Liberty and Community

There are two tensions that dominate our political and social living. They are individualism and community. Each has its necessary functions, but they are often at odds with one another. As individuals we often feel coerced into accepting community-wide decisions that we may believe to be unwise or too restrictive. Conversely the community may resent the iconoclast who harshly criticizes cooperative efforts. Even the most steadfast loner is aware that once in a while the group format is necessary for survival. Most community members, too, understand that there are times and circumstances that become unmanageable in the midst of the group. One must focus on the issue and complete the task alone. That is what is known as personal responsibility.

Most effective community ventures are ad hoc affairs. The people come together to resolve an issue that affects the whole area. The most common examples of ad hoc organization can be found in communities that have experienced a natural disaster such as a tornado, hurricane, massive flooding or any number of potentially devastating events. The disaster often isolates the community from the outside world, and the residents must join together to secure some degree of individual safety. The most hardened individualist will embrace the community’s collective program to survive and recover.

Government represents the most forceful and permanent aspect of a community’s attempts to work collectively. The passage of rules, ordinances and laws replace the informal organization of spontaneous unity found in ad hoc event-oriented cooperative efforts. The rule making becomes a permanent element of the community, and individual laws may extend beyond their original justification. While some may view the individualist as a contrarian, her or his heightened sense of self-purpose and self-interest generates a reluctance to accept the community restrictions. Because of the power for enforcement, all government rulemaking or legislation is by nature…tyrannical. If an individual resists the rule,….for whatever reason…the collective power of the governing unit can be forcefully used to secure her or his compliance.

Not all laws, regulations or rules are wise, nor are they necessarily fair or equitable. The community (government) believes that total compliance is necessary for order and cooperative living. The individualist chafes at what appear to be meaningless attempts to coerce conformity. The individualist swims against the stream while the communitarians choose not to make waves. The slow creep of tyranny moves unabated when people suppress their individuality and fail to stir the waters of discontent and caution.

People who love liberty and citizens who protect liberty are the original “surfers” or “wave riders.” We need more of them. In a guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal (Monday, 9/26/2011), Senator Susan Collins of Maine has called for a moratorium on regulations. She revealed that there are 4200 rules or regulations waiting to be approved that could negatively impact the economy. It’s about time. Now begin repealing the others. The community is not infallible, and the individualists must resist the oppressive tyranny of a community run amok. Stand tall, and don’t be afraid to fall.

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Partial Birthrights

The genesis for this column was a panel discussion held for Constitution Day at Owens Community College in Northwest Ohio. The “abortion panel” was convened on Sunday afternoon September 18^th, 2011, and consisted of Mr. Ed Sitter, Law Professor Lee Strang and me.

The following is found in The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 2:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons

From Wikipedia:

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling by the Supreme Court (1857) that held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.^[1]
Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights.
Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in the United States. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Supreme Court for the first time ruled that laws arbitrarily requiring sex discrimination violated the Equal Protection

The point of contention that appears to be most vexing for those who are
inclined to protect life but unwilling to concede that “personhood”
begins at conception is when does life, personhood or humanity begin?
The historical and theological standard of “quickening” has been

broadened by the medical term of “viability.” Recent medical literature suggests that some babies can survive outside the womb as early as 18 weeks following conception. Clearly medical technology and advancements in pediatric care have greatly enhanced the life-chances for “preemies.” It seems, therefore, that to select “birth” as the determinate indicator for defining personhood and a person’s assumption of inalienable rights is much too indistinct. Why not latch onto historical precedence, original intent and horse-trading political compromise to delineate a starting point for a person’s individual rights?

Within the many communities and colonies in North America where human slavery was practiced, for the most part the slaves were not permitted to exercise their natural rights and had highly restrictive civil rights. Nevertheless as the Constitution was being negotiated and drafted, the slave-holding states wanted each slave to be counted for population and representation purposes. This would have resulted in a huge power advantage for the South in the Congress. Yankee politicians understood the ludicrous idea of counting someone’s personhood but not allowing them the full benefit of their humanity, so they countered that slaves had no rights therefore they should not be counted for representation. Even in the beginning of our Republic a toxic compromise was devised. As you will note from the constitutional excerpt previously given, slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining congressional representation. The compromise was significant for two primary reasons: it maintained an equilibrium of power between the slave and the non-slave states; and placed into the Constitution of the United States the notion that slaves were human….that they were entitled to at least a portion of their personhood. It is possible that if the slave-holding states had been successful in their effort count each slave as a person for representation allotments, the power shift to the South may have prolonged the institution of slavery for a few more decades.

