As any parent of a toddler can attest, it takes an act of bravery or a momentary lapse of judgement to give an open-ended question with no restraints to a toddler. What do you want for dinner is promptly met with what everyone would expect of limitless options: cake, ice cream, popcorn, and all the delights that most certainly do not make for the most nutritious of meals. This also extends to the delightfully imaginative as well. Where do you want to go today? To the Moon! What should we do today? Nothing and everything! While we blame toddlers for not fully understanding how to appropriately embrace their freedom, sadly that concept is also directly applicable to adults as well. When given the ability and right to do something, far too many take that liberty as an indictment that they must. Dwight Eisenhower noted “Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline.”  True freedom expands our choices but without self-restraint and discipline, that freedom can devolve into extreme distrust or invite coercion. As the freest nation in the world, we must begin from the individual up to exercise that core civic virtue of self-restraint. As individuals and communities, this example of self-restraint should carry its natural progression to the governments which bind us together.

As with most aspects of life, the foundation is the most important structure, and the foundation of society is the individual. How we hold our own selves accountable affects the integrity of society and our government. We are the example that we give to our politicians. When we are not disciplined enough to show economic self-restraint and pile on personal debt, can we truly be shocked to see our government do the same? We see another example of this with the mainstream media. When we have the freedom to rant and rave toward other members of our society through anonymous mediums like Facebook, we again cannot be shocked that our media will speak first and check facts second. The need to be first instead of being truthful is a mirror back onto us as individuals. We cannot take the freedom of free speech to then turn around and utter any thought or idea. It is a sign of an educated and virtuous person to instead hold their tongue and restrain their speech when necessary. It is a sign of a virtuous person who will discipline themselves to only do acts that further develop their character, instead of allowing the excuse of freedom to indulge in vices. We may be free to eat one hundred donuts a day, but it is hardly advisable or wise.

This discipline then extends farther up the chain: to our businesses, societies, churches, groups, HOA’s, and all the other groups that bind us together. Just as before, there is mirroring of the discipline an individual shows (restraining speech and actions to the necessary) and what groups do. When groups are not committed to portraying facts, we again run into the issue of lost trust. When scientific groups delve into the political and not the scientific, when restraint is not there, then trust is lost in those groups and society is the true loss. An alternative glimpse into the necessity of these groups truly harnessing their freedom is to actually take action when action may not be required. When non-profit groups take care of the mentally ill and homeless, they display how disciplined behavior benefits everyone. They have the freedom to do nothing and yet when they choose to do the correct action, they catapult our society towards more virtuous behavior. What this exhibits is restraining the problem to the lowest possible level. The more groups and communities restrain the problem to the local level; the less central intervention is needed. When we decide to hold our communities responsible and encourage good behavior, the less policing is needed.

It is once again easy to see why the federal government steps in and steps out of its needed self-restraint when individuals and groups do not hold themselves accountable. The founding of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proof positive of this. Individuals, businesses, and other groups decided that instead of restraining themselves and not dumping their trash and pollutants into the Cuyahoga river, they should instead be free to do so and what resulted was an environmental catastrophe that bridged state lines and invited in the intervention of the federal government. Time and time again, we see the breach of the federal government because we the people did not take care of issues at a local level and were not disciplined enough to keep the federal government out. However, there is also a need for federal representatives to restrain themselves from running bills and taking on issues that should not be dealt with at the federal level. When representatives are more concerned about their re-election campaign than constraining the government, we the citizens lose. When we the citizens do not restrain our praise when those same representatives bring home the bacon, then we again as a society lose.

Our government is, for better or worse, a reflection back on our society and us as individuals. When we see a lack of virtue in Washington DC, it should encourage every single one of us to reflect on the choices we are making at home and in the community. The freer the system, the more it depends on voluntary restraint to avoid coercive fixes later. Most especially in a progressively run society, if people will not restrain themselves then regulation will be forced to do so by politicians who believe in their own good intent. Just because we no longer have somebody to police us and tell us not to have three more cookies, does not mean that it is wise and virtuous to keep our hands in the proverbial cookie jar.