Freedom requires responsibility, or else!

David Von Drehle missed an essential element for protecting, promoting and sustaining human freedom anywhere in the world – responsibility (“Freedom is still worth fighting for”, Washington Post 3-25-18).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-still-shouldnt-mind-its-own-beeswax/2018/03/23/440cdd50-2ec8-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html?utm_term=.f27bc2b5dbf1

We (and everyone else in the world) are free to do as we please.  But no one will remain free of the consequences of their actions, and too often the actions of others.

Unless our government’s policies result in just and responsible actions here and abroad, we will never be free from the ensuing chaos and loss of our most basic freedom here at home. 

Irresponsible US actions are inevitably unjust to someone, somewhere in the world.  Lacking any effective global justice system, our lack of responsibly in the world will always come back to bite us as terrorism, climate change, trade disputes, threats of war, and or economic chaos.  

There is vast wisdom in the last three words of our Pledge of Allegiance “liberty and justice for all’. 

Samuel Adams once said, "Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." 

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint:" -  Edmund Burke - Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France

"Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience." - George Washington  - 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, 1737

"We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in
some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts...”  Calvin Coolidge (1873-1933), 30th US President

"Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman