The

Simple-Ideas Occasional
A publication dedicated to the study and celebration
of common sense and repeatable experiments

Robert L. Nuckolls, III

Medicine Lodge, KS
Number 002, Revision A, September 18, 2010

What’s all this Honor and Liberty Stuff about Anyhow?

Popular expressions using “honor” and “liberty” tend to
muddy a patriot’s meaning for the words. Patrick Henry
is recorded to have said, “Give me liberty or give me
death.” Hmmm . . . ‘giving’ him death is not difficult, but
how do you bestow liberty on anyone? John Adams is
quoted as saying, “Liberty once lost is lost forever.” Is
liberty so fragile, tiny or vaporous that it’s difficult to
hang onto? How does one lose it in a manner that makes
it impossible to retrieve? Further, some individuals seem
to believe that liberty is a license to do anything they wish
without restraints.
Politicians and judges are fond of referring to themselves
and each other as “your honor” or “the honorable
gentleman from you-name-it,” etc. At the opposite end of
the spectrum, it is not difficult to find members of street
gangs putting a severe hurt to some individual for having
“dishonored” one of their members. The transgression may
have been nothing more than looking at somebody’s
girlfriend with an unacceptable demeanor.
Many of society’s worst antagonists of liberty seem to
have a reverence for “honor”. They adorn themselves in
cloaks of honor. Perhaps they believe the aura of that
garment will render their dishonor invisible. Both liberty
and honor are widely used for some disparate meanings.
The purpose of this essay is to explore the manner in
which I believe our founding fathers would have used the
words. Further, it is my intent that the meanings of honor
and liberty as illustrated herein will be consistent
throughout the Simple-Ideas essays.
Some Thoughts Upon Liberty
negative right enjoins others from doing unto you; in other
words, individual liberty in this sense is simply the natural
right to be left alone.
Communal liberty is a “positive right” that gives one
license to do any honorable thing. If every citizen were
striving for an honorable existence, then there would be no
attacks upon anyone’s individual liberty, no sense of risk
in creating new associations amongst fellow citizens, and
no need for criminal law because there would be no crime.
Liberty is not a thing to be touched, picked up or
observed. Liberty is a state of being that arises from a
lack of dishonorable activity. Every citizen within a state
of liberty is free to thrive under exploitation of their own
time, talents and resources unmolested by anyone.
I’ve heard it suggested that a quest for liberty is
fundamental to the human existence, perhaps a component
of their DNA and something he or she would readily fight
for. I think history and application of common sense will
offer reason to disagree.
It’s easy to imagine children born into several generations
of slavery. They grow up being taught to render specific
behaviors in exchange for shelter, food and freedom from
punishment. Creative or thoughtful slaves are generally
undesirable. They don’t follow instructions well and may
incite fellow slaves into troublesome behaviors. They tend
to get “uppity” and want to make little demands or attempt
to bargain. These little outbursts of independent thought
are grounds for application of the appropriate “behavior
modification therapy.”

Many astute thinkers have concluded that liberty is a
condition of ultimate freedom from oppression and
tyranny; a state being free of all external and unwelcome
forces upon your person or possessions. This includes both
physical force and fraud - whether for the purpose of
depriving you of your property or inducing you to behave
in compliance with somebody else’s wishes. It’s a
“negative” right. Never heard the term “negative right?” A
Under perfect conditions of servitude, slaves are never
aware of a comfortable, stress free, rewarding existence.
Hence their thoughts never stray from the mission of doing
the expected task that will get them fed sheltered and not
beaten.
But as soon as one slave gets a glimpse of where the guy
on the horse lives, what he gets to eat, and how he spends

Copyright © 2010 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is
properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.

