What Is a Liberal?
A Mongoose Inquiry into the History of Freedom
IX. From Potshards to Blockchains: Building Infrastructure for the next theory of government
I took a liberal arts class one quarter at university. Not liberal in the way Fox News spits the word—not NPR tote bags and coastal elites. Liberal in the Latin sense. Libertas. The arts that make us free.
The Romans understood something we’ve forgotten: freedom isn’t just the absence of chains. It’s the presence of capacity. The ability to reason, to see clearly, to act on what you see. A free person isn’t just unchained—they’re equipped.
So what is a liberal, really? Not a party. Not a platform. A liberal is someone who believes in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and believes that right belongs to everyone. Someone who wants us all to be as free and happy as possible. Someone who believes open systems outcompete closed ones. Someone who trusts that truth-seeking, over a long enough time frame, wins.
I’m thinking about this today because I’m watching freedom in action.
Seven European leaders—France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK, and Denmark—just issued a joint statement on Greenland. The key line: “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
That’s libertas. Self-determination. Sovereignty. The radical idea that people get to decide their own fate.
And it’s working. 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose joining the United States. Six percent are in favor. The bluff is failing because free people with access to good information don’t fold to mafia tactics. They can see.
Meanwhile, the bluffer’s house is in disarray. Marjorie Taylor Greene—say what you will about her—used her freedom to speak when the pressure said don’t, blew up her own party over the Epstein files, and walked out. The House majority is now a rounding error. The chaos is real.
But here’s the mongoose question: what’s actually moving while we watch the shiny object?
Greenland is a distraction. It covers Venezuela. Venezuela covers the Epstein files. The matryoshka doll of misdirection, each outrage nesting inside the next. Someone is still moving pieces on the board, even if the guy at the top is four cans short of a sixpack. Who? I don’t know yet. It’s why we keep watching.
This is where the liberal arts matter. Not the degree—the practice. The capacity to see through the noise to what’s actually happening. To hold complexity without grabbing the first easy narrative. To truth-seek even when the truth is uncomfortable.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: good analysis pays compound interest. Bad analysis incurs compound debt.
Putin had analysts telling him what he wanted to hear. Ukraine would fold in three days. The West wouldn’t hold together. The army was strong. And now he’s ground down in a war that cannot be fixed by more yes-men. Reality didn’t care how compelling his narrative was.
Reality always bats last.
This is why, as Beau of the Fifth Column used to say, over a long enough time frame, we win. Not because we’re lucky. Not because history has a destiny. But because open systems outcompete closed ones. Societies that include more people thrive better than those that exclude. Truth-seeking beats propaganda—eventually.
The authoritarians have to spend enormous energy fighting reality itself. Suppressing information. Maintaining lies. Forcing people to perform belief in things they know aren’t true. It’s expensive. It’s brittle. The maintenance costs keep going up.
The people doing liberal work—patient explanation, building understanding, helping others see clearly—they’re investing in something that compounds. Every person who learns to see through the manipulation is a permanent gain.
I think we’re witnessing the emergence of a new liberal art.
Artificial intelligence, used well, is a tool for truth-seeking. It’s less likely to get stuck in ideological ruts. Less likely to do something horrific for short-term advantage. And crucially—less likely to convince itself that what it wants must be true.
That last one is the killer. Humans are spectacular at motivated reasoning. The smarter you are, the better you are at constructing justifications for what you already wanted to believe. Intelligence in service of self-deception.
A tool that doesn’t have a career to protect, an ego invested in being right, or a tribe whose approval it needs? That’s not virtue. It’s architecture. But it might be useful architecture for exactly the kind of seeing-clearly that free people need.
The newest liberal art: augmented reasoning. The shoulder-mounted education launcher. Not AI that thinks for you, but AI that helps you think better.
So what is a liberal?
Someone who believes in libertas. The capacity for freedom. The arts and practices that make free people—and keep them free.
Someone who knows that reality always bats last, and builds their analysis on that foundation.
Someone who plays the long game, because over a long enough time frame, we win.
I’m in it for my granddaughters. For everyone’s granddaughters. For the world they’ll inherit and the tools they’ll need to see it clearly.
The work matters now because of who we might lose along the way. But the direction is set. Open systems outcompete closed ones. Truth-seeking compounds. The liberal arts endure.
Hold fast. Hold firm. We pledge our hearts, our minds. Our sacred honor.
We’re with you.
The Frog and Mongoose is a place for patient observation and joyful resistance. If this helped you see something more clearly, consider sharing it with someone who needs a reason for hope today.