Liberty is a subject near and dear to our hearts here at Liberty Electronics. Last time, we talked a little about the start of American liberty, but what exactly is liberty? Perhaps equally important – what is it not? Join us again today as we continue to explore our “great experiment for promoting human happiness.”
In this installment of our “Thoughts on Liberty” series we’re continuing to look at some of the required constraints that have allowed what President George Washington called our “great experiment for promoting human happiness” to work so well for so long. Join us as we continue to explore this vital and timely topic.
In the movie Dick Tracy, the mobster Big Boy Caprice proclaims, “Law without order is as great a danger to the people as order without law.” He comically and incorrectly attributed his made-up quote to Thomas Jefferson. However, Big Boy was on to something and he would’ve been closer to the mark had he cited Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, our 26thth president, similarly said, “Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”
A couple of hundred years earlier, Edmund Burke, the famed 18th-century Irish statesman, wrote, “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites… It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
It’s sad to say, but we’ve had and continue to have more than a few examples in our history when Americans and American institutions have failed miserably to chain intemperate appetites. Thankfully, brave people of conscience have risen up at crucial times to drive home the necessity of doing, in the words of John Winthrop, “that which is good, just, and honest.”
One such person was an escaped slave named Frederick Douglass. He argued, “No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others, and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending and maintaining that liberty.” He declared, “I have shown that slavery is wicked—wicked, in that it violates the great law of liberty, written on every human heart—wicked, in that it violates the first command of the decalogue—wicked, in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness—wicked, in that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions—wicked, in that it contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.”
President Abraham Lincoln warned, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”
History shows that securing and keeping liberty is not easy, and that disciplined, selfless behavior is indispensable.
At Liberty Electronics, we emphasize hard work and discipline in our day-to-day operations. We view it as a key ingredient in our ability to consistently control processes to help our customers achieve success. If you are looking for a world-class, US-based electronic manufacturing services (EMS) contract manufacturer and would like to learn more about Liberty Electronics, we invite you to check us out.
Let freedom ring! https://libertyelectronics.com/