human freedom is realised in the adoption of humanity as an end in itself, for the one thing that no-one can be compelled to do by another is to adopt a particular end.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Part Two: “Metaphysics of Virtue.”
“There’s two kinds of people in the world, the ones who need to be told and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.”
Tom Clancy, Without Remorse (1993), p. 231
The Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals was first published in Il Mondo, then by most Italian newspapers on April 21, 1925 — the national, anniversary-day celebration of the Founding of Rome (ca. April 21, 753 BC). Nowadays, all sorts of people call other people “fascist,” often on the shakiest of rationales. It might be a good idea to look up this original document, for a good idea what politics’ “f-word” really means. Here is an excerpt:
Fascism was . . . a political and moral movement at its origins. It understood and championed politics as a training ground for self-denial and self-sacrifice in the name of an idea, one which would provide the individual with his reason for being, his freedom, and all his rights. The idea in question is that of the fatherland. It is an ideal that is a continuous and inexhaustible process of historical actualization. It represents a distinct and singular embodiment of a civilization’s traditions which, far from withering as a dead memory of the past, assumes the form of a personality focussed on the end towards which it strives. The fatherland is, thus, a mission.
“The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.”
Bestselling author Tom Clancy, to news reporters at the National Press Club (May 18, 1999)
On April 20, 1657, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.”
Tom Clancy, as quoted by John Whitehead