Denying personhood to someone just because of their status in the economic strata of the nation was finally forbidden by the 14^th Amendment. The Due Process Clause forbade the denial of life, liberty and property rights to anyone for arbitrary reasons. It was then generally understood that a former slave who attained freedman’s status was the same person under either condition. Why not, therefore, recognize the unborn as potential persons just as the three-fifths formula did for slaves. This may be an awkward parallel, but isn’t the humanity or personhood of an unborn child on a par with that of a slave who may ultimately be free? Should the child be deprived of its personhood simply because of its circumstances prior to attaining full humanity? Historically we are aware of slaves being summarily murdered at the whims of others. Most of us are revolted by such inhumane treatment. The unborn children whose lives are snuffed out before they are born deserve our protection for their lives and their liberty. They should not be sacrificed as victims of their circumstances just as those early slaves who preceded them were unjustly killed because of their powerless conditions.

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The Oath of Faith

·         The Oath of Allegiance:

"I hereby declare, on oath,

that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;

that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;

that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law;

that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law;

that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

One of my fondest memories surrounding a formal occasion is from the Naturalization Ceremony held at Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia on July 4^th, 1976. President Gerald R. Ford administered the “Oath of Allegiance” to nearly two dozen people who wished to be citizens of the United States of America. It was a thrill to witness an event so inspiring on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the “Declaration of Independence” at Thomas Jefferson’s home. Later that afternoon my little family and I stood curbside on a street in Charlottesville watching a parade which featured Queen Elizabeth as the honoree. It has been more than 35 years since that memorable day. My two children are adults with children of their own, but I continue to recall many aspects of that day. Pomp and ceremonies however are not enough to preserve the essence of a nation. The country those new citizens pledged to support and defend no longer exists.

The new citizens lived in various lands around the globe, but they knew about America. Perhaps a family member had preceded them to our land, or they watched and read the news for their impressions of our country. Maybe the rumors and gossip that floated through their villages, town and cities filled them with hope and a dream for freedom and opportunity. They found a way to come here. After several years of laboring and studying they took the test and swore the oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America.....their NEW country that they chose.

When they left their native lands, they stepped out on faith. They chose to pursue freedom and opportunity. They tore up their roots and followed their dreams for liberty. A few years after that 1976 ceremony President Reagan described America as a “shining city on a hill.” He described a place where the glowing embers of liberty could be nourished to become the fires of freedom. It is so different now. The government that the Constitution of the United States brought forth has become a dangerous threat to our liberty and an enemy of our personal prosperity. The shining hill described by President Reagan has been perverted and converted to a new Mount Olympus for the political elites and their favored friends.

In theological circles when someone distorts the faith, we call it heresy. When self-serving career politicians, their corporatist sycophants, and statist fellow travelers twist their oaths of office and their constitutional obligations to their own benefit and power, we must call that treason and corruption. Neither God Almighty nor the Constitution of the United States invests them with the power or the authority to micro-manage my life....or yours.

The elitists who believe that they know more than we do about how our lives should be lived are corrupt and flat out wrong. Our liberty has been submerged beneath a tide of too-big government, and our freedom is drowning in a sea of regulation and legislation. Because of their oppressive meddling, our nation is at the brink of collapse. Because of their insistence that they know best, we are struggling to survive. Because of their cupidity and our stupidity, we may have squandered our chance for that shining city on the hill.

Thirty-five years ago a young man, his young wife, their six-year-old daughter and their infant son observed a monarch from a nation from which our country declared its independence two hundred years earlier. The majesty and power of her throne and her country has dwindled over the centuries to become little more than a memory. I pray that my children and grandchildren can someday stand on a curbside in an American city and witness the formerly powerful symbols of those who have stolen the dream. Maybe I should say....those who have mortgaged the dream. The faith and hope of those new citizens from 1976 must be restored again. The shining city on the hill must glow again. Liberty and freedom must rule again.

