THE NOBULL NEWSLETTER
How a Nation Can Lose Itself
The danger hidden in the freedoms we take for granted
There is an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of a free society. The very freedoms that allow a nation to exist as a free society also allow people who do not believe in those freedoms to use them in an effort to replace the system.
We protect freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and the right to participate in government because they are essential to a free people. But those same freedoms allow individuals and political movements to organize, persuade, gain public support, and seek political power—even when their ultimate objectives may be incompatible with the principles upon which our nation was founded.
That is not a minor weakness in our system. It is an unavoidable danger inherent in preserving freedom itself.
So how can a nation protect the principles that make it free without destroying the freedoms that allow it to remain free?
The answer begins with something we don’t talk about nearly enough: the people must understand what they have.
You cannot protect what you do not understand.
Most Americans have some general idea that our country was founded on freedom and equality. We know the familiar words of the Declaration of Independence. We know that the Constitution establishes three branches of government and that we elect our representatives. But how many of us really understand the principles underlying that arrangement? How many understand the relationship between individual rights, the authority of government, and the consent of the governed? How many know the difference between improving their government vs replacing the principles upon which that government rests?
That distinction matters enormously.
A government is more than its offices, laws, agencies, and elected officials. Those are its instruments. Beneath them are the principles that give it purpose and legitimacy. In our case, those principles include the equality of individuals in their fundamental rights and the freedom of individuals to direct their own lives, within the equal rights of others. Government exists to secure those rights. It does not create them, and it does not own them.
These principles originate with people who, through experience, reasoning, reflection, and conviction, arrive at beliefs about how human beings should live together. When people agree to establish their political association upon those beliefs, they create the foundation for a society. Government is then established to give those principles institutional form.
In other words, government derives its authority from the people. The people do not derive their fundamental rights from government.
That is the significance of the Declaration of Independence. It states that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and that people have the right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established. The Constitution begins with three words that are easy to overlook: “We the People.”
The people are the source of the government’s authority.
This has an important consequence. If people are the source of government, they must remain free to examine the principles upon which it is founded. They must be able to question them, challenge their application, and even argue for their replacement. Otherwise, those principles cease to be convictions freely held by the people and become requirements imposed upon them.
A free society cannot prohibit people from questioning freedom itself. To do so would contradict the very principle it claims to protect.
And here we encounter the contradiction that creates the danger.
Someone who believes that freedom and equality are not the proper foundations for society has every right to say so. They may argue that a different set of principles would produce a better society. They may organize, persuade, and seek the people’s consent to establish a different political arrangement. Our commitment to freedom requires that we allow that argument to be made.
But the right to advocate replacing our foundational principles is not the same as the right to replace them without the people’s informed consent.
There is a fundamental difference between openly proposing a new government and disguising the creation of a new government as the improvement of the existing one.
A change in leadership, policy, legislation, or administration does not necessarily change the character of a government. Those things can change while the underlying agreement remains intact. But when the foundational principles themselves are replaced, the political agreement changes. The government is being replaced in its essential character, even if its name, buildings, offices, and familiar procedures remain.
The people have a right to know that this is what they are being asked to accept.
What Replacement Would Look Like
Replacement is more than a change in political leadership, policy, or even the size and activities of government. It is a change in the fundamental relationship between the individual, society, and the state.
Our founding political philosophy rests on a particular understanding of that relationship:
• Individuals possess fundamental rights that do not originate with government.
• Individuals are equal in their claim to those rights.
• Government exists to secure those rights, not to determine who deserves them.
• Government derives its legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.
• Government’s power is limited, divided, and subject to law.
• Citizens retain the freedom to question, criticize, and change their government.
A replacement would reverse one or more of these foundational relationships. The individual would no longer be the starting point of political legitimacy. The state, a ruling authority, or a preferred conception of society would become the source of rights, obligations, and permissible conduct.
What might that look like in practice?
1. Rights become permissions rather than inherent claims.
Instead of government being obligated to respect rights that individuals possess, government becomes the authority that determines which rights people may exercise, under what circumstances, and to what extent.
Rights might still be described in public language, but their exercise would increasingly depend on government approval.
2. Equality before the law gives way to differentiated political or social status.
The principle that individuals possess equal fundamental rights would be displaced by a system in which rights, privileges, obligations, or legal protections depend on membership in a particular group, class, religion, political movement, or other officially recognized category.
