I just finished up Montesquieu for a class on political theory. I know economists will probably roll their eyes, but I liked the readings on the whole. From yet another passage in his magisterial work The Spirit of the Laws:

It is the triumph of liberty when criminal laws draw each penalty from the particular nature of the crime.

If one were to take a step back and examine the laws of the United States today, would one find Montesquieu’s liberty? I am thinking specifically of the drug war, and how there is almost nothing so cruel and opposed to liberty than Washington’s stance on drug use (and abuse).

In another section the book, I found this to be the most compelling summation of classical liberal thought I have ever read (no really):

There are two sorts of poor peoples: some are made so by the harshness of the government, and these people are capable of almost no virtue because their poverty is part of their servitude; the others are poor only because they have disdained or because they did not know the comforts of life, and these last can do great things because this poverty is a part of their liberty.

I can’t think of a better defense of individual liberty than this.  Perhaps I am being too nuanced in my reading of this passage, but it struck a chord with me.  I’d like to hear what sort of passages you have heard in regards to liberty over the years that have a profound impact upon the way you think about the world!