In American society today, individual rights have been corrupted into little more than a sense of entitlement. On this Memorial Day, let us remember the moral responsibility and civic duty that are supposed to accompany our unalienable rights.
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Personal rights and personal freedom are not the same things. Heresy? Perhaps, but the consistent insistence and imposition of individual rights ahead of common sense, decency, and good manners have gotten out of control. Today’s proponents and provocateurs of individual rights have corrupted freedom to little more than an entitlement doled out by the benevolent and protective hand of government.
Everything from food and healthcare to easy voting and free wi-fi is routinely argued as basic individual rights today. Activists contend that the mark of an advanced and prosperous democracy is its ability to ensure such personal rights. When people speak of freedom today, they are usually referencing their right to choose, their right to live, speak, and do as they want, or their right to be who or what they want. Encumbrances to such freedoms are obstacles to overcome. Freedom is about the individual, and the government sanctifies that individual’s rights above all else – or faces the consequences.
Historically, freedom was more closely associated with individual responsibility than with individual rights. Our nation’s leaders did not define freedom in the context of individual desires and preferences, but as the absence of government interference in the citizen’s personal duties. The weight of freedom’s burden rested upon that individual, not the government. We, the people, maintained freedom by exercising the responsibility and sacrifice that kept the government’s hands off our lives.
The US Constitution included promises of individual liberties in the Bill of Rights, but even those rights were afterthoughts, literal amendments added to the original draft of the Constitution. The foundational document for our country’s freedom held virtually no references to individual rights before the founders added these amendments. The founding fathers intended the Constitution to structure a society where individual responsibility and character could flourish – not individual rights.
Individual freedom was assumed but not guaranteed because the founding fathers understood that a government could not make a citizen free. Freedom is a state of being—that state of being fulfilled when a person met their obligation to duty. In every generation, those obligations might change, but freedom and responsibility remained intimately linked to one another. In other words, freedom was earned through the application of individual responsibility, not given by the hands of a magnanimous government.
“The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the practice of the latter.”
– George Washington
“Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government.”
– Thomas Jefferson
The central platform for freedom was personal responsibility. The role of government became relevant when personal responsibility ended. For example, violators of the law suspended their freedoms, and government took over responsibility for them. They forfeited their freedoms with their lack of responsibility.
True freedom always balanced upon an individual’s prioritization of personal duty. No individual human right extends beyond the personal responsibility upon which it is built and earned. Even a war effort, although organized by the government, was fueled by the conviction of individual responsibility. That responsibility prompted sacrifice among the citizenry and the soldiers who did not scream for their rights but nobly honored the duty required for freedom to endure.
The changes to America’s understanding of individual freedom took place slowly beginning with the progressive era at the start of the 20th century. Americans saw a need for government to protect individuals against corporate behemoths the founding fathers never imagined. The industrial revolution altered the nature of business and society so that individual responsibility no longer seemed enough to fulfill the promise of freedom.
These baby steps in the transition of freedom’s burden were arguably necessary, but the principle recognized by the nation’s founders held. As the burden of personal responsibility decreased ever so slightly among individuals, the weight of the government’s role in their daily life increased. That increase meant a gradual reduction in individual freedom.
The era of the Great Depression brought more drastic shifts. Government stepped in to protect Americans from poverty and despair, as well as old age and unemployment. Taxes increased. The will of the government grew. A little responsibility for the average American’s needs was traded away. The cost was an ever-growing infringement upon personal freedom. If the government was now more directly responsible for facilitating our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that responsibility was purchased with the price of individual freedoms.
Where personal responsibility ends, government begins.
By the time the children of that generation came of age in the 60s and 70s, their collective perspective of government’s role, not to mention the nature of freedom, was radically distinct from that held by their grandparents at the turn of the century.
When they discussed (or demanded) freedom, these Americans seldom talked about the freedom of man to build a quality life or even of moral responsibility. When they spoke of freedom, they meant individual rights. Such rights were given to them by the government. They were rights protected by the government. They were rights empowered by the government. This attitude was a drastic shift from the ideals of the first century of the American nation and freedom.
“…government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Individual freedom thus corrupted is little more than an entitlement, given to us by the government because we have a right to it. This is the sad song people are singing today when they demand their rights. No matter if they are demanding personal healthcare or refusing to wear a face mask. The song is all about their rights, but it misses the element of personal responsibility that was once intuitively recognized as the ground from which personal freedom springs.
Freedom is born out of sacrifice, and sacrifice is a fundamental element of personal responsibility. Freedom cannot endure without the sacrifice of personal responsibility that undergirds it.
On this Memorial Day, as we reflect upon the sacrifices made by friends, family members, and the countless unnamed or unknown to whom we pay our respects, perhaps we might reconsider the civic duty to prioritize personal responsibility. This was the duty that drove the individual sacrifices we memorialize today. Let us stop worrying so much about what we have a right to do and let us consider what we have a duty and responsibility to do.
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Well written articles such as this one by JB Shreve often make me wonder what the founding fathers would say about our present difficulties. It’s a much harder question to answer than many assume, since their perspectives on government, culture, and society are so different than is usually the case today.
But one thing I’ve discovered pretty consistently about the founding generation was that they had a sense of republicanism that we no longer have. Their sense of civic virtue led them to believe strongly in the ideals of liberty, but it also led them to believe just as firmly that every unalienable right was accompanied by a self-evident duty.
For instance, if Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Washington were to sit down today with someone who was concerned with whether wearing masks, maintaining social distance, or limiting the size of social gatherings was an assault on our liberties, I envision they would nod knowingly and concede the importance of being wary of any encroachment of individual freedom, but then they would ask, in all solemn seriousness, whether we would be failing in an important duty if we neglected to voluntarily do even the little things that could help ensure the safety and welfare of our fellow citizens.