The Responsibility of Democracy

It should go without saying that the president (or congressmen) should not threaten the speech rights of U.S. citizens, whether they be NFL players, left-wing news organizations, or right-wing speakers. It should go without saying, and yet, depressingly, it needs to be said.

But government actors are not the only ones who bear the blame in the current devolution of civil discourse. We, the people, have fostered this cultural malaise by failing to hold our elected leaders accountable to their designated roles--i.e., upholding the Constitution--and instead demanding that they provide the cure to all of society's problems that the republic was never designed to fix.

Josh Barro's piece in Business Insider makes the bizarre claim that government should actually try to, you know, govern. At least it only sounds bizarre when we are so accustomed to government standing in loco parentis for us. Barro says that voters brought this on themselves somewhat when they ignored legitimate questions of policy--think Trump's border wall--and turned them into identity crises. He goes on to propose that Making Politics Boring Again^TM could prove to get elected officials to focus on things they can actually fix rather than bogged down by those they cannot.

I followed Barro's premise for the first half or so of his piece, but I disagree with his assessment that the solution to mismanaged government is better (read: more!) government. Barro misinterprets a root cause of political unrest as a symptom. He fails to recognize that politicians are reflecting the rising culture wars not simply to appeal to voters, but because it removes the pressure of government from themselves. The political parties thrive when the citizenry becomes more polarized. It allows them to whip their bases up as a front while pulling strings together in the background.

Therefore, the solution is not to further involve government in settling our differences, but to take the role of responsibility upon ourselves to demand change from within. If you're mad that your neighbors don't like you because of your sexual orientation, take it up with your neighbor, not your state commissioners. If you think the world is going to shit because no one believes in God or says "Merry Christmas" anymore, then pray for the world in your home and in your church; don't attempt to legislate morality. If you watch sports as an escape from reality and wish people would stop politicizing it, then stop celebrating the use and appearance of military force in the form of pregame flyovers and paratrooper drops. And if you want to sell your message that #BlackLivesMatter and police violence must stop, then it's time to realize that police exist to enforce laws and calling for more laws and regulations only provides more avenues for violence.

The first three words of the Constitution tell each and every one of us who is in charge of this nation. It is not some man--or someday, woman--who sits in an oval office in a white house. It is not 535 men and women who pat themselves on the back about the monumental thousand-page laws they pass but cannot bother to read. It is not even nine men and women in black robes who have the lifetime responsibility of reading and interpreting those thousand-page laws.

No. The power did, does, and always will reside with WE, THE PEOPLE. In his famous "Spirit of Liberty" speech in 1944, Judge Learned Hand revealed the importance of remembering that liberty starts and ends with us, and if we do not have the courage to protect it, nothing else can or will:

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it . . . While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

Take up the mantle of liberty, friends. Do not let it die by the hands of those in power. Do not let them whittle down your resolve. Stand firm in knowing that the United States government derives its power from you, and therefore must answer to you. Resist oppression and abuse of power. Do all these things, and before the end is nigh, we might just save this country.