Neither consistent nor honorable. Classical liberalism of Locke, Say, Bastiat, etc was opposed to the subordination of the individual to the collective. Modern liberalism is that same collectivism which opposed Locke and Mill.

The argument Mill put forth in “On Liberty” is that individuals are competent to handle freedom and the presumption should be on the side of individual freedom, negative freedom, not positive freedom which collectivizes all of the individual’s resources like Rawls does.

The liberal answer to this is well known. Robert Paul Wolff in his “The poverty of liberalism”, Amy Gutmann in her “Liberal Equality,” and Gaus in his “The modern liberal theory of man” all claim the same thing: Mill was only half right. The presumption of individual liberty should exist in areas where man is competent to make his own decision, but the liberal concludes that man isn’t competent to make his own decisions in most areas.

The result is an infantilization of man, the Hobhousean “man as child” theory of man, which Mill so heroically opposed. Mill rightly saw that if you treat men like irresponsible infants, they will act accordingly. The results can be seen in modern society, where Americans epitomize irresponsibility.

also, is it possible for social actors to foresee all of the consequences arising from their efforts to push humanity in a positive direction? by this, i am questioning whether the humanistic model that you seem to embrace accurately conceptulizes human intentionality.

this line of interrorgation is not meant to reflect evolutionary psychology or sociobiology. rather, i wonder how you defend your position against anti-humanists who stress the unintended consequences of human agency.

i just read a manuscript in which the author argued that the civil rights movement – through which african americans attempted to redefine citizenship, making it race-less social identity – had the effect of obfuscating regional identities within the african american population, along with the unique forms of subjugation under which such specified identities suffered.

in fact, the discourse of martin luther king contributed to the bifurcation within the african american population; a distinction made between the “good blacks,” and those who failed to conform with the behaviors associated with citizenship, or the “bad blacks.” this dichotomy, according to the argument, contributed to the contemporary schism between middle-class african americans and the urban poor and underclass.

therefore, even a social movement oriented toward “freedom,” can entail contrary consequences by simply unwittingly creating new forms of oppression.