1
his evening leisure time playing with his kids, the
intellectual “seeds” of new and exciting idea are planted.
But until those thoughts occur, concepts of freedom to
explore ideas of self-interested benefit are not likely to
enter a slave’s mind. The slave cannot have a concept of
liberty to crave or be willing to die for until they become
aware of the potential for a better life and begin to ponder
it.
Suppose our hypothetical slave breaks away, manages to
elude capture and takes off into the mountains. Now what?
He is certainly enjoying a state of natural liberty. But
without the tools, resources and thought processes that
accompany independent self sufficiency, he may be
doomed to starvation or simply succumb to predators. I’ll
bet more than one enslaved individual has returned to his
master begging to trade liberty in exchange for food,
shelter and perhaps a promise of not being beaten too
severely as punishment for their outburst of independence.
The legendary “mountain man” may live in an idealistic
form of natural liberty but it will be a meager existence. At
a minimum he must possess tools of independent
self-sufficiency. He needs a horse, saddle, provisions,
perhaps traps, guns and knives. He probably has to trade
the product of his time talents and resources (animal furs?)
for the items he cannot provide for himself. Even for the
most rudimentary existence humans cannot thrive in a
vacuum - devoid of exchange with other individuals.
And so it is for our children. A baby’s earliest experiences
are focused on giving parents notice of discomfort.
Initially, there can be no expectation of benefit for having
raised a ruckus. But in time a baby will learn, “If I do
certain things, I can expect certain things to be done for
me.” Over time and under the guidance and support of
honorable teachers, children grow from a state of
ignorance and complete dependence to a condition of
understanding, skill and responsibility. The responsible
rearing of children produces honorable citizens capable of
independent self sufficiency worthy of an opportunity at
liberty to discover and enjoy their life’s ambitions.
Liberty offers a freedom to achieve but it comes with a
price. The most successful of our citizens perceive and
deliver on a duty to work with others in honorable,
free-market exchanges of time, talent and resources.
Communal liberty exploited to the greatest advantage of
all citizens is necessary to build a nation. Liberty allowed
to lie fallow will not build an economy nor build a
technology based on exploitation of knowledge and
understanding. If everyone sat around in a perfect state of
natural liberty producing nothing more than say a log
cabin and a garden . . . well . . . the picture may be serene
Copyright © 2010 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is
properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.
2
and idyllic but the ultimate consequences are obvious.
Thomas Paine wrote a Pamphlet in 1780 called “Common
Sense”(1) wherein he argued both the moral and practical
reasons for independence from England. In it he wrote:
“In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design
and end of government, let us suppose a small
number of persons settled in some sequestered part of
the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then
represent the first peopling of any country, or of the
world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be
their first thought. A thousand motives will excite
them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal
to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual
solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance
and relief of another, who in his turn requires the
same. Four or five united would be able to raise a
tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but
one man might labor out the common period of life
without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled
his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it
was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge
him from his work, and every different want call him
a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would
be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet
either would disable him from living, and reduce him
to a state in which he might rather be said to perish
than to die.” — Thomas Paine 1870 —
I hope this essay illustrates the fact that “liberty” is not
worth the energy required to speak the word unless one
has talents, resources and an honorable community in
which to exploit them. Further, the potential for
self-interested benefit under liberty is directly related to
the size of the community in which the individual
participates. In a nation of 320 million fellow citizens with
access to a world wide transportation and communications
system, the potential for achievement under liberty in the
U.S. is huge. This has been demonstrated by countless
successful entrepreneurs over the past two centuries.
Some Thoughts upon Honor
Human advancement from infant to independent self
sufficiency can al take a significant amount of time.
Perhaps 20 years or more. Even then some members of the
species never achieve independent self sufficiency. There
are members of humankind who in spite of their advanced
years are incapable of independent self-sufficiency so they
depend on the self-sufficiency of others.
How about individuals like Ivan the Terrible, Mao
Zedong, Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro? Really bad
folks. Honorable? Of course not. Okay how about
members of our judicial, legislative and administrative
bodies willing to “sacrifice” the liberty of others for some
notion of “greatest good.” Are these honorable
individuals? They seem to be living a life of exemplary
liberty. Threats to their persons and property appear small.
But how is it that anyone acquires wealth when their
work-product is not something they could sell over the
counter? This happens in one of two ways:
(1) They are hired to offer certain no-value-added tasks
that are components of every large institution. Indeed,
every corporation has a hierarchy of management
individuals whose time, talent and resources are useful
and necessary for elevating the market value of every
worker’s effort no matter how menial the task. These are
life’s management chefs. They possess unique talents to
organize large scale efforts for exploitation of proven
recipes for success. They are potential architects of new
recipes for success.
(2) There is another class of no-value-added activity. A
common characteristic of this second class is that they
have little if any skill at being independently
self-sufficient. While they might hold offices of
impressive title and power, they would be hard pressed to
find a job in the private sector. These folks have no
creativity, no skills for producing merchantable goods or
services. Their recipes tend to produce consistent failures.
I’ll suggest that the difference between (1) and (2) is the
manner in which they choose to be members of a society.
The first is involved in the honorable crafting of recipes
for success. They create. They are valued members of a
community because in a state of communal liberty, they
can be significant participants in the expansion of comfort,
wealth and opportunity. They conduct themselves in a
matter that promotes liberty for both themselves and their
fellow citizens. They surround themselves with individuals
pleased to see each other coming, enjoy the company
while together and look forward to the next visit. This is
the essence of honorable behavior.
The second group are a demonstrated antagonists of
