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those virtues that have come to be described as “family values” are good things, and that their
opposites are not, or from saying that a life lived according to the former list of qualities will be a
freer life than one sunk in hatred of one’s country, selfishness, and licentiousness. Finally, it is
entitled and required to make the argument that all of these educational goals may be pursued by
a government that still strictly limits its reach, and abides by the rule that the bulk of the lives of
its citizens is not lived under its direction, but rather under their own.
It is the third assumption here, then, that the task of a “teaching government” is a great
deal more rugged than Mill’s suggested course of preserving liberty through encouraging
“eccentricity”. It must stand for the proposition that true liberty contains a large admixture of
discipline–most of it self-discipline, in that citizens are led through precept and example to
choose the better uses of freedom, rather than being forced by external compulsion to practice
certain patterns of behavior that they do not inwardly accept. Government may–to employ
Bagehot’s phrases in a sense in which he did not intend them–advise, encourage, and warn. It
may do at least one further thing, as well: it may act. It may conduct itself so as to raise the eyes
of its citizens above a taste for physical pleasure or material well-being, and, by involving them
in public affairs, bring them to think about the best way of preserving their rights and their
liberty. In particular, it may do this in the way that it conducts its foreign policy–the area of
public responsibility in which both the dangers and the need for concerted public action are
greatest. Foreign policy demands attention; it may demand a considerable amount of tax
revenue; it may ultimately demand a great many lives. It therefore stands as the supreme example
of the proposition that a proper understanding of liberty includes an appreciation for what must
be sacrificed to protect liberty.
Convention