This is a long (10,000 words) and excellent review of how we have (mostly?) moved from governments that are simply the tool of a king to governments that are tools of, by, and for the people. Fascinating from a historical and political perspective! Read the entire thing…

What I mean when I say liberalism is its original (and broadly international) meaning: the political philosophy which first emerged fully in the early modern period and which places individual freedoms – liberty – as its central, defining value. This is the ideology of the Declaration of Independence and the political theory upon which – however imperfectly – the United States was predicated….

And it is that distinction that brings us usefully to the particular kind of freedom: liberalism is a political philosophy which recognizes, indeed which chiefly values, individual freedom from communal constraints.

We are often so used to liberal societies – or illiberal ones that use liberalism’s language as a mask – that we miss the radicalism of that vision. As Patricia Crone notes, traditional pre-modern societies, by and large, have little space for the individual…

It is, I think, all too easy once again to miss the radicalism of this moment. In 1776 there were no governments founded on liberal ideas. ((The Declaration of Independence)) was, among other things, a radical enough document to have its publication suppressed by various European monarchies for decades; the text of the thing was banned in Russia for eight decades and in Spain for nine. In asserting the fundamental equality of mankind, in denying the divine right of kings – who only, in the document, derive their just authority from the consent of the governed – the Declaration presented an explosive set of ideas. Indeed, a set of ideas that would explode in France not too many years later.

Link: https://acoup.blog/2024/07/05/collections-the-philosophy-of-liberty-on-liberalism/.

And good news from Fix the News:

The Paris region has cut air pollution by over 50% in two decades, saving thousands of lives. Fine particulate and nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 55% and 50% respectively since 2005, reducing pollution-related premature deaths by one-third over a decade; Europe’s strict 2030 air quality standards are now being met across most of the region. Air Parif

“When you’re the emperor Augustus, they let you do it.”

The Roman Republic lasted nearly 500 years, about twice as long as Americans have had theirs. As was surely true for the Romans, most Americans can hardly imagine that their system of self-government might break and be replaced by an imperial dynasty. That is why considering what undid the Roman Republic is useful today—if we can learn from the Romans’ mistakes.

Augustus was Rome’s first emperor. In so becoming, he dismantled the republic and founded a monarchy that would last for more than a millennium. In Rome, most aristocratic men were also senators and usually held that position for life. In the later republic, some of those men—notably, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus—grew so extraordinarily rich and influential that they began to ignore the constraints of the Senate and the law. In the first century B.C.E., decades of aristocratic overreach and the authoritarian violence of Augustus’s predecessors Sulla and Caesar brought Rome to the brink more than once, but Augustus pushed it over the edge.

Full article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/rome-senators-republic-augustus/682469/. Approximately 1,250 words. Contact me if the article is blocked by a paywall.

And good news from Fix the News:

Solar and battery prices keep on falling… solar panel prices dropped 37-46% and batteries fell by 20% last year. This cost reduction drove nearly 600GW of global solar installations, with 700GW expected this year and 1,000GW annually by 2030. Solar manufacturing capacity is now three times current global demand, while 30% of all new battery storage is getting paired with solar, an irresistible combination. Renew Economy