Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 131

The freedoms we consider indispensable to the working of a democracy are part of the everyday language of politics in America. We take many of them for granted: we speak confidently of our freedoms of speech, of the press, and of religion, and of our rights to bear arms, to a fair trial, and to privacy. There is nothing inevitable about these freedoms, however.

In fact, there is nothing inevitable about the idea of rights at all. Until the writing of such Enlightenment figures as John Locke, it was rare for individuals to talk about claiming rights against government. The prevailing narrative was that governments had all the power, their given subjects only such privileges as government was willing to bestow. Locke argued that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were conferred on individuals by nature, and that one of the primary purposes of government was to preserve the natural rights of its citizens.

This notion of natural rights and limited government was central to the founders of the American system. Practically speaking, of course, any government can make its citizens do anything it wishes, regardless of their rights, as long as it is in charge of the military and the police. But in nonauthoritarian governments, the public is usually outraged at the invasion of individual rights. Unless the government is willing to dispense with its reputation as a democracy, it must respond in some way to pacify public opinion. Public opinion and the narrative of natural rights can be a powerful guardian of citizens’ liberties in a democracy.

Just as rights limit government, they also empower its citizens. A person who can successfully claim that he or she has rights that government must respect is a citizen of that government. A person who is under the authority of a government but cannot claim rights is merely a subject, bound by the laws but without any power to challenge or change them. This does not mean, as we will see, that a citizen can always have things his or her own way. Nor does it mean that noncitizens have no rights in a democracy. It does mean, however, that citizens have special protections and powers that allow them to stand up to government and plead their cases when they believe an injustice is being done.

However, because rights represent power, they are, like all other forms of power, subject to conflict and controversy. Often for one person to get his or her own way, someone else must lose out. People clash over rights in two ways. First, individuals’ rights conflict with each other; for instance, one person’s right to share a prayer with classmates at the start of the school day conflicts with another student’s right not to be subjected to a religious practice against his or her will. Second, individuals’ rights can conflict with society’s needs and the demands of collective living; for instance, an individual’s right to decide whether or not to wear a motorcycle helmet conflicts with society’s need to protect its citizens. Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, this latter conflict between individual rights and social needs has been thrown into sharp relief, as measures to protect the population have increased the government’s ability to do such things as screen airline passengers, intercept email and conduct roving wiretaps, and gain access to library records and bookstore purchases—all at the expense of individual freedom. The balancing of public safety with individuals’ rights is complex. We could ensure our safety from most threats, perhaps, if we were willing to give up all of our freedom, but the ultimate problem, of course, is that without our civil liberties, we have no protection from government itself.

Although conflicts over rights sometimes lead to violence, usually they are resolved in the United States through politics—through the process of arguing, bargaining, and compromising over who gets what, and how. All this wrangling takes place within the institutions of American politics, primarily in Congress and the courts, but also in the White House, at the state and local levels, and throughout our daily lives.

In Your Own Words

Define rights and liberties and their role in a democratic society.