What We Forgot That John Told Us

Eric McQuiston
Dec 12, 2025
4 min read

I came to John Locke in a quiet place, both physically and mentally. I was serving on an isolated post in the Mediterranean while in the Coast Guard, far removed from the noise of modern politics, media, and constant commentary. This was before the Internet as we know it today. There was no endless stream of opinion, no algorithm feeding outrage, no instant consensus to join or reject.

What I learned then, I learned by reading.

I read scripture. Philosophy. History. Slowly, deliberately, and often alone with the text. Locke was not an assignment or a citation. He was something closer to a companion in thought, someone trying to describe how flawed human beings might live together without destroying one another.

What struck me most was not how radical his ideas were, but how restrained they were. Locke was not chasing perfection. He was warning about excess.

Government Was Never Meant to Give Me My Rights

One of the clearest lessons Locke offers is also one of the most frequently forgotten: government does not grant rights. It exists to protect rights that already belong to us.

Reading Locke in that environment, removed from modern political theater, made that point impossible to ignore. Rights that come from government can be withdrawn by government. Rights that preexist government place limits on it.

Once you see that distinction, it becomes difficult to accept the casual expansion of authority as merely the cost of order. Legality and legitimacy are not the same thing. Locke was explicit about that.

Consent Is Something That Can Be Lost

Locke never treated consent as a box checked once and forgotten. It was something living, dependent on trust and representation.

From a distance, it became easier to see how often people are told they consent simply because a process was followed, even when outcomes consistently ignore their interests or values. Locke would have recognized that tension immediately.

When citizens begin to feel ruled rather than represented, the social contract is already under strain.

Power Was Supposed to Be Restrained, Even When Well Intended

Locke’s suspicion of power was grounded in an honest assessment of human nature. Good intentions do not negate temptation.

He understood that emergencies invite overreach and that temporary authority has a way of becoming permanent. The safeguards we now criticize as inefficient were designed to slow decision making precisely because haste invites abuse.

Reading those arguments without modern commentary made their clarity hard to dismiss.

Property Was About Independence, Not Accumulation

Locke’s writing on property is often misunderstood. It was never simply about wealth. It was about independence.

Property represented the result of labor and the ability to live without being subject to another person’s arbitrary control. That idea resonates differently when life is reduced to essentials, when effort and self sufficiency are not abstract concepts.

A society that weakens the link between labor and ownership weakens liberty along with it.

Obedience Was Never Absolute

Locke believed stability mattered, but not at the expense of justice. When government violates trust and persistently infringes on rights, obedience ceases to be a moral obligation.

That does not invite chaos. It sets a boundary.

From the perspective of service, that distinction matters. Loyalty to a system is not blind. It is conditional on the system honoring its purpose.

Tolerance Was a Practical Necessity

Locke’s defense of tolerance was not idealistic. It was practical.

He understood that societies collapse when they try to enforce uniformity of belief through power. Coercion creates resistance. Reasoned coexistence preserves peace.

That lesson feels especially relevant in a time when disagreement is increasingly treated as a moral failure rather than a fact of human life.

Freedom Assumes Responsibility

Locke assumed citizens capable of reason, restraint, and moral judgment. His system does not survive on emotion, slogans, or perpetual outrage.

Freedom demands discipline. It requires people willing to think carefully, accept limits, and resist the comfort of absolutes.

When citizens abandon that responsibility, they create space for the very authority they claim to oppose.

What I Think We Forgot

Reading Locke before information was instant and curated forced a kind of patience that is rare now. Understanding came from sustained attention, not repetition.

We remembered Locke’s language and forgot his conditions. We embraced rights while neglecting the discipline required to sustain them. We demand liberty while tolerating the erosion of the structures that protect it.

Locke offered no guarantees. Only a framework built on restraint, trust, and moral seriousness—from rulers and citizens alike.

What he told us, quietly and plainly, is that freedom does not maintain itself.

It must be understood. Practiced. Defended.

And that responsibility has always rested with us.

ERIC'S SPACE