Choosing Freedom

[Note: The following post is by one of my Georgia friends, Joseph Knippenberg of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. Joe is professor of politics, Associate Provost for Student Achievement, and Director of the Rich Foundation Urban Leadership Program. He is a contributor at No Left Turns. Winfield Myers]

With two-thirds of the speech and much of the soaring rhetoric devoted to America’s place in the world, it is no wonder that most of the pundits have focused on the foreign policy implications of President Bush’s Second Inaugural. To the extent that they have paid any attention at all to his statements about domestic policy, it is to wonder how he can accomplish much of anything at home, given the grand sweep and apparent contentiousness of his international vision.

I would like, for the moment, to take a “seamless garment” approach to the two elements of the speech, arguing that the two parts are inextricably connected in a single vision, not at odds with one another, the way genuinely robust domestic and international liberalism can often be (think “guns vs. butter”).

“Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens,” the President said. Have we chosen freedom, or do we take it for granted, having had it bequeathed to us by our forebears? Might not the very success of our experiment in republican self-government lead us to rest on our laurels, only lazily or fitfully living up to our obligations at home, let alone abroad?

It seems to me that the genius of President Bush’s speech is the way that it speaks to this challenge in domestic policy, with propositions following the thrice-repeated phrase, “in America’s ideal of freedom.” First comes “the ownership society,” intended to make “every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny,” by enabling us all to take personal responsibility for our own lives and well-being. This is an updated version of the sturdy yeoman farmer, capable now of superintending his or her own retirement and caring for his or her own triple-decker or suburban ranch. Such people do not become dependents of the nanny state, asking not what they can do for their country, but what their country can do for them.

The second proposition recognizes that, in George Will’s immortal phrase, statecraft is, above all else, soulcraft: “the public interest depends upon private character—on integrity and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives.” “Self-government,” the President affirms, “relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.” Human beings who govern themselves are capable of making and keeping promises; to be a promise-keeper is to embody the central virtue of the classical liberalism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, not to mention the contemporary evangelicalism of Bill McCartney.

Thirdly, there is the proposition that “liberty for all does not mean independence from one another.” The roots of liberty are in families, churches, and communities. Those raised in these settings combine their liberty with liberality, ennobling the former “by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak.”

“America’s ideal of liberty” produces the people who gave generously in response to the tsunami. It produces people who would regard it as “dishonorable to abandon” obligations to the Iraqi people, even if they are “difficult to fulfill.” It produces people who are capable of choosing “to serve in a cause larger than [their] wants, larger than [themselves].”

President Bush acknowledges that there are different ways of fulfilling the longing for liberty in every human heart. America’s way, born of its culture, its institutions, and its place in the world, produces a people capable of holding up the light of liberty and helping others find their own way.

The President’s domestic policy might well be defensible in its own terms, but it is also inextricably connected with his understanding of America’s unique role in the contemporary world. As we choose freedom for ourselves, we help others choose it for themselves.