This does not mean every distinction in law violates equality. It means that equal standing as a person before the law is no longer the governing principle.
3. The purpose of government changes from protecting individual freedom to directing society toward an imposed objective.
Government would become less an instrument for securing individual rights and more an instrument for achieving a larger collective objective.
That objective might be religious conformity, ideological purity, economic equality, national greatness, social order, or another conception of the common good. The particular objective matters, but the deeper change is that individual rights become subordinate to it.
4. Consent becomes a means of acquiring power rather than a continuing source of legitimacy.
Elections might continue. Political parties might continue. Representatives might still be selected by voters.
But elections would increasingly serve to authorize those who direct society rather than to hold government accountable to the independent rights and judgments of its citizens. The outward forms of democracy could remain while the underlying principle of popular sovereignty becomes hollow.
5. Constitutional limitations become obstacles to be overcome rather than obligations to be respected.
The separation of powers, judicial independence, freedom of the press, and limitations on executive authority exist to prevent the concentration and abuse of power.
A replacement would treat these safeguards as impediments whenever they interfere with the objectives of those exercising authority. The institutions might remain in place, but their independence and ability to constrain power would be diminished.
6. The freedom to challenge authority becomes conditional.
A free society permits criticism of its government, its leaders, and even its foundational principles.
A replacement system would increasingly distinguish between acceptable criticism and criticism considered harmful to the governing ideology or social order. People might retain permission to speak, provided they do not challenge the principles or authority that the government considers beyond question.
That is especially dangerous because the freedom to question authority is what allows citizens to recognize when authority has become abusive.
The most consequential distinction: appearance versus reality
None of these changes necessarily requires the immediate abolition of the Constitution, the cancellation of elections, or the suspension of every familiar freedom.
In fact, a more effective transformation might preserve much of the existing institutional appearance.
The Declaration of Independence would still be quoted. The Constitution would still be displayed. Elections would still take place. Politicians would still speak about freedom, equality, and democracy.
But the meaning of those words would gradually change.
Freedom might come to mean the freedom to participate in a government-approved conception of society. Equality might come to mean equal treatment according to a prescribed social outcome rather than equal fundamental rights. Democracy might come to mean majority authorization of an increasingly powerful state rather than government constrained by the rights of individuals.
The vocabulary of the old system could remain while the principles that gave those words meaning were displaced.
That is what makes this transformation difficult to recognize. People may believe they are preserving the system because its familiar institutions and language remain visible.
The danger is not a particular ideology. It is the abandonment of the founding relationship.
A person can advocate socialism, religious government, nationalism, or any number of political philosophies without necessarily being dishonest. Advocating a different political philosophy is not itself an attack on the constitutional system. It is part of the freedom that system protects.
The critical questions are whether the advocate is honest about the political arrangement being proposed and whether the people are free to understand, examine, and reject it.
The danger arises when someone seeks authority under the promise of preserving a system while intending to change the principles that define it.
A nation does not necessarily lose its freedom when its Constitution is abolished. It can lose its freedom when the principles underlying its Constitution are gradually reinterpreted, weakened, and displaced while the Constitution itself remains in place.
Not every policy change signals such a transformation. The issue is the cumulative direction of change: whether individual rights remain the foundation of government, or whether government increasingly becomes the authority that determines the rights and obligations of individuals.
The ultimate test is simple: Does government exist to serve and protect the rights of the people, or do the people increasingly exist to serve the objectives of government?
That is the dividing line between the political philosophy upon which our constitutional system rests and a fundamentally different system.
The Role of Integrity
Imagine a political movement that does not accept individual freedom and equality as foundational principles. It believes society should be organized around a different hierarchy of rights, obligations, and authority. There is nothing inherently illegitimate about making that argument openly and seeking the people’s agreement.
But suppose the movement believes most people would reject its ultimate objectives if they were stated plainly. Instead, it describes its proposals as ordinary reforms—as efforts to make government more effective, more equitable, more secure, or more responsive. It avoids explaining that the underlying relationship between the individual and the state is being changed. It presents the replacement of a principle as a way of preserving it.
If people do not understand what is happening, they may give their apparent consent to something they never knowingly agreed to.
This is where integrity becomes essential.
Integrity is not simply being consistent with what one believes. It requires honesty about what one believes, a willingness to examine one’s convictions, and accountability for one’s actions. It requires that we not deliberately mislead others about matters essential to their ability to make independent judgments.
