Land of the free (if we can keep it)

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

(6/2020) "I hold it to be... a detestable maxim that, politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything." So wrote Alexis de Tocqueville after his observation of American democracy in 1835. This statement is so jarring to our democratic ears that are awoken only by the energizing stimuli of a rights-based mode of political thought. What de Tocqueville was considering, I think, was the importance of the consequent responsibilities that come about when any discussion of rights is offered.

We have a very special situation in America. Our Constitution was framed under the notion that man has free will, that he can act for reasons and that he is capable of being the subject of his own actions; it was assumed that all of these capacities were given to him as a gift from the Almighty. The use of this freedom that man can activate, then, can be described as the ability and the responsibility to pursue and do the good. True freedom should not be considered to be a merely material ability to do what one is technically able to do. On the contrary, freedom constantly considers what one ought to do. Free speech, for example, should not be characterized by the mere ability to say whatever words that one can think of; such a definition would lead to incomprehensible babble. Instead, this freedom to which Americans habitually refer is properly employed when the right thing to say is uttered at the right time and in the right circumstances. An attention to such a definition certainly leads to a more thoughtful, and dare I say, more free people.

This notion of freedom that was accepted by the founders of the nation confirms the notion that America has been, is and always will be, an idea. The men and women who have died for their country in foreign and domestic battles laid down the burden of their sacrifice in order to protect a sacred idea that every person is made in the image and likeness of God. These courageous patriots who gamble their physical order out of a reverence for the order of their society model for civilians the ideal of what it means to be an American. Through their sacrifice, we recognize that freedom cannot be separated from its unending search of the true, the good and the beautiful. Through their order, we recognize the intimate connection between obeying the wise and practical success. Through their diligence, we recognize the importance of rejecting our preference for pleasure in pursuit of physicalizing the ideals that we hold dear.

Indeed, the image of the soldier has served and continues to serve as a beacon of hope not for what this country once was but as a perpetual symbol for what this country could be. Our time reminds us, perhaps in a starker manner than any past memory, the urgency of protecting the American idea so as to preserve the virtues that it holds up as the height of human flourishing. This idea that the collective American mind has been contemplating for the past 244 years allows for individual persons to succeed and fail in their own way. The glory of their successes could have only been achieved with the aid of their neighbor and the pity of their failures might have only been avoided by this same helping hand.

The successes of American local, state and national governments come about when those institutions recognize that their role is one of protection and not one of charity. Surely there is a difference between the giving of loaf of bread out of love and care for the recipient and the giving of that same loaf because it is the provider’s job. The former requires a personal and original initiative to provide for those in need; the latter requires intergovernmental confirmation that the necessary funds are present for this exchange of utility. The former causes the provider to hurt, even in a minor way, because they lost their free gift; the latter causes no such struggle.

A return of the American idea requires a rejuvenation of civil society. The American founders recognized that the future triumphs of the nation that they were building would come about from an internal drive toward the good in the mind and heart of a citizen and through the mutual cooperation of fellow patriots who had that same motivation. Through the vision of the founders, the government was merely seen as a necessary institution to protect the human genius that desires such greatness.

Great skepticism arises in my mind, then, when the government institutes a new program focused on bettering the lives of the great people who live in a given geographical region. There is no person more concerned with the bettering of his own life than that individual himself. To be clear, it is often the case that we falter from the right path or are even ignorant of the existence and nature of such a path. At the same time, it is ultimately incumbent upon each individual to care for himself in the same way that he would care for a dear friend. It seems that the government has no ability to develop such a personal relationship with a person to the extent that this institution cannot express authentic love. Instead of focusing on the impractical goal of developing an unnatural relationship of love between the government and its people, there should be a recognition between both parties that the role of the former is to protect these wholly personal acts of love between those whom make up the latter.

The separation should be distinct, then, between the American government and the American idea. This idea is lived out every day by men and women who implicitly subscribe to the duties and responsibilities that their churches, families, workplaces and societies place upon them. The greatness of our nation exists because of the greatness of her idea and that of the citizens whom valiantly live it out.

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