The Price of Liberty: revisited

“Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.”Jean V Dubois (Robert Heinlein)

The Founding Fathers recognized unalienable rights – not rights that couldn’t be taken away. Rather, rights which it was wrong (sinful! evil!) to take away. They are God’s gift to His creations: every human being.

Our headlines are filled with both examples of those rights, those liberties, being stolen away. And of people who use their liberties to do evil things. Not just to others, but even to themselves.

Recent recounting of a NY Democrat’s bald statement that the reason to flood her congressional district with immigrants was to ensure that her district’s voting power (that is, number of bodies) was not weakened by the 2020 census. It was not about treating the stranger (immigrant) properly and kindly, it was about her political power and that of her cronies. We see daily reports of politicians and “public servants” who have sought to stay in power or prevent others from having power, and have committed crimes and immoral acts to achieve those goals.

Heinlein was not the original inventor of the concept that “Service Guarantees Citizenship” but certainly publicized it. The wisdom of such a system may be debated, but is it not better than the mess we have today?

But as many commentators have pointed out, it is not merely service (military or otherwise) that creates a responsible citizen who might be trusted more than any still-breathing human being (or near facsimile thereof) who can vote. It is a society and a system that teaches and practices a moral and philosophical understanding: that embues every member of a society – at least those who have any political power – with the survival traits of disciple and civic virtue. At least, any successful societies.

We submit that the society we see in the fifty States in 2025 is far, far from successful. Why?

In this effort, all fifty States have failed as nations – because the families in those nations have failed. Most miserably.

John Adams, it is reported, said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Although we at TPOL strongly believe that the Constitution is greviously flawed and yet another example of how humans are in rebellion against God and destructive of liberty, the principle is sound. He and the rest of the Founding Fathers clearly understood virtue’s importance in self-governance. Washington said, “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” And if we understand that “popular government” is voluntary and has the essential foundation and function of ensuring the liberty of all people, that again, makes sense.

The religious part? Although many who are lovers of liberty pooh-pooh the idea, it is clear that biblical Chrstianity is a moral and religious system that can fulfill that duty: even the degraded “Christianity” that denominations generally teach and practice is a stable basis for a free society. As is the Law of Moses and even modern Judiasm. The problem? Few of these religious groups who claim to be Christian or Jewish actually do teach and practice true religion and a real morality.

The same can be said, perhaps to a lesser degree, of other religious beliefs and practices. Including Islam and Confucinism. All of these religions, however, have many examples, in history and today, of corruption and a loss of faith and standards of morality. Including those who claim to be Christian.

In other words, one of the prices of liberty is accepting and living in a disciplined manner. As a self-governor. And that, in turn, requires a sense of morality, of virtue. Of knowing the difference between right and wrong, and the discipline to do what is right and reject what is wrong.

Americans – at least a majority of us – have forgotten these things. Which turns our liberty into license, and means that our society fails.

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