If an external force intervenes to give members of a community political self-determination, then that political community will almost surely fail to be truly free, since it is during the people's struggle to become free by their own efforts that the political virtues necessary for maintaining freedom have the best chance of arising.
Conclusion
If an external force intervenes to give members of a community political self-determination, then that political community will almost surely fail to be truly free.
Evidence (since)
It is during the people's struggle to become free by their own efforts that the political virtues necessary for maintaining freedom have the best chance of arising.
Evaluate
It's easy to see the structure of this paragraph: "Conclusion, since Premise", but it was very hard for me to compute any of this on a first read. When that happens in RC or LR, I try to use concrete examples to anchor my understanding.
If an external force intervenes to give members of a community political self-determination Okay, can we think of when an external force would give members of a community political self-determination?
I guess after World War II, the United Nations was an external force that gave members of the Jewish community political self-determination .... Maybe there's some high school where the student government is walked all over by the faculty, until some external force (angry parents) intervene to give that community of students some political self-determination.
... that political community will almost surely fail to be truly free Okay, so the Jewish state of Israel will almost surely fail to be truly free ... This student government will almost surely fail to be truly free. Why is that? The author is saying the Jewish community and the students will fail to be truly free because ...
it is during the people's struggle to become free by their own efforts that the political virtues necessary for maintaining freedom have the best chance of arising.
Okay, the author is essentially saying . Like Dad saying to Grandpa,
Our author is saying the same thing about political self-determination and freedom. If you, as some external force, just give the political self-determination, then the recipient will mistreat it and not be truly free. They need to earn it themselves in order to develop the character that will be needed to keep themselves truly free.
Goal
We want to anticipate Principle answers by saying, "If Premise, then Conclusion". The way we were understanding the argument before, that would sound like,
If you don't earn X then you won't be through your own efforts able to hold onto X
But is that really what the premise said? The premise actually says this:
don't earn X → won't have best chance yourself of developing virtues necessary for X
Okay, so the argument's move from premise to conclusion is really this:
If an external force gives you self-determination, rather than you earning it for yourself, then you won't have the best chance of cultivating the virtues you need to hold onto freedom. Thus, you will almost surely fail to be truly free.
The author is making this move:
don't do the thing will almost that provides best → surely fail to chance of X have X