Freedom does not mean nothing is forbidden.
With it, the state of freedom, when exercised in a civil society, carries certain prohibitions, duties and responsibilities to others who wish to exercise their own freedom.
Understanding where the line is and respecting the freedom of others is a little thing called a sense of propriety, something largely forgotten in these soul trying times.
Propriety is defined as the “state or quality of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals” or the “details or rules of behavior conventionally considered to be correct.” While Americans are notorious for pushing the limits, there has always been a common understanding of an appropriate level of decorum expected from people on the inside and outside of our social-political system.
In 1759, Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, wrote:
“We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality. We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.”
To a large extent, the root of our shared disappointment is America’s loss of any sense of propriety, any sense of behavior consistent with respect for the unwritten traditions that preserve the unique common virtue of the American people.
Now it seems there are no rules.
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
So wrote Thomas Paine in December of 1776.
It certainly seems our souls are being tried in these times.
Each year seems to be the culmination of over a century of attacks on propriety by the political progressive left in a ruthless quest for power but unfortunately for us, the hole still gets deeper.
The shovel that keeps digging is that people who lack a sense of propriety always pursue what they can do without asking themselves if it is something they should do.
Decades of our politicians promising instant gratification for its adherents as they pursue long term ideological superiority has blurred any line that was once indelible and uncrossed.
While there is enough blame to go around, only one side of the spectrum, as a main effort, leftist politicians pursue a process of granting government indulgences to their supporters, knowing that eventually entitlements become expectations and expectations are extremely difficult or impossible to reform without paying a very high political price.
The behavior of the political right is also explained by Smith when he wrote:
“To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them.”
In other words, we get what we allow.
The fear of redrawing the lines of propriety is simply too great for a cowardly and morally weak society to attempt.
One wonders if our traditional American virtues and sensibilities are still capable of being offended, if, in the words of Adam Smith, “we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.”
But if those lines are not redrawn, the death spiral continues and judging by the things we have seen over just the past few years, the spiral will continue until all freedom is destroyed.
It is, and has always been, a balancing act based on a common sense of propriety. There have always been things that were forbidden, and that prohibition has been enforced through social mores as well as public law, and at least in intent, these controls were promulgated to protect those who lack the capacity to protect themselves.
I have always believed, and I continue to believe, that the miracle of our America is based on the idea there are two systems of governance necessary for all of us to enjoy the freedom we claim to want, need, and desire.
In my opinion, the greatest mistake is the attempt to correct a society that has lost the ability to self-govern with the legalism and control of government.
The Founders were very wary a legalistic government made up of modern Philistines, resulting in foundational documents that were written to protect INDIVIDUAL freedoms. They realized that legalism is a response to an immoral society, and that legalism only begets more legalism. Their minimalist approach to government is a tacit recognition that when one makes a law, they often must make more laws to control the consequences of that law, and so on and so on.
Attempts to codify morality are futile. Due to the infinite number of interactions and unique challenges in our individual lives, there can never be a law or rule for every situation and eventually, a legalistic society is crushed under the weight of all the laws made in that attempt.
It isn’t the separation of church and state that is important, it is the realization by the Founders that the separation of society and state (morality vs. legality) is critical to the preservation of our Republic.
The fault in the right’s stars is the paralytic fear of seeming out of step with current sensibilities and being seen as judgmental in a contemporary gestalt that says judging is bad.
But the fact is that judging is necessary to preserve individual freedoms and civil society.
The real question is whether we can return to a standard of judgement that is commonly accepted and maintains the balance between our ability to live in harmony with each other and individual freedoms.
It ain’t going to be easy, but America is worth saving.
If any nation can do it, America can.