Bound in Fragile Balance: Freedom and Liberty

Can you be free without liberty or have liberty without freedom?

When freedoms are being challenged, coerced, and twisted to fit ideologies—as they are now- this isn’t a rhetorical question. It is an essential one. Because freedom and liberty are not the same thing. You can be free without liberty; however, you cannot have liberty without freedom.

Freedoms are what everyone is born with. They are innate. The freedom to speak, roam, think, and express yourself. Liberty is the social contract, a framework that defines those rights and protects them from government overreach, ideology, mob rule, and individual abuse.

Freedoms can exist in isolation; liberty requires a society. You can escape to the wilderness and be as free as you like. Liberty exists to balance the tensions between individual freedoms and the responsibilities of societal citizens coexisting in a communal environment. There will always be tension between them as social norms and technologies continue to evolve. But it is our liberty that will guide us, allow us to protect it, and our freedoms. Liberty protects our rights to do what we ought to do, not the power to do what we want to do.

Liberty is guarded and protected; freedom is what you assert and claim. And yet, liberty’s role is to protect your freedoms if others impinge on yours and vice versa. Liberty is for everyone and must be protected by everyone. Because freedom can be absolute, liberty must be conditional. Without setting civil boundaries within the construct of liberty, freedom will run amok. Everyone believing and acting as if they have no responsibilities or accountability is the recipe for chaos and anarchy, making humans no better than any other social animal. Freedom untethered isn’t freedom at all.

Liberty is created when people agree to limit certain freedoms. Ironic as that may seem. Liberty is a civilized form of freedom. It is the civil contract we live by. It allows the freedoms we agree upon. Freedom of speech, but not speech that incites violence. Freedom of the press, but not a deceptive, manipulated media. Freedom to worship and assemble without fear of retribution by worshiping a minority religion or assembling to support, or protest, what may be viewed as unjust or a violation of liberty. Within the context of our liberty, we should pause before yielding to the temptation to trade freedoms for perceived security. Once lost, those freedoms are hard to regain, just as yielding civil authority to the government.

While Patrick Henry decried, “Give me Liberty or give me Death“; Thomas Paine opined, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” Their’s wasn’t a cry for freedom, but for a governing system that protected the agreed-upon freedoms of all. We may not like the clamorous protests demanding action, or the ideas and opinions espoused by others—just as much as they may not appreciate ours—but in our Liberty we have agreed to allow them, and that Liberty is worth defending. Without it, the saber of perceived justice can and will cut both ways, depending upon who yields it. The Liberty we should protect, our Liberty, must sheath the sword and allow the voices of freedom to be boldly, openly, and freely expressed.