Limits of Liberty

In America today, there is much debate both in government circles and among the public-at-large, as to how much liberty should be afforded to the general populace. There is in evidence today a strong desire to curtail the freedoms of other people, if their exercise of it rubs us the wrong way, and rattles our cages. Protection of people's feelings against all possible emotional injury seems to trump First Amendment free speech rights in particular these days. Both the political Left and the political Right are guilty of seeking recission of freedom on these grounds.

The problem with this approach to law and justice in controlling behaviour is that we do have the 14th amendment in our Constitution. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and one man's villain is another man's hero. So, how can we protect everybody's feelings against all possible sense of offendedness in a way that meets 14th amendment requirements? The answer is simple: that cannot be done!

In deciding which actions and modes of behaviour should be permitted and which should be prohibited, we should just ask four questions: 1)Does the action or behaviour inflict physical violence and injury upon anybody? 2)Does the action or behaviour inflict damage and destruction upon the properties of others, without the consent of the owner(s)? 3)Does the behaviour pick anybody's pocket or bank account? And 4)Do all parties directly involved in the behaviour or action voluntarily agree to it? If the answer to any one of the first three questions is "YES" and the answer to the fourth question is "NO", then the action or behaviour should be legally prohibited. But if the answer to all three of the first three questions is "NO" and the answer to the fourth question is "YES", then the behaviour or action should be permitted, and third-party observer offendedness be damned!

Collective society also has rights; however, the burden of proof is always on the claimant. America was not originally established as an absolute majoritarian democracy; rather, it was established as a republic, in the which individual citizens SHALL be granted certain enumerated freedoms which cannot be rescinded either by government or by majority will of the people. As Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman once put it, VOX POPULI VOX HUMBUG! If collective society-at-large would claim that the actions or behaviours of free individuals threatens to somehow damage society-at-large, the burden of proof in the matter should be on the collective entity rather than upon the individual. As the most vulnerable in our society and in our nation, individuals need the shield of the law most of all, against either maddened mob-ocracy or government goon-squads.

The Bible book of Matthew 18:12-14, records the words of Jesus Christ, telling His apostles the story of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the flock of 99 sheep to look for the one which is lost. This parable tells us that God unequivocally considers each and every individual supremely precious in His sight. Here is the basis of individual civil liberties, in the which the nation's founders proclaimed absolute inviolability as man's "natural God-given right".

Sad to say, as America turns its collective back upon God and the positivist school of legal thought replaces the naturalist one of our nation's founders, the proposition possesses the collective American mind that rights are from the generosity of government, to be granted or rescinded at its political convenience. We cannot claim to be a truly free nation, while living in fear of what may happen to us, if our neighbor is also free. Freedom is indeed risky business, but America was not established by cowards. How much longer will the American flag wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? The nation's founders observe us today from their heavenly abodes with the gravest of concern.

-Lawrence K. Marsh