Most people know J. S. Mill as the author of On Liberty--a hymn to human freedom and a classic of Liberal thought.
Most people don't know (or have forgotten) that J. S. Mill spent his entire working life employed by the British East India Company--an imperialist project if ever there were one.
That inconvenient biographical detail puts On Liberty in a rather different light. The book remains a hymn to human freedom, but only for some human beings--not others.
Imperialism is in the marrow of Liberalism's bones and distorts the way in which Liberals view the world. For example, Liberals are very often suckers for imperialist wars marketed (a key term) as "wars of liberation."
As a consequence, a war like the current one being waged between Russia and NATO in the Ukraine--which could be fairly described as a proxy war or possibly a civil war among pro-Russian Ukrainians in the country's eastern provinces and pro-NATO Ukrainians in the western provinces--is touted by Liberals as a war of liberation which the Ukrainians (not the cheer-leading Liberals in Europe and North America) are expected to fight to the last man, woman, and child.
The last thing Liberals wish to see happen is a negotiated peace between Ukrainians and their Russian neighbors and siblings--one that ends the conflict and loss of life on both sides.
Why? Because it exposes Liberals for the imperialists that they are. It also makes them morally responsible, in part, for one million casualties and counting. Liberals never want to be held accountable for the havoc their imperialism has wreaked throughout the world over the past few centuries. It's unseemly and calls into question the moral legitimacy of their Messianic politics.
Let there be peace between the great people of Ukraine and the great people of Russia. And let us never forget that it was the American Liberal Joe Biden who, as President, funded not only the pro-NATO Ukrainians in their war against Russia but also the Israeli (another imperialist project) genocide in Gaza.
Under such conditions, you end up with what we have in the United States in 2025: Trumpism, which is a desperate flailing about, trying to effect change by turning back the clock--impossible even if it were desirable, which it is not. With Trumpism comes an idiocracy capable only of delivering harm and chaos. The alternative is authoritarian Liberal self-delusion that this is the best of all possible worlds (cf. Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss) so stop complaining and get with the program which also delivers various forms of harm and chaos around the world.
If we have no political agency, if we cannot escape the choice of Trumpism or Liberal self-delusion, then political discussion is pointless.
Those who find this choice intolerable will need to abandon such cherished notions as: (1) the two-party system (nowhere mentioned in the Constitution) is an effective form of self-governance and (2) the U.S. Constitution itself is the greatest instrument of freedom ever conceived by human beings and, therefore, we can do no better for ourselves.
Around 1995, I became convinced that the two-party system was a disaster. I then began to advocate that we call a Constitutional convention in order to ask ourselves how to go forward as a (self-described) free people as we approached the 21st century.
For thirty years I have argued these two points (i.e., the dysfunctional nature of the duopoly and the inadequacy of an 18th century Constitution) with pretty much anyone who would listen.
For thirty years, my arguments have been met with silence or with the highly contestable assertion that we cannot do better than the system we currently have.
Some of those who asserted the latter are now suddenly gripped with panic by the prospect that we are on the verge of a Constitutional crisis.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
In any event, if we abandon those two cherished notions (which are faith claims, not facts) and insist upon our own political agency, then perhaps it's time to start talking to our friends and neighbors about where we go from here.
I have never advocated a quick fix or a violent revolution.
I have no illusions that the road to a multiparty parliamentary democracy worthy of a free people would be easily effected in these United States.
In my view, however, this is the kind of political conversation Americans should be having.
It's not a particularly "meme-friendly" conversation and the hour is very late.
But better late than never.
The failure to engage with radical ideas of political change (radical in the sense of "going to the roots" of the problems we face) is cowardly capitulation.
That is something I do not wish to be found guilty of.
