Alan M. de León’s Reviews > On Freedom > Status Update

“James Madison praised Americans for building their new republic without “blind veneration of antiquity.” That is the attitude we should apply to the Founders themselves.”

“Though freedom is the quality of a single life, it is the work of generations.”

“Oligarchs in one country have more in common with oligarchs in another country than with their own people.”

“Wealth inequality is always a problem for a republic; privileging wealth inequality elections is a direct endorsement of oligarchy.”

“In a land of the free, we would take pride in how many of us vote, and how easily. Election Day would be a national holiday in our republic, to celebrate our vote and to ensure it.”

“Markets cannot be free. Only people can be free. Freedom is a human value. It can be recognized and pursued only by humans. There is no substitute for freedom, no way to delegate it. The moment we delegate freedom, to the market or anything else, it becomes submission. When people surrender the word freedom, freedom vanishes from their lives.”

“The creation of capabilities belongs to freedom.”

“Acknowledging the existence of others was an act of love… It is not just that we do right when we love a stranger. It is that we see ourselves as a stranger might see us, which is what we need to see. When we see ourselves as others see us, we know ourselves better. This is liberating. We experience the restraints of the external world and push against them, in the company of others doing the same.”

“We gain knowledge of ourselves when we acknowledge others. Only when we recognize that other people are in the same predicament as we are, live as bodies as we do, can we take seriously how they see us. When we identify with them as they regard us, we understand ourselves as we otherwise might not. Our own objectivity, in other words, depends on the subjectivity of others.”

“Overtime, beginning in youth, an accumulation of decisions makes us who we are. Then a moment comes when we do what we must because of what we have chosen to become.”