We have to trust liberty completely

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 18, 2026)

Few people understand liberty. Even fewer trust it to work.

As Voltairine de Cleyre wrote in 1908, "[T]he sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly".

They thought America could have liberty along with a central government- a state. It didn't work. Now we are stuck with a growing police state, and the tatters of our remaining liberty are being criminalized at an astonishing rate. This won't end well.

Liberty is indivisible- it can't be broken into pieces and remain liberty. You can't respect it selectively (for some people, in some areas, some of the time) and call it "liberty". True liberty requires consistent respect for everyone's rights, everywhere, all the time.

Critics of liberty often pick apart one small aspect they dislike, arguing either that this single piece "won't work" in isolation or that removing it disproves all of liberty. They then act as if they've won the debate, but they're missing the point entirely.

All elements of liberty are deeply interconnected, like parts of an ecosystem. You can't remove one part while keeping everything else unchanged, and claim you've shown a flaw with liberty. Government's very existence cripples liberty.

A common pro-government argument claims you can't have "open borders" and a welfare state. I agree. Easy fix! End all government welfare. This isn't the answer they want, though. They don't dislike welfare; just migrants.

This is how it looks any time people attempt to argue against a free society, like saying that without legislation enforcement, criminals would run rampant. Yes, they would... if you ignore self-defense, consequences, and social pressure (things legislation attempts to thwart).

It's a dishonest argument.

It’s like taking a malfunctioning rocket engine, removing critical parts you don't like the look of instead of addressing the bad piece, then pretending you won because the engine still doesn't work. Of course it won’t. It’s a system. A rocket engine's fuel pump won't lift a rocket into orbit by itself, nor can an engine designed to require a fuel pump function without one.

This government-supremacist argument doesn't work and looks dumb. Unless you're the one making the argument to others who do the same thing, and you're patting each other on the back for being clever.

Government is the enemy of liberty. Claiming this as proof liberty is unworkable is like noticing scammers exist, and this proves money is useless. Trust liberty completely; distrust all who fear it.

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