Eric Herr: Rights alone are not enough to secure democracy

To The Daily Sun,

Rights are the cornerstone of the American vision, first expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Since then we’ve enlarged our understanding of rights via the Bill of Rights and the 19th, 24th, and 25th amendments. Today, assertions of rights underlie our most contentious, civic dialogues: voting rights, gun rights, parental rights, abortion rights, anti-vax/mask rights, and on and on.

But rights alone are not enough to secure democracy. We must balance rights with a parallel understanding of our mutual obligations. The signers of the Declaration recognized this pledging “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor” to secure the promise of the Declaration. In practice, we rely on common sense, goodwill, being a good neighbor, even living the “golden rule” to this end. When voluntary community spirit is inadequate, our mutual obligations are enforced by laws and regulations. We enforce speed limits. We enact environmental legislation and regulation to reduce pollution. And the nation has even imposed a draft in times of national crises.

But still, we seem to ignore obligations in civic dialogue. Neither side of the aisle is immune from ignoring the balance of rights and mutual obligations.  Today, debates, demonstrations, mandates, and requests on masking and COVID-19 vaccination are vivid illustrations of the need to properly balance our individual rights and mutual obligations. Yet, it seems that the debate is about rights alone. Individual choices on vaccination, masking, and social distancing have consequences on the risks of infection, loss of earnings, hospitalization, and death for others and for the probability of virus mutation and its possible consequences for us all. Those effects cannot be known with certainty. But how should we think about the balancing of rights and obligations in this all-too-real situation? And rights to health care, free college tuition, housing, and more are vigorously articulated. But what of our mutual obligations to contribute to our society by participating in the democratic process, obeying our laws, and adding economic value. 

Yet whether Republican or Democratic, obligations seem forgotten. Easier to speak of rights. Easier to speak of what we can get, decide, and do. Easier to think of ourselves as unconstrained by obligations. But mutual obligations must be a part of our civic dialogue if we are to deliver on the promise of a more perfect union. It’s time that we have substantive dialogues about our obligations to each other and of balancing our rights and obligations.

Eric Herr

Hill