Let's go.

Welcome to Citizen.

Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects of late, and that is the Articles of Confederation, Libertarianism,

and the hard truth about liberty.

There is this kind of political idea that sounds beautiful right up until the moment somebody has to stand post

out into the cold sometimes we call it utopian sounds noble in a warm room sounds morally clean

in a debate sounds principled on paper it tells you that power is dangerous. That centralized authority

tends to grow beyond its stated purpose. That bureaucracies multiply, that rulers lie.

The taxes rise, that laws pile up, and that freedom is safest when government is weak,

scattered, and restrained.

Now, there's some truth in that. There's a lot of truth in that. Real truth. Americans, of all

people, should feel that truth in their bones. We were born in resistance to a distant power.

We did not emerge from history as a people who trusted centralized authority.

We emerged as a people who had to learn from the fear of it, as it was used to oppress us.

That fear was not paranoia.

It was memory.

There's a memory of a distant government imposing taxes from across the ocean.

Memory of decrees issued by men who did not know us and did not care to know us.

Memory of assemblies treated as inconveniences of troops,

charters ignored, and power exercise without proper respect for local liberty.

So when the revolution ended and the Americans had to decide what kind of union they would build,

they did what men often do after surviving one danger, they overcorrected toward the opposite one.

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