Canadian Libertarian | X Spaces
The Canon of Classical Liberalism—The Liberty Angle
An expansive conversation between Professor Bruce Pardy and Canadian Libertarian host, Bennett Hunter. Initially, this conversation was prompted by an X exchange between Prof. Pardy and host Hunter on the three foundational concepts in classical liberalism—natural rights, rationality, and objective truth. Prof. Pardy argues these philosophical concepts are not strong enough to support political liberty. Political liberty, he says, is fundamentally the absence of coercion. The alternative to liberty is violence, including state violence. Therefore, liberty should be the default, and those advocating for coercion must justify their stance.
Prof. Pardy also looks at moral ambiguity in law and the philosophical discourse surrounding it. People give law “too much credit for something it is not,” he says. The law is “a social system of making political decisions that appear to be something other than they are.”
LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION IN FULL HERE
Related Viewing & Reading
Canada’s Constitutional Mistake: How the Rule of Law Gave Way to the Managerial State
Breaking Free from Political Polarization with Classical Liberalism