Chapter 35 of 48 · Students of Liberty by Leonard E. Read
New Name for Lost Liberties
New Name for Lost Liberties The understanding of liberty requires these intellectual ventures into the areas of the unknown or, more likely, *It is a common belief that government has been responsible for devel oping the use of atomic energy. But all of the theory was worked out by free, as distinguished from directed men. The principle of violence was applied to secure the funds to put the theories into an immature practice. Violent means achieved violent ends. Had the theories awaited the demand of a free market before being put into practice, atomic energy would eventually have been a boon, not a bomb, to mankind. 45 into the areas that have become unknown. Have you not noticed the vigor we employ when a present liberty is threatened and then, when it is lost, how soon we refer to it as a "social gain"? How can one who has been thus trapped, or who himself has lapsed into thinking of a new restraint as a "social gain," possibly identify the liberties we have lost? He has lost his own knowledge and his own understanding to the same extent that he has altered his terms.
Students of Liberty
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