Over the last several decades of American political life the idea of liberty has taken a back seat to that of democracy. Liberty involves human beings governing themselves, being sovereign citizens, while democracy is a method by which decisions are reached within groups. In a just society it is liberty that is primary – the entire point of law is to secure liberty for everyone, to make sure that the rights of individuals to their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness is protected from any human agent bent on violating them. Democracy is but a byproduct of liberty. Because we are all supposed to be free to govern ourselves, whenever some issue of public policy faces the citizenry, they are all entitled to take part. Democratic government rests, in a free society, on the right of every individual to take whatever actions are needed to influence public policy.
Because freedom or liberty is primary, the scope of public policy and, thus, of democracy in a just society is strictly limited. The reason is that free men and women may not be intruded on even if a majority of their fellows would decide to do so. If one is free, which means a self-governing person, then even the majority of one's fellows lack the authority to take over one's governance without one's consent. This is what the US Declaration of Independence means when it mentions that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed: In a just society no one loses his or her authority for self-government without giving it up as a matter of choice. No one gets to do surgery on you, no matter how wise and competent, without your giving your consent, and the same is true, in a just system, about imposing duties and obligations on people. They must agree to this. If they do not, they aren't to be ordered about at all. The only apparent exception is when it comes to laws that protect everyone's rights. One may indeed be ordered not to kill, rob, rape, burglarize and assault other persons, even if one fails to consent to this. And when the legal authorities do this job of protecting individual rights, they may order one to abstain from all such aggressive actions. So one might say that the US Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, was meant mostly to be a defensive document, constraining and not expanding the authority of government.
Great article. One of the reasons we are failing is that we have instituted policies of democracy and forgotten our birth as a Free Republic.
ReplyDeleteNow the "takers" outnumber the "makers" and it is only a matter of time before chaos and crime rule the day.