Freedom a Fragile Thing

Only once does it come to a people.

Over the past year activists have tried to mislead the public about the value of freedom. “Freedom is overrated,” some have alleged. “Maybe personal freedom and liberty are overrated for us mere ordinary citizens,” suggested a Tampa Bay Times letter to the editor.

Why then do people around the world want to immigrate to the United State more than any other country? And why do citizens of communist and other unfree nations repeatedly risk all to escape authoritarian regimes and reach America the free?

Here I’ve assembled the words of prominent American leaders about the importance of freedom.

Ronald Reagan, U.S. President 1981-1989, famously said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. (Freedom Speech, 1964)

Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. (Inaugural Address, Governor, State of California, 1967)

We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection. Let’s start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. (Farewell Address, 1989)

According to Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives 1995-1999, in his latest book Defeating Big Government Socialism:

The Constitution itself does not grant us freedom. It prevents the government from taking it away. Our inalienable, God-given rights cannot be infringed upon by the government. What the Big Government Socialists (and the historic American left) misunderstand is that our founding documents are intended to protect us from the oppression of government, not to establish the authority or prestige of the government. Our founding documents protect us from the rule of a tyrannical and oppressive regime.

The authority of our nation is not grounded in government; it has always been grounded by the grace and freedoms endowed to each one of us by our Creator. Communism and socialism attempt to make the government the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong. Through an expansive network of rules, regulation and oppression, socialist and communist nations purport to give rights to the people. The critical misunderstanding here is that rights are not given to us by the government; they are given to us by God.

Calvin Coolidge, U.S. President 1923-1929, made these comments about preserving freedom:

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary.

We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. If the foundation be firm, the superstructure will stand.