Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
I blame the leftists. But it really doesn’t matter who started it, way too many of us went along with this nonsense that freedom means no limits whatsoever. Think it through: if you have no limits then neither does the other guy. You might think killing people for their lollipops is a bad plan but he might not. Who are you to limit his freedom by insisting that he not kill you so he can take your lollipop?
Sure, it’s an extreme example but here’s the thing, slippery slope is both a logical fallacy and a political reality. Yes, really and no, it’s not a true contradiction. See, the reason slippery slope is a logical fallacy is that a person can see the danger and stop. This is true for an individual; it’s not always true for a group.
Ever see the Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Foxy by Proxy”? The ‘smart’ dogs keep running through a log and Bugs keeps turning it around so that it opens over a cliff. Running in a pack, the dogs keep running out into thin air until gravity finally wins the fight. Groups have a momentum all their own and sometimes, that momentum works against the group.
Nation-states are a lot like trains. Democratic republic nation-states, like the US of A, don’t exactly have great brakes on that train. That’s part of why the Founding Fathers put every limiter on the engine they could. We occasionally grease the tracks.
I love America but I can’t figure out how the heck she survives us sometimes.
The reason slippery sloop is a political reality is that groups cannot easily stop once they get any momentum. Whether a small group that ends up going to the worse restaurant in town because a couple of people were excited about it or a full nation-state deciding that mandating masks not remotely suitable against pathogens is a good way to stop a virus, groups have a special kind of stupid when they get going.
If you still think the lollipop murder example is extreme, I would like to point out that multiple nation-states are debating the distinction between male and female and failing basic biology. Political momentum is a powerful force and very dangerous in careless hands.
Which is all just to say if we have no limits we will destroy ourselves as nations, societies and human beings. Destruction is not freedom; it’s the antithesis.
Before you go off half cocked, the opposite isn’t true, either. Freedom isn’t being limited at every turn, not even in the name of security. Freedom is living well within reasonable boundaries that protect the rights of all.
Sounds so much easier than it is. This, kiddies, is the answer to the ‘why can’t we all just get along’ question you keep pestering your Mom about. Virtually no two people will agree on just exactly what ‘getting along’ is. Formal, white tie manners? Not walking on the grass? Wandering around in your birthday suit? Only hitting ‘bad people’? Not hitting any people?
The beginning of this discussion is in morality. If you can’t tell right from wrong you aren’t going to be able to sort out which limits are good and which are bad. My examples sound extreme but there are people who are firmly convinced only fully formal manners will do in general society. Others who are equally convinced it’s perfectly okay to hit ‘bad people’ even if they aren’t doing anything ‘bad’ at the moment.
Every generation has to sort through this to a degree. A lot of the hard work was already done by generations past but even assuming we’re smart enough to not toss it all out there will still be things that were perfectly reasonable in years past but no longer make good sense. some we can just ignore and others we have to grapple with to decide what to keep and what to change.
And what kind of mess to leave to the next generation.
I started this out with a famous quote from John Adams. Franklin’s “if you can keep it’ is more my snarky speed but I think Adams is more on point. But Adams wasn’t talking about the limits that make true freedom possible or the need to keep stupid dogs away from Bugs Bunny. Adams was talking about the nuts and bolts of how a democratic republic actually works.
Look out your window. Count the cops. Most of you don’t see a single one, right? Unless a bank was just robbed in your neighborhood or the ‘hot doughnuts’ light is on at Krispy Kreme*, even those who see an officer probably only see at most one or two.
The reason there isn’t a cop living in your house making sure you don’t murder your neighbor is because you don’t need him. You can govern yourself. You may want to kill that idiot across the hall with the dog that kept you up all night but you won’t.
As long as the vast majority of people can also govern themselves, we’re golden. No need to hire millions of cops to keep us from stealing everything not nailed down. The few exceptions can be dealt with – that’s why we have a judicial system – only so long as they are exceptions. The instant immorality becomes the norm, we are doomed.
Yeah, I know. Morality has taken some pretty bad hits over the last hundred years. Funny thing is, despite what the polls say and despite what the media would have you believe, the majority still values morality. Most people think cheating on your spouse is just wrong even when making the excuse that these thing happen. Nah, they really don’t. Betrayal isn’t an accident.
Most of us don’t want to be jerks, let alone murderers. This despite over a hundred years of having the religious foundations undermined. No, we don’t have to all be Christian nor are atheists all bad people, but the principles that make up our morality universally stem from religious roots. The dominate in the Western world are Judeo-Christian. Confucianism comes as close as possible to a philosophic morality but in reality, it, too, derives from religion.
Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we do need to know that justice isn’t just a nice idea but a very real event in our future, be it here or the hereafter. Mind you, that’s a gross oversimplification that does no justice to any religion but there’s always that one jerk who has to know he’ll get a whooping before he’ll stop pulling pigtails.
A government designed to be governed by the governed themselves is completely and utterly dependent on the ability of the governed to govern themselves. That’s more than just a tongue twister. If we can’t play nice without a nanny watching over us, we cannot rule a nation-state. Simple as that.
Morals matter. They matter even more when you want huddled masses to actually breathe free. Freedom isn’t won only in the heat of battle by the blood of our heroes. Freedom is also won when we vote for the candidate we can’t stand because we think he or she is best for the job. When our morals, not the laws and not Big Brother, dictate our behavior, both in private and in the public square.
Responsibility takes all the fun out of freedom but there’d be no freedom without it.
Okay, maybe not all the fun…
*Apologies for the stereotype but I got to mention hot doughnuts in a political commentary!
