The Future of Freedom

Abstract

The nature of society begins with citizen fundamental moral choice determining the jurisprudence adopted and applied in society: Is necessary social discipline to be imposed, or is all law to draw forth citizen self-discipline, asserting the rights of the individual asserted over those of the state? The former a compliant society, assertion of group rights over individual rights; the latter, defined as a free society, assertion of individual rights over group rights. Humans create ideas then apply them in managing circumstance, with intensity of action derived from the associated emotions. Having made the fundamental moral choice, the society architecture must be built with ideas congruent with that choice combined with workable compromise, the ethic for peaceful co-existence. Social development in free democratic societies begins in the middle with appropriate governance offering balanced, accurate, reasoned ideas to citizens. Citizens choose, within social architecture designed to enable self-discipline. Government then becomes government by following citizen thinking. To begin to secure the future of freedom, media must be required to offer balanced views, never opinion. And academe must dismiss peer review as the standard of intellectual quality, replacing it with strategic science