James Wilson, one of the principal architects of American liberty, argued that:
“Law and liberty cannot rationally become the object of our love, unless they first become the object of our knowledge.”
This means that if people are not educated in the principles, duties, and moral structure of liberty, they will neither love it nor fight to preserve it. Instead, they will be vulnerable to the illusions of managed democracy, where voting is mistaken for real power and bureaucracy quietly usurps the role of the people.
https://www.academia.edu/96765548/The_Common_Sense_American_Republic_The_Political_Philosophy_of_James_Wilson_1742_1798_
Self-Governance Requires Training, Not Just Information
A republic is not just a political system; it is a way of life that requires constant, intentional participation. But this participation is a learned skill, not an instinct.
The vast majority of people today have been:
• Trained to be passive recipients of policy, not active shapers of law.
• Conditioned to outsource governance to experts, believing they are too uninformed to engage.
• Kept in a state of epistemic dependency, where they do not even recognize the knowledge they lack.
This is why we cannot rely on voluntary participation alone to restore a culture of self-governance. People who have never been taught self-governance do not even know what it looks like. They must first be trained before they can choose it.
Making Education in Self-Governance Non-Negotiable
So what does this look like in practice?
1. Civic Education Must Be Restored as a Mandatory Foundation, Not an Elective.
• Every citizen must be educated in Natural Law, Constitutional Governance, Popular Sovereignty, and Epistemic Self-Defence.
• This cannot be reduced to “civics” as it is taught today; it must be a rigorous, lifelong engagement with the principles of liberty and self-rule.
2. Active Participation Must Be Required, Not Optional.
• Self-governance is not just knowing how government works, but practicing the skills necessary to uphold it.
• This means restoring direct civic engagement; public debates, legal education, and local governance structures that train people in responsible self-rule.
3. Dependency on Managed Democracy Must Be Broken.
• The illusion that voting is sufficient engagement in governance must be dismantled.
• People must understand that sovereignty is not delegated to politicians; it is actively exercised by the people at all levels.
The Final Question: Will We Choose Liberty or Passive Comfortable Submission?
If people continue to see education in self-governance as just another consumer preference, then the battle is already lost. Liberty cannot survive in a society where self-rule is seen as optional rather than as the necessary condition for sovereignty.
A nation that treats self-governance as a choice will soon find it taken from them.
The question is not whether this education should be mandatory - the question is; whether we are willing to watch liberty die in its absence.
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