Our responsibility to enhance freedom everywhere

This is an extract from the current version of the manuscript of my next book, The Discovery of Freedom (on which I seek your comments).  Also closely related to this post is my work at World 2.0.

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It is not only India that I write for. I am determined to participate in the global destruction of the last vestiges of socialism, fascism, and religious absolutism. I am a liberal. I am a human that believes we must all be free. I am not built to be a mere spectator who can silently watch the creative potential of millions of people across the world being reduced to ashes. Many ‘rulers’ of collectivist societies don’t hesitate to use fearsome force against their fellow citizens and confiscate their property in their quest for delusional aims like equality, social justice, or religious salvation. I battle all such misguided people – through persuasion, through teaching freedom. Hence this book has many purposes. Most importantly, I ask that you too, if persuaded at the end of this book, consider becoming a liberal: a fighter for liberty.

We all have this responsibility to give battle to intolerant and erroneous ideas. It wasn’t too long ago that a handful of misguide people – Hitler and Mussolini along with the Japanese leadership – joined hands through the Tripartite Pact of 1940 to hold the world to ransom. In that moment of extreme madness, human life became cheap, almost expendable. If for nothing else but to ensure that such madmen never feel emboldened to raise their heads again, and to ensure that if they ever do so, that humanity unites quickly to destroy them comprehensively, we have the obligation to teach our children about the arduous, tortuous, and often blood-stained history of freedom. 

No one is free to harm others. Freedom is only about the liberty to impact the world for the good. Note, though, that this can't be taken to be an authorisation to restrict liberty, as Rousseau did. We can’t coercively demand the expression only of good behaviour.  Principles of accountability will allow gaps, if any, in our behaviour, to be addressed.