The full quotation from one of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine, reads as follows, “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself,” from A Dissertation on the First Principles of Government (1795). Those then, that believe that human society is ever evolving, and thus ever getting better and wiser, would be hard pressed to acknowledge that over two hundred years later, that we are actually following in our governance, these wise and prescient words so espoused by Thomas Paine.
In fact, just about everything that America’s governance does, demonstrates that they clearly do not believe in making their liberty secure by guarding even their enemy from unjust oppression, but rather, they plainly believe the very opposite. This government, with all of its secrets, along with the incredible amount of monies so being devoted to military affairs, in addition to the continuous and invasive surveillance of foreign as well as domestic peoples, seems to care not a whit about liberty for anybody or anything; but mainly seems to care about protecting those that are its most powerful actuators from having to disclose openly what it is so doing under the people’s name, using the guise that such is being done, for the defense and protection of the homeland -- when in actuality, these premeditated actions so being enforced are often contradictory to what this Constitutional republic properly stands for.
The sensible thing to understand is that each and every one of us has an unalienable entitlement to liberty, freedom, free will, and the pursuit of happiness. So that, any proposed action that precludes these very things or is situated to take away these very attributes, needs to be carefully looked at and debated upon, before it is so implemented, because that which would take away our liberty is not only an assault upon our personal liberty, but it is an assault against that which we were gifted with, at our birth.
There are far too many people, as well as nations, for that matter, that talk a very good line, but their implementation of what they have so promised or have sworn to uphold, leaves much to be desired. It is easy for many a person to get behind an unfair action, when that action will directly or indirectly benefit them, especially so when they don’t care to consider the consequences to the other, in any real detail. Yet, this type of favoritism is foreign to what liberty really represents, for either liberty is for every one of us, or it is for no one – it can’t be both.
Those that are sound of mind, and sensible in their personality, desire not only full liberty for themselves, but in all aspects, full liberty for others. We are meant to be free will individuals, that understand that the greatest government is never going to be that opaque and non-transparent government that has the audacity to claim that it is always protecting us and thus keeping us safe; but rather that government that encourages us to live our best life, by seeing that the other, is accorded the same type of respect, fairness, liberty, and understanding, that we so richly desire for our own self.