Thread by @ConceptualJames

The simplest axioms of Classical Liberalism are:

1) Reality/Creation exists objectively, not subjectively, and separately from the divine;
2) It is rationally comprehensible;
3) None of us being divine, we only have political authority over others that we can earn w/o coercion.

(1) No matter how tough or privileged your life is, reality is objective. It's external to us all. Yes, we're part of reality, but it would carry on almost exactly like it is (and with the same physical laws) without us. Truth is not a subjective affair.

That is, reality is objective, and that means it is also universal. Though our faculties are limited, each one of us has the capacity to "do the experiment" to attempt to understand how reality works, and no one's theory, no matter how great, is right by dint of anything else.

Nothing in the universe cuts down arbitrary and illegitimate power like this simple fact. Literally anyone can interrogate reality or check someone else's interrogation of reality for quality and present their results for any and all to see. Wrong will be shown wrong.

(2) This tells us that, for whatever reasons, religious or just 'cause and beyond the reaches of what we can know, reality can be comprehended. It also tells us that our emotions, including our sincere beliefs or personal stakes, have nothing to do with truths about reality.

Reality is comprehensible and, for some (maybe inscrutable) reason, knowable. That means not only can we know about Nature, but we can learn about ourselves, including that we are limited and finite and that among our (epistemic) limitations reside our emotions and passions.

Drawing back to Greek thinking, the architects of Classical Liberalism realized that the passions must be restrained by reason, not the other way around, if we are to navigate objective reality successfully. Passion is great for many things but not for authenticating truths.

Thus Classical Liberalism eschews not only special standing, special authority, and final say but also emotional reasoning where matters of truth and falsity are on the table (social experience can be different to this). Reality is knowable by the intellect, and with difficulty.

Put another way, understanding reality requires restraining Pathos in order to comprehend some parts of Logos. In this way, Classical Liberalism doesn't make self-flattering assumptions about man but rather very sober analyses about our shortcomings and solutions for them.

(3) Thus, we come to the matter of how to assign political authority, as every polis (organization of people) must. There must be hierarchy and order, but how can it be determined where none can be said to have divine right, hidden insight, Gnostic Election, or any such thing?

The starting place is that none of us automatically deserve any political power over others except in exactly one domain: parents over their own children up to some age of legal adulthood. All other political power on any level must somehow be earned with consent from others.

Another way of phrasing that idea is this:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

You have probably heard that before, or I hope you have, and it goes beyond government.

In a Classical Liberal system, there is no just authority of one man over another, save parent over child, without the consent of both parties to the arrangement, which would, lacking coercion or force, have to be decided on perceived merits relevant to the relationship.

Certainly perception could be wrong, but in the Classical Liberal system, both parties to an arrangement of hierarchy have to consent to their role in the hierarchy, and that consent is provisional and temporary, meaning it must continually be assented to.

You have heard that idea in the specific case of just government as well: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."

Liberal consent is always provisional.

The reason is simple: we are all limited, so there is no default hierarchy of men over men. All hierarchy among men must arise from consent granted on merits perceived, or for other reasons all parties involved consent to, again, save parents over their children.

In other words, Classical Liberalism is a political philosophy founded upon the notion that we should recognize our humility and organize our society around it, rather than around the proud foolishness that anyone might declare themselves fit to rule over others and be obeyed.

Classical Liberalism is therefore a political philosophy that is aware of and allergic to the human tendency to usurp, wield, and abuse arbitrary power (tyranny), and that's why it generates more freedom and prosperity than any other system in the history of mankind.