Rights of Personal Liberty versus Responsibility to the Country

One of the new divisions in our country that has arisen during the pandemic is the conflict between the rights of personal liberty and the responsibility to the country, that are both inherent to citizenship in our democracy. It seems that there are groups of citizens who consider that the rights of personal liberty in our country excuse them from accepting any responsibility for the welfare of their community, or the country. Or that it is considered a violation of the guarantees of personal liberty if the government enforces any actions that individuals don’t want to follow, and is therefore an unlawful use of governmental power.

This is a puzzling development for me, as a person who has made personal sacrifices of personal liberty to serve the country. But more importantly, as someone who understands that from the beginning of our country at the revolution, citizens sacrificed personal liberty greatly in the struggle to achieve independence from England, and to establish a government based on the two self-supporting core principles … that the existence of our independence as a country depends on the strength of the interdependence of our citizens. At every point in our history when our nation’s independence was threatened, it was always the interdependence of our citizens, the willingness to sacrifice personal liberty, in many cases up to and including death, that gave us the strength to endure as a free country for the past 240 years. Without the interdependence, the unity of our citizens, we could not have maintained our independence as a country based on personal liberty.

The critical value of interdependence in the protection of our liberty is clearly indicated as a part of our Founding documents. Consider the last sentence in the Declaration of Independence, which appears just before the Founders attached their signatures to the document:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

By this commitment of their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to each other as support for the Declaration, it is a clear indication to us, their descendants, that maintaining our Interdependence is essential to maintaining our independence as a country, and the personal liberties of our citizens.

As a Vietnam Veteran who didn’t experience the gratitude of the public when in uniform in the 1970’s, I am very thankful for the public expressions of gratitude, admiration, and even inspiration that is common today for the members of the Armed Forces and veterans who have surrendered much of their personal liberty to serve the country. But at the same time, too many of us seem to be unwilling to make any sacrifice of personal liberty ourselves for the welfare of their community, or the country. Nearly every policy, law, or mandate enacted for the public welfare is considered by too many citizens today to be an unacceptable compromise of their personal liberty, and justifies protest and civil disobedience. We seem to be unable or unwilling as a country to follow the example of those we claim to admire. We value THEIR willingness to sacrifice for the country, but are unable to follow their example in our own lives.

Let’s look beyond the history of our national values, to the legal basis for the duly elected representatives of the people to impose policies, laws, or mandates for the benefit of the community, and of the country overall. The Preamble to the Constitution represents a statement of purpose for the government that was established by the Articles and Amendments in the Constitution that follow. The language of the Preamble is: “We the People of the United States, IN ORDER TO … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The statements which follow the words “in order to” are those purposes the government established in the Articles and Amendments are designed to support and accomplish. They are the core purposes for the Constitution, and thus are Constitutional requirements of the government.

These core responsibilities of the government established by the Constitution are as follows:

> “Form a more perfect union, > Establish justice, > Insure domestic tranquility, > Provide for the common defence, > Promote the general welfare, and > Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,”.

The government thus established by the Constitution, including each branch, has the responsibility to exercise its authority to ensure that these core responsibilities are fulfilled. Each branch has distinct powers within the fulfillment of these responsibilities: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Under Executive authority, when there is a threat to the “general welfare” of the pubic, of the country, the President may lawfully impose executive orders to ensure the protection of the general welfare of the public. And for citizens to oppose such actions, when they are based on valid concerns for public health, which is a clear aspect of the general welfare, is not patriotism or the valid expression of personal liberty, but unlawful opposition to a valid Constitutional action.

Disagreements regarding valid Constitutional actions under our Constitution are intended to be resolved through legislation or the courts. Until and unless that occurs, adherence to the Constitution and commitment to the principles and values passed on to us from our ancestors, who defended the welfare and the very existence of the country, may require some minor level of sacrificing of personal liberty. This is not surrendering personal liberty to tyranny or to socialism, but respecting the core strength of our country, which is our unity … “from many, one” … “one nation, indivisible”. We have drifted a pretty far distance from those aspirations today. We fail to respect that core strength at our nation’s peril.

A final point. A nation where individual personal liberty exists without a commitment to serving the community or country, to a purpose greater than ourselves and our own comfort, is not democracy, it is anarchy. There can be no “perfect union”, nor uniform “justice”, nor “domestic tranquility” in an anarchy. Nations that have given way to anarchy do not endure as strong nations that can guarantee freedoms to their citizens. As stated above, it has always been the INTERDEPENDENCE of American citizens, willing to sacrifice for the country and each other, that has defined the American uniqueness, and always will. If we lose that, we lose our country.

Somehow we must restore that commitment to serving the country and each other, in both our elected officials and our citizens. I have written a book proposing Amendments to the Constitution, called the “Bill of Public Service and Accountability”. When ratified to the Constitution, these 6 Amendments would implement 16 specific changes to the current political processes and government operations, called “Citizen Rules”. These rules are designed to repair and restore our Constitutional Republic, by strengthening the focus in our elected officials and in our citizens to serving the country, in order to unite the country to become that more perfect union we seek to have under our Constitution.

You can read a summary of the “Citizen Rules” on the website at www.citizenrules.org, including the road map for implementing the changes. There is also a page for providing comments and an email link to the author. I hope you might be troubled enough by the challenges to our democracy reflected in the loss of a strong sense of interdependence, that you will consider visiting the website. If the summary of the proposed changes generates interest in the details, there is a “Buy the Book” button on the website’s home page.