Why Freedom Isn't Free

Democracy dazzles with its promise of empowerment, mesmerizing multitudes with that vaunted word “choice.” Yet the civic spell quickly fades once citizens awaken to the responsibilities saddled upon them, finding self-rule more burden than boutique. What begins as giddy infatuation ends in the daily grind of governance’s chores and duties—the dreary labours required to sustain the state.

One might think freedom lies primarily in rights and liberties when glancing at America’s founding documents, an idyllic preserve of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness safeguarded by overseers in the capital. But our system’s success relies wholly on the sweat and toil expended locally to tend its garden, pruned of pomp. And so the initial work of revolution gives way to the permanent exertions of participation—the taxing grind of municipal meetings, voter drives, policy campaigns, watchdog groups, and numberless committees striving to preserve liberty too often taken for granted.

This is democracy’s open secret: it affords us just enough latitude to hang ourselves unless vigilance is our watchword. Our system renders us custodians, not authors, of a project forever under construction, for all the power supposedly vested in “we the people.” The citizen is less founder or visionary than a caretaker, more custodian than the creator, dispatched to the civic salt mines with a mandate to shore up the teetering edifice of governance. We proudly tout our political freedoms while ignoring the upkeep that secures them—until calamity exposes democracy’s basement beams as termite-ridden and sagging.

Perhaps America’s founders sensed this fickleness embedded in human nature, which shirks duty as ardently as it chases rights. So they saddled citizens with the ballast of committees, checks, rules, reprisals, and reminders that liberty relies on ceaseless engagement, not periodic attention. An appointed place on this polis committee, an elected post on that township council—such tedium seems the price exacted for our fair-weather interest in the commonwealth. Civic participation becomes compulsory precisely because it goes so strongly against human instinct. Sam Adams’ rabble-rousing gives way to Robert’s Rules and the tedium they govern.

Thus, the burdens expected of a citizenry wishing to retain its authority. Diminishing liberty’s larger project into parochial battles fought precinct by precinct, donated hour by grudging hour. Would we not prefer life’s energies spent on healthier pursuits than forever wrestling a feral democracy hardly tameable?

Perhaps, but hubris convinces each generation that tribalism lies dormant until roused by current events. And so we hand democracy’s reins to supposed professionals—lawmakers, judges, media cognoscenti—forgetting the old men’s warnings about vigilance’s ceaseless price. We turn from stewards to spectators bemused by the wreckage wrought, wondering whatever became of self-reliance or thrift or other cinderblock traits lain long ago. Seeing liberty less as an endowment requiring monthly wages in civic sweat than a legacy we are owed free and clear.

Thus, the fraud of governance’s giveaway contests reveals democracy’s Ponzi foundations, which promise something for next to nothing. Eternal promises of floodlit stadiums built on boondoggles and junk bonds, boom times bought on the sly transfer of long-term debt to unconsulted grandchildren. The entitled children of summer pronouncing no price too high to preserve accustomed pleasures. Blind to democracy’s doldrums, its winters harsh and long for all but fireside patrons warming slippered soles.

Yet the dissonance cannot hold, discordant as opera performed on cigar box banjos. Slowly, the civic foundation cracks and shifts amid our indolence. Pampered liberty staggers, eased out on a chair built of toothpicks and held together by the glue of old habits. But the tired adherents retire their ranks not bolstered, while in the shadows, the jackals of ambition prepare to pounce upon democracy’s exhaustion. A new patriotism must ignite or else see barbarism loosed through the gates, its enthralling diversions pied piping liberty’s late defenders toward oblivion.

We now stand at that pivotal juncture where apathy courts its demise, prodded by pretenders skilled at flattering frustration’s lesser angels. A once shining city finds itself insolvent, its distracted caretakers looking round the bare shelves and seeing not lost stock but only their rights rashly taken. The experiment unwinding proves too abhorrent to bear, mirrored truths too painful to view—this slow decay born of innumerable acts of fraud and self-deception now miscarried in stillbirth.

Yet seeds of redemption persist even here if we nurture conscience and courage. To revive ardour for what is omitted, not assumed—those grinding, thankless rites of responsibility endured by those who prize freedom above fleeting desire. The unpleasant nourishment of participation bulwarks democracy while wanton liberty hastens its funeral dirge. The tree of self-governance relies on roots sunk deep in soil-less loamy than trudged and bled for.

With collapse no longer a distant possibility but instead lurking in the next news cycle, we find ourselves finally chastened by the burdens required of a system so conceived. The rights we recite by rote mean little without the duties that propel them. Convictions must extend beyond cries into actions, as movements require consistent drivers and upkeep to stay reliably fueled. Populist hijackers, once charmed by slogans we allowed through unguarded gates, now circle liberty’s lonely lamp, flickering fast and frail against the coming night. Can we marshal strength sufficient to guide it forward? The promise once offered but casually honoured lies in our callused hands alone to rekindle or extinguish by the manner of our stewardship. A Republic’s virtues fade from memory before they are missed from their long-vacated public square. But perhaps the darker chambers of oblivion may remind future generations of the blessings squandered by a once proud nation, now reduced to much lesser dreams.

The gleaming, fleeting parade of glory fades away, often remembered as more extravagant than it truly was, ending without lament from either the survivors or those who replace them. Without the regular affirmation of sacrifice’s solemn rhythms in action and word, these temporary wonders shine briefly and then disappear, like spilled mercury that pools lazily before losing its lustre. Let those who come after remember that their ancestors once walked here on the vibrant, ambitious terrain before the familiar hills were flattened into unremarkable plains, lacking monuments or upkeep. Wherever freedom’s remaining contours draw new followers, these revered heights demand relentless sacrifice as a toll against boldness. No lasting legacy can endure without the unglamorous labour in the fields where true lineage is proven not by blood but by sweat and calloused hands. When citizens take back control of their shared estate, they thrive but must also face the challenges of distant horizons. The responsibility to enjoy rights while respecting other claims on limited common capital means grasping each thread in a fabric dynamically maintained or quickly unravelled by collective concern or apathy.

Thus, citizens either affirm their system through participation or watch it fade through neglect into despotism’s gathering shadows. The fruits of the past owe nothing to chance, but merely hard toil relentlessly applied. To revisit old glories regained requires embracing each tedious chore constituent to greatness regained. Labour seizes the moment one accepts what is rather than pressing on toward what might yet be.

Chapter 2: The Burdens of Citizenship

Points to Remember

• Rights come with responsibilities - freedom requires vigilant upkeep by citizens
• Governance loses legitimacy when people neglect oversight duties
• Cynicism and disengagement surrender democracy to ambitious demagogues

What you can do:

• Participate in local government
• Monitor representation between elections
• Defend governance norms and institutions