This standard applies regardless of the source of a person’s convictions. Religious beliefs, political ideologies, and secular philosophies can all be held sincerely. But sincerity does not excuse deception. Nor does the conviction that one’s ultimate objective is desirable give someone the right to conceal the nature of that objective from the people whose consent is being sought.
The same standard must apply to those who seek public office.
Our constitutional system protects political advocacy, and for good reason. We cannot give government the power to decide which political beliefs may be expressed simply because those beliefs might threaten the existing system. The law prohibits particular forms of misconduct, but it does not provide a comprehensive way to determine whether a candidate or political movement is being honest about its ultimate intentions.
The Constitution can establish limits on government power, provide procedures for changing the Constitution, and protect citizens’ rights to speak, organize, and participate. But it cannot ensure that citizens understand what is being proposed or that those seeking their votes are telling them the truth. It cannot legislate integrity.
That responsibility falls on the people.
And I don’t think we have taken it seriously enough.
We have become accustomed to treating elections as contests between personalities, parties, slogans, and promises. We often decide whether to support a candidate by asking whether that person agrees with us on a collection of immediate issues. We pay attention to what candidates promise to do, but too little attention to the principles that guide their decisions.
Perhaps we should be asking different questions.
What does this person believe about the relationship between the individual and government? Do they regard individual freedom as a fundamental right, or as something government may grant or withdraw? Do they believe equality means equal fundamental rights, or that government should assign different rights and obligations according to a preferred social arrangement? Do they accept limits on their own authority when those limits interfere with what they want to accomplish? Are they willing to defend the rights of people with whom they disagree? And, perhaps most importantly, are they honest about what they intend to do?
We should not assume that a candidate possesses integrity simply because that candidate shares our political preferences. Nor should we conclude that someone lacks integrity merely because we disagree with their positions. We must examine the relationship between what candidates say, what they believe, what they have done, and what they propose to do.
That takes more effort than checking a party label or listening to a campaign speech. It requires us to become more involved in choosing the people to whom we entrust political authority. We must question them, challenge them, examine their records, and hold them accountable for inconsistencies between their words and actions.
It also requires us to examine our own thinking. If we are unwilling to question the integrity of a candidate simply because that person represents our side, we are participating in the very problem we claim to oppose.
There is no guarantee that this will protect us. The danger cannot be eliminated without sacrificing the freedom we are trying to preserve. We must allow people to argue against our foundational principles, even when their arguments are intended to replace them. We must permit political change, even when we believe the proposed changes are unwise.
That is the price of freedom.
But there is a difference between allowing people to persuade us to change our government and allowing them to deceive us into doing so. The first is an exercise of freedom. The second deprives us of the very choice that freedom is supposed to protect.\
The Responsibility Is Ours
The survival of our constitutional system depends on more than the document itself. It depends on whether the people understand the principles it embodies, recognize the difference between reform and replacement, and have the integrity to question those who seek their authority.
Our founding principles are not self-preserving. They depend on citizens who understand them well enough to recognize when they are being challenged and who defend them without denying others the freedom to question them.
Here is the paradox we cannot escape: we must preserve the freedom to challenge our principles, even though that freedom can be used to destroy them.
We cannot resolve that contradiction by silencing those who disagree. We can only meet it by becoming informed enough to recognize what is being proposed, discerning enough to judge the integrity of those seeking power, and involved enough to hold them accountable.
A nation can lose its founding principles without a revolution, an invading army, or the formal abolition of its Constitution. It can lose them through a succession of political choices made by citizens who do not understand what is changing or through the deception of those who do.
The Constitution cannot make citizens attentive. It cannot make candidates honest. It cannot do the work of self-government for us.
That is our responsibility.
Before we cast a vote, we should know more than what a candidate promises to do. We should know what that candidate believes government is for, what limits they accept on their own power, and whether they will defend the rights of those who disagree with them. We should judge their integrity by their words and actions, not by their party or their promises.
Because the people who seek to govern us are not the owners of our government. They are entrusted with its authority.
And we are the ones who must decide whether they deserve that trust.
A free nation is not preserved simply because its people are allowed to vote. It is preserved when they understand what they are voting to protect—and refuse to surrender it without knowing what they are giving away.
This essay can also be found on my web site: chasabassos.com