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Cusp of Collapse

The mass media have not adequately covered the increasing numbers of flash mobs and their assaults on innocent victims. All across the globe from the bullet-riddled Arab Spring to Great Britain to Madison, Wisconsin plus Cleveland, Philadelphia and more, violent mobs are terrorizing neighborhoods, cities and entire nations. I am old enough to remember the turbulent ‘60’s here in the United States. Violent anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and racially-charged uprisings seemed to occur with alarming regularity. The assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK had the effect of pouring gasoline on the glowing embers of discontent. The intervening half-century of statist growth has nourished the sense that government provides the essentials of life, but government provision requires confiscation from others and therein lays the tension that we note today.

We are balanced on the cusp of collapse…social collapse, financial collapse, and moral collapse. Our insatiable hedonistic appetites have allowed government to consistently over-promise and under-deliver. Our unquenchable desire for Nanny State solutions to our self-created problems have conditioned us to look to the government for remedies despite its pathetic record of incompetency and inefficiency. Our fruitless quest to escape personal responsibility has motivated us to transfer our freedom and our accountability to a bloated bureaucratic system that consistently worsens the problems and limits our liberty. Profligate spending by governments at all levels, by addle-headed citizens who MUST have it all, and union demands for owning the pie of prosperity have all been major contributors to our decline. Mythical magical “hate crimes” have mysteriously appeared in the pantheon of actionable behavior as police, prosecutors and juries have suddenly acquired the ability to read minds and totally comprehend aberrant human behavior then apply additional penalties to an already heinous crime. Diversity and multiculturalism are celebrated as the means for division rather than inclusion and integration. Governments grow larger, and our personal freedoms are fewer. Government’s means and justifications for observing and tracking citizens are proliferating. Chaos reigns, and confidence wanes.

With evidence of collapse on so many levels all around us it is difficult to focus our energies and our problem-solving skills on one particular area of concern. Each time we laser in on a perplexing issue, another one pops up to seize our attention. It’s like playing whack-a-mole when each swing is critical and dare not be off target. At some point our heads feel as if they’re mounted on swivels as the numerous moles continue to surface all around us. If you’re a regular reader of this column, you’re aware that the major premise of my writing (preaching) is that the fundamental issue that underlies all the chaos, all the madness and all the danger is the notion of our individual liberty. My greatest fear as we attempt to grasp the vexing problems that confront us is that the breakdown of society will lead to greater government control and further loss of our freedom. As the nation disintegrates, the people will clamor for order and predictability, and the governments at all levels will deliver. Remarkably, the people will turn to the greatest single cause of the chaos for remedies…..just as they….and we have done for our entire human history. It was the Nation of Israel who turned their backs on God that led to their Egyptian captivity, and they molded the golden calf after He led them out because they believed they had been abandoned in the Wilderness. We are just like them. When times get tougher, we’ll go back to the golden calf of government while forgetting how He has liberated us. We might forfeit our freedom for false security of despotic tyranny.

Liberty is the common denominator underlying each cusp-positioned, collapse-directed element of our national structure. Free people who can live their lives as they choose without harming others or their property will voluntarily seek a harmonious social order or withdraw into hermit status. Free people who do not have to support an overspending monstrosity of government will use the wealth developed by their labor, their skills and their creativity to invest, to innovate and to improve their communities. People who are free may be less inclined to beat the system or to outwit the “man.” The pressure to engage in immoral behavior to escape the strictures of an overbearing state apparatus and an “uptight” populace may lead to more awareness of the value of upright living.

Is liberty the cure-all for everything that ails us? Of course not, but it is the basic component and catalyst for forging a new beginning. Each person’s value will be determined by his or her contribution to the liberty of others. If you examine the Founding and Framing documents and the discussions that surround them, you will discover that liberty…the quest for liberty, the thirst for liberty…preceded independence, nation formation and political structure. Liberty was the foundation then, and if we wish to rebuild, restore or renew our nation, it must be the cornerstone again. Unless you believe the notion that freedom is much too quaint for the 21^st Century….then we are doomed.

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