Imagine a freedom clock. Putting freedom at high noon, you have a constitutional republic, the greatest liberty for one consistent with the greatest for all. Put no freedom at the bottom, six o’clock. Go left to communism or right to fascism, you meet at the bottom, with no freedom. America is at high noon. We celebrate liberty, equality of opportunity, and limited government. But watch out: They are coming.
What do you mean, “They are coming?” Just this. Competing ideologies, those that despise individual rights on the left or right, whether communist like China and Venezuela, fascist like Syria, or Islamist like Iran, do not want America to prevail.
They hate individual liberty, as nature abhors a vacuum – because freedom is always a trade-off, the more the individual retains against the government, the less the government has; or the other way around, the more power the government takes, the fewer liberties an individual retains.
You might ask, “Why do they care what liberties we have?” Answer: America embarrasses them. We are a magnet for the world. We traditionally have been able to speak our mind, worship freely, own guns, remain safe in our home (4th Amendment), get “due process” and “equal protection” (5th Amendment), fair trials (6th Amendment), and enjoy relatively free markets, are prosperous.
All this happens because – at our best – we keep government limited, at all levels. It also happens because we appreciate how lucky we are. We work to preserve these liberties against overreaching leaders, whether federal, state, or local. This is, at least, what our Founders intended and expected.
You may ask, “Who cares what these other countries do?” Even if we were not interested in spreading freedom, which we are for many reasons, we need to be alert to anti-liberty ideologies in the US – including communism (often dressed up as socialism), fascism (dressed as mandatory groupthink), and theocracy (religious laws replacing secular ones, like Islamic Sharia law).
These ideologies are all real threats. They are all ways to pull us from high noon, greatest freedom for the individual consistent with everyone else’s freedom, down toward six o’clock, impairment or taking of our freedoms, whether by mandate, legislation, regulation, or other prohibitions on our established rights, including speech, worship, self-protection, safety in homes and papers, due process, equal protection, civil rights, or through lawfare or political show trials.
In short, a republic only keeps its freedoms if – ironically – people assert them. To keep free speech, you have to use it, to keep the right to exercise religion, you have to assert that right, to “keep and bear arms” you have to own and use, to hold due process and equal protection you have to fight for those rights when denied them, whether at a school board meeting or on the national stage.
So, where does all this lead us, and why remind us of all this right now? It leads to a personal responsibility we all have to step up and remember that freedom is not just something we count on our veterans to defend overseas, but something we must fiercely defend here at home, daily.
The recent murder of Charlie Kirk, a devout, dedicated, and cheerful defender of freedom, puts the monkey on our backs, reminds us that the forces of evil are ever present – and requires that we take them seriously, those working to take our rights by violence, fear, chilling, or abuse of government.
They want to take us down from high noon to six o’clock, whether all at once or in gradual theft of our God-given freedoms. The defense of these freedoms, Charlie reminded us, is never done. Our job is to keep stepping up in every venue and asserting the rights we have. Imagine the freedom clock.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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