Notions of American Freedom

Various individuals have invoked individual liberty and wielded the Constitution to protest mask mandates as a whole. People have gone so far as to levy the words “tyrant” and “dictator” against the officials imposing the mandates, and chants of “USA” have made it clear that they believe they are in line with American tradition. But this terminology displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what freedom in this country is. 

As Brandon Moulard and Laura Lashley write in the National Law Review, “The purported right not to wear a mask during a pandemic comes nowhere close to the type of fundamental liberty interest ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ or privacy interest ‘related to the most intimate of human activities and relationships’ our courts are willing to protect.”

Your freedoms are restricted when you could possibly limit another person’s freedoms. In Pennsylvania, you can’t smoke in public places or workplaces, you can’t drive without wearing a seatbelt, and you can’t drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Well, what if you want to smoke indoors or not wear a seatbelt or drive drunk? You can do that, but you’ll face the consequences outlined in the law, written to prevent you from injuring or killing another person. 

Remember Jacobson v. Massachusetts? The decision states that “The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members.”

On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. This principle—the idea that no one’s freedom is completely unlimited—is so fundamental, so necessary, and so rational that it’s essentially impossible to make a reasonable argument that the opposite should be true—that everyone should be free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. 

One of my teachers explained the concept plainly, loosely quoting an expression widely attributed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (also traced back to a speech made by politician John P. Finch in the late 19th century):

“Is not this a free country?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have not I a right to swing my arm?”

“Yes, but your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins.”

My teacher would mime the action, boxing out in front of him—“My freedom to swing my fist…”—and pretending to hit a student in the first row—“…ends where it meets your face.” The idea is that simple: your rights are limited when they infringe on the rights of others. Hundreds of years of legal tradition have established this; the ideals of the Founding Fathers agree with this. 

It comes down to the words of Cicero, now thousands of years old: “Salus populi suprema lex esto.” The health of the people is the supreme law, also interpreted as “the welfare of an individual yields to that of a community.” This phrase is endorsed by none other than John Locke, one of the most important and influential individuals of American government. It is the epigraph—literally the first phrase—in Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, a text that American schoolchildren study for its incredibly prominent influence on the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. This is American law, American tradition, the American way. To argue for a version of individual liberty that ignores this notion is not fighting for freedom like a true American—indeed, it misconstrues the very foundation of this country.