free write, commonplace, (don't know where i was going with this :))

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. -Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson


Advocating maximum individual liberty and the minimization of state presence, Thomas Jefferson has yielded very influential political viewpoints to me. Deriving much of his influences from philosophers of the early enlightenment era, this Libertarian figure ultimately crystallized individualism and influenced/advocated the transcription of the greatest documents ever bestowed to man, the constitution and the bill of rights. But perhaps his greatest political/philosophical contribution was his weary suspicion of big government that constantly brooded over him. This suspicion eventually bored protectionist measures such as the second amendment, checks and balances, and judicial review.
Being libertarian, I want to unearth the commonplaces that comprise this ideology in order to have concrete faith in my political views.
After diminishing all ideologies into commonplaces,I found that probably the most foundational commonplace supporting libertarianism is that liberty is a “law of nature”.
John Locke, in his “Two Treatises of Government” first mentions this statement, in order to refute Filmer’s claim that submission to authority is “law of nature”. Here, Locke basis his argument on the notion that god created Adam so he could live freely (In response to Filmer’s claim that men are subservient to their fathers, the first father being Adam). To put into a more modernized perspective, men have an innate sense of freedom, derived from primordial human mentality, in which they used ambiguity and decision making as a means of survival.

The foundational commonplace of the enlightenment era, “reason is the primary source for authority and legitimacy” also contributes to his argument, justifying the importance of nature. Here, nature and reason are synonymous, since reason is determined by what is natural. With this in mind, one could conclude that liberty is the only rational way to exist. However, this (circular) argument may cause objection as to what the importance to reason is