NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: Give Me Liberty
Regnery, Alfred S.
n o T e f R o M T H e P U b L I s H e R Give Me Liberty by Alfred S. Regnery Individual liberty—the foundation of our freedom, the essence of the Constitution, and one of the foremost...
...Despite what would appear to be quite clear language of the First Amendment, the struggle to define what constitutes religious liberty has been contentious and downright confounding from the start...
...Hardly a day goes by without a headline or two involving some aspect of, or challenge to, the liberty that we Westerners hold so dear...
...n o T e f R o M T H e P U b L I s H e R Give Me Liberty by Alfred S. Regnery Individual liberty—the foundation of our freedom, the essence of the Constitution, and one of the foremost contributions of the English common law—continues to be as vibrant a topic as it was during the Constitutional debates in Philadelphia...
...We commence this month with a dazzling discussion of religious liberty by Kevin J. “Saemus” Hasson, founder, CEO, and president of the Becket Fund, a public interest law firm that represents litigants whose religious liberties have been abused...
...How enduring is it and what does it take to protect it...
...We thought that these ideas would be worth exploring in the pages of our magazine, and so we asked the John Templeton Foundation to support a series of major articles on the subject, the first of which appears in this issue...
...To what extent is the development of individual liberty a product of Judeo-Christian ideals—ideals developed over centuries throughout the Western world...
...We’re confident, however, that the readers of this issue will emerge better equipped than most to understand what the fuss has been all about...
...We have enlisted a number of noted scholars and writers to contribute to the series, including Robert Bork, Paul Johnson, Christina Hoff Sommers, Anne Applebaum, and Robert George, who will contribute essays concerning various aspects of the concept of individual freedom, its origins, and its relevance to today’s world...
...Hasson, who has appeared in courts from one end of the country to the other in some of the most prominent religious liberty cases, reminds us that, contrary to popular belief, there was no “golden age” of religious freedom in America—not during the colonial period, not after the Mayflower arrived, not even on the Mayflower...
...We believe the series will leave readers with a well-founded understanding of one of the most vital aspects of our heritage...
...Over the next year, The American Spectator will explore these questions, and many others, in every issue...
...But too often, many of us take the idea of individual liberty for granted, assuming simply that it is one of those things to which we are entitled, and that will never go away...
...Ultimately, after much debate, these protections would become the basis of the Bill of Rights: freedom to say or write what we believe, to worship as we please, to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure, and to enjoy the right to a trial by our peers and, yes, even the right to bear arms...
...Where does the concept come from and what does it mean...
...To the American founders, protection of individual rights against the tyranny of government, against an overzealous bureaucracy, or even against the most well-meaning, if ill-conceived, efforts of the legislature was the essential task of the new republic they were forming...
...alfred s. Regnery is publisher of The American 6 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 Spectator and author of the new book, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism, published this month by Simon and Schuster...
...Is it an inevitable part of Western culture...
Vol. 41 • February 2008 • No. 1
