Henry David Thoreau argued that every reader should demand an accounting of an author - asking what they stand for before reading anything they write. In that spirit, I want to open our blog with an entry that does just that.
I had the great fortune at a young age of working for Allen Wallis, who had a long distinguished academic career, culminating with his successful tenure as the President of the
Allen came into my office one morning and found me reading the Wall Street Journal's opinion page. Since this was early in President Reagan's first term in office, I figured I was on safe ground. But, Allen immediately asked me, "What the hell are you reading that for? Don't you have thoughts of your own?"
It turned out to be the most liberating thing anyone could ever have said to me. I found out that I did, in fact, have thoughts of my own. Allen's challenge to think for myself was really a challenge to avoid conforming to the cant of party or partisan affiliation. What Allen warned me against was the prejudice that naturally follows conformity of any sort. That has made all the difference.
What that means for this blog is the following. Two bedrock principles inform my outlook on politics, society, economy policy and foreign affairs. The first is human freedom. Human freedom is, in my view, the irreducible measure by which any society should be judged.
Does a government's actions expand or limit liberty? Does a candidate seek office to expand the scope of individual choice or seize power to impose an agenda of his or her own? Does a social group's mores acknowledge and encourage diversity of thought, or is the group's goal the pursuit of exclusive privilege?
Regardless of a person's social standing, income, political beliefs, religious creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any of a dozen other indicators by which we tend to group ourselves, the ultimate test of a person's humanity is their willingness to encourage a diversity of thought and action that expands, rather than restricts, the human prospect. That logic applies with equal force to society as a whole.
That is not to say that liberty has no limits. Plainly, the exercise of freedom finds its natural bar when it begins to deprive others of their own freedom. It is not an easy line to draw. Many of society's fissures lie along the fault line where one person's or one group's liberty confronts another's.
Yet, defining liberty and its limits is the challenge we must confront. Serious consideration of how policies or social standards affect our freedom, rather than the cacophony that confronts us on cable news channels, is the real work of democracy. It is both the burden and principal benefit of living in a free society.
The second principle that guides my thinking - hard money - is a corollary of the first. Political philosophy and economic theory have fallen into a similar logical trap. By dividing freedom into separate realms - political, on the one hand, and economic, on the other - both fields have missed the broader truth that freedom is ultimately indivisible.
It is axiomatic that, in the absence of economic freedom, individuals lack the wherewithal to exercise their political rights. Equally, without their political freedom, individuals lack the ability to affect the actions of society and government that so often define economic possibility. Freedom is not neatly segregable into the realms to which professors of philosophy and economics would consign it.
So, what does that mean in practical terms? By hard money, I mean a measure of the extent to which society adopts the institutions and rules that encourage the exercise of freedom in both realms.
Does society reward the freedom of thought which encourages innovation? Do our economic policies reward the individual initiative and industry that is the source of all economic progress? Does the incentive structure reward the thrift and self-possession that a free society must demand of every individual? And, does society encourage the acquisition of skills and habits of learning that will allow individuals to take full advantage of the freedom on offer?
In answering those questions as current events present them, I hope we can provide a touchstone for a conversation that vindicates our past and illuminates our future, as well as finds a constructive way forward.
I have practiced politics over the course of my professional lifetime. I have helped pass significant pieces of legislation through Congress and, perhaps more importantly, helped block a dozen more profoundly bad ideas from becoming law. I have negotiated with foreign governments about going to war, restructuring debts, expanding trade and encouraging human rights.
I have also been an active participant in the market - as an international lawyer advising clients on investments and governments on trade agreements, as an entrepreneur launching my own business, and as an investor trying to find companies that offered new approaches to old challenges, as well as good management and a focus on their shareholders' money.
I intend to bring all of that to bear on what gets offered here without fear or favor.
