Liberty as Means, Not Idol
We live among real dangers, unequal power, and unavoidable dependence.
No system removes these. Some only hide them better.
Liberty matters because coercion so often multiplies harm.
But liberty alone does not prevent cruelty, desperation, or domination, especially where people begin from very different positions.
A decent society does not worship freedom or authority.
It treats both as tools, to be limited by their effects on suffering.
Force should be rare, restrained, and accountable.
Voluntary cooperation should be preferred, but never idealised.
Power, centralised or private, should always be treated with suspicion.
Justice is not purity or victory.
It is the ongoing work of reducing preventable harm,
without pretending that the world can be made innocent.
If this requires restraint, let it be restraint.
If it requires compromise, let it be compromise.
What it must never require is blindness to who bears the cost.
