My grandfather passed away a few months ago, and I had the opportunity to help clean out the office nook above his workshop. I was inspired by the work he was doing up there, he was a brilliant man, but I was touched the most by an article that he had sitting in view on his desk. It reflected the care and thought he had for not just being American, but being a good man.
What I saw was an article torn from a magazine over 30 years ago titled The Bill of Responsibilities. It outlined the responsibilities that each citizen of our country shoulders in response to the rights that inherently belong to them; it was a brief and powerful reminder that nothing is free in this life, not even freedom. The bill itself was commissioned by the Freedom Foundation, leveraging the work of a number of scholars for years to come to a consensus on what it means to be a member of a free society.
Here is the bill:
Freedom and responsibility are mutual and inseparable; we can ensure enjoyment of the one only by exercising the other. Freedom for all of us depends on responsibility by each of us. To secure and expand our liberties, therefore, we accept these responsibilities as individual members of a free society.
- To be fully responsible for our own actions and for the consequences of those actions. Freedom to choose carries with it the responsibility for our choices.
- To respect the rights and beliefs of others. In a free society, diversity flourishes. Courtesy and consideration toward others are measures of a civilized society.
- To give sympathy, understanding, and help to others. As we hope others will help us when we are in need, we should help others when they are in need.
- To do our best to meet our own and our families’ needs. There is no personal freedom without economic freedom. By helping ourselves and those closest to us to become productive members of society, we contribute to the strength of the nation.
- To respect and obey the laws. Laws are mutually accepted rules by which, together, we maintain a free society. Liberty itself is built on the foundation of law. That foundation provides an orderly process for changing laws. It also depends on our obeying laws once they have been freely adopted.
- To respect the property of others, both private and public. No one has a right to what is not his or hers. The right to enjoy what is ours depends on our respecting the right of others to enjoy what is theirs.
- To share with others our appreciation of the benefits and obligations of freedom. Freedom shared is freedom strengthened.
- To participate constructively in the nation’s political life. Democracy depends on an active citizenry. It depends equally on an informed citizenry.
- To help freedom survive by assuming personal responsibility for its defense. Our nation cannot survive unless we defend it. Its security rests on the individual determination of each of us to help preserve it.
- To respect the rights and to meet the responsibilities on which our liberty rests and our democracy depends. This is the essence of freedom. Maintaining it requires our common effort, all together and each individually.
There is a lot there to digest, and in the current political/social/economic client it hits especially close to the heart. It is time for us Americans to stand not only for justice, but to rise to the responsibilities that belong to each and every one of us. Our country cannot be repaired without the work of every citizen, and we must rise to the occasion, and get involved in the healing of our society and economy.
Blazzard Firearms 