From American Thinker.com (Dec. 15):
One of the earliest lessons we learned in school was likely to include the spirited explanation of Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech to move colonists to declare independence from the British Kingdom in 1775. By high school, some may have dug deeper into the roots of the American Revolution by reading or hearing some excerpts from Thomas Paine's famous pamphlet Common Sense. Most social science majors, and certainly political science majors, in college likely worked through John Stewart Mill's On Liberty (1859). Liberty is what we Americans cherish, and we learned in our history courses about the chains of tyranny brought on by governments.
Civil liberty (not to be confused with civil rights) is a right we are all given by the US Constitution to keep government at bay from encroaching on our person and our property. The Constitution spelled out some limited power we turn over to government to manage society, and just as important the Bill of Rights ensures what we do not want our government to do to us or for us. We expect Congress to pass no laws to infringe on our liberty, and we expect government officials or any actors to leave us and our property alone. The Bill of Rights protects us from government action to infringe or to restrict our freedom, as we go about our station in life.
Today, people don't talk about fear of tyranny when they distrust a politician or are mistreated by a government agency. Aside from a sprinkle of hyperbole by calling someone a fascist, most warn that the bad actor is a "threat to Democracy." However, we are not a Democracy. By design, the Founders were fearful of a true Democracy. James Madison in Federalist No 10 explained that given human nature, people would pursue narrow interests without regard for the rights of others and the common good. Madison and others had little faith that "cooler heads" will prevail in governing, especially on controversial issues. They were afraid of what the mob faction, affectionately called the masses of asses, would do if given all the power. Thus, as we learned, the Founders set up our Constitutional Republic with three branches of government and plenty of balances and checks to keep the system clunky enough to avoid both rule by a majority or rule by a minority that gains too much power.
What we are witnessing today on our streets, in our businesses, in our schools where we play, and even in our homes is not tyranny by Big Brother, but a social tyranny. John Stewart Mill's classic political philosophy treaties On Liberty warned not only against tyranny by government but what he called "social tyranny." Social tyranny, Mill writes, is when we are told what is socially acceptable to think, say, and do. An influential group in society, not the actual government, makes us do things at first we normally would not do, then over time they make us do things without thinking, to making us do things that are, well, unthinkable! [read more]
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