liberty. Having neither honor nor independent
self-sufficiency, their survival is dependent upon the
productivity of others. If they comport themselves as thugs
and thieves, the civilized society calls them criminals,
tracks them down and restrains them from future
transgressions.
If these same individuals are makers of law then they ‘tax’
the productivity of others to finance their existence.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is
properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.
3
Because their extortion is promoted by the force of law
they call themselves “honorable.” The consequences of
their behaviors dispute this. These individuals are despotic
progressives (despros) and practitioners of dishonorable
behavior conducted as a soft tyranny. Be they thugs,
politicians or dictators, the influence exerted upon fellow
citizens and the nation is a suppression of if not the
elimination of a state of liberty.
Despros are necessarily fearful of all individuals. Despros
can find community only in the alliances of other despros.
Despro leadership is dependent upon and are surrounded
by other despros. They are a besieged group at great risk
from their most valued contemporaries - individuals
valued not for their ability to produce but for their skills in
organizing a majority of despro makers of law. Their
greatest risk comes from within an alliance of tightly
packed but not tightly knitted ruling elites. Assuming they
could figure out a way to accomplish and get away with it,
there are individuals within these shaky alliances who
would take them down in a heartbeat - politically if not
physically. What was that saying, “there is no honor
among thieves”?
These individuals are the modern incarnation of feudal
lords before the seeds of liberty were sewn by crafting the
Magna Carta. Today as in the year 1215, individuals with
the most power are a relative minority. They expend a
large proportion of their resources defending their
holdings. Today there are about 600 folks at the top in
Washington, D.C. who have elevated themselves to power
using the resources confiscated from their 320 million
“serfs.”
They are hunted by the enforcers of honorable law still in
existence. They’re preyed upon by their own colleagues
hoping to discover an exploitable weakness. Like the
nobles of old, modern incarnations of nobility scurry from
one place to another surrounded by individuals of robust
stature who also carry weapons. They are not living in
either natural or communal liberty. They are virtual
prisoners within cocoons of sanctuary of their own
manufacture and made necessary by their allegiance to a
dishonorable existence.
Another risk comes from “serfs” who still have the germ
of an idea in their brains. An idea suggesting that these
nobles have no constitutional authority to exert such
power over us . . . in fact, the vast majority of their
legislative, judicial and regulatory behaviors over the last
100 years have been unconstitutional. They see “the man
on the horse with the whip.” They know how he lives.
They know how their ancestors lived and died striving for
a state of liberty. Intellectually starved seeds of liberty are
still alive in the minds of many folks who do not come
willingly into the master’s care to trade liberty for food
and shelter.
Too many of our fellow citizens are willing to submit to
the master rather than starve or be deprived of other
comforts. Their greatest fears are driven by ignorance that
deprives them of independent self sufficiency. They also
lack the confidence that offers an opportunity to maximize
their potential for success in a state of communal liberty.
What they don’t realize is that as a serf, you become an
article of livestock in the despro’s system of self-serving
extortion. When your cost of maintenance exceeds the cost
of sustaining you, you will be scrapped just as surely as a
worn out vacuum sweeper. Just watch what’s going to
happen in the near future as funds for the single payer
health system dry up and the system crumbles. As our
president recently suggested, we need to make sure our
citizens have adequate access to pain killers.
It is easy to suppose that all those nobles at the top are
enjoying the benefits of liberty. They enjoy many material
benefits derived from the productivity of others. Hence,
their “apparent” success is achieved by a dishonorable
taxation of resources and suppression of liberty for those
individuals who make their lives comfortable. It’s a classic
example of “biting the hand that feeds you.”
The Utopian version of liberty is achieved when all
citizens are honorable. The Utopian state of communal
liberty doesn’t require criminal law, police, criminal
lawyers, courts, jails, etc. No citizen has any reason to fear
another citizen. Under these conditions, liberty is an ever
expanding cornucopia of opportunity and reward.
Our founding fathers were acutely aware of the human
frailties that threaten the Utopian state of communal
liberty. They gave us a recipe for success that produced
the most spectacular advancement of the human condition
ever seen on this planet . . . and it all happened in a mere
two centuries. Ben Franklin said, “We have offered you a
republic . . . if you can keep it.” Now before our very eyes
-----*****-----
(1) “Common Sense” a pamphlet published in 1780 by Thomas Paine http://tinyurl.com/23hkht6
Copyright © 2010 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is
properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.
we witness the dishonorable behaviors of despotic
progressivism using the force of law in a soft tyranny to
deprive a nation of citizens of communal liberty. It will
require heroic efforts on the part of honorable citizens to
reverse this trend and it must begin soon.
Honorable self sufficiency is a ticket for admittance into
membership of communal liberty. What are the risks
imposed upon babies born to children who are not
themselves honorable, self-sufficient citizens? How many
of our government schools are proficient in the production
of honorable, self-sufficient graduates who understand
liberty? What happens when applicants to college cannot
read, write, or conduct themselves in a thoughtful and
honorable manner? What might we expect when the
faculty of many colleges are themselves products of a
system that fails to educate? Finally, how might a nation
evolve when leadership’s goals are achieved only if a
majority voting individuals are sustained in a state of
ignorance and dependency upon the largess of others?
When the seeds of liberty, (ideas of what it means to have
choices) are sufficiently starved for nutrients and fertile
intellectual soil, history will repeat. After the fall of the
Roman Empire the world’s access to the benefits of free
enterprise and any semblance of communal liberty was
essentially nonexistent for centuries. Present trends in
Western Civilization portend a crash with a magnitude of
human suffering that will make the fall of Rome look like
the aftermath of Friday-night bar-room brawl.
John Adams opined, “Liberty once lost is lost forever.”
Intuitively, we can be relatively confident that it wouldn’t
be forever . . . but the practical reality for our children and
grandchildren is that a couple of centuries might just as
well be forever. It’s easy to imagine some centuries hence
that an archaeologist digs up a legible copy of the
Constitution and marvels, “Wow, what a concept!”
Where might the center of honorable, constitutional
republican government rise again? It probably won’t be in
N. America. The seeds will have to be planted in some
new geological frontier. My bet is on Africa.