The Value of Liberty

When Abraham Lincoln was running for the senate seat for the state of Illinois, he and Stephen A. Douglas engaged in a series of debates (which came to be known as the "Lincoln-Douglas debates)whose main topic was the issue of slavery. These debates weren't debates over which policy was better, these debates put their emphasis on logic, on philosophy, and on ethical values.

Debating which value is more essential than another is an interesting notion- because it really is what we value that determines our policy, or what we choose to do. Value is the foundation of policy. When a teenager asks his parent for the car, and the parent says no, the ensuing argument really isn't about the car, it's about the value of independent movement (on the part of the teenager) versus safety (on the part of the parent.) Which is more important? After THAT decision is made, the teen and parent may come to some agreement about the best policy to carry out the agreed upon value.

In our country today, we no longer value Liberty. Liberty is the exercise of choice, of agency. It is the keystone of the three values stated in the Declaration of Independence- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no life of any quality, Patrick Henry said, without the opportunity to choose freely how to live it. That's what he meant when he said, "Give my Liberty, or give me death." And the pursuit of happiness (or the acquisition of property, which was the commonly understood meaning of the phrase when Jefferson penned it), is really the right to fully realize the consequence of one's choices- the free exercise of Liberty.

Liberty, then, is the free exercise of agency. It was valued by the founders of this country more than Life, more than Security, more than anything else. It was the ethical value upon which this country was founded. It was the driving ideal behind the writing of the Constitution- which creates a form of government specifically designed to check man's nature to hinder another man's exercise of Liberty.

The value of Liberty was the philosophical basis for the war in Heaven- a war fought over whether or not man ought to be allowed to come to this earth to exercise his/her agency freely. One party agreed with Heavenly Father, that the free exercise of agency was the best way to grow. He offered himself as a mediator for Justice- as a advocate for Mercy- to suffer the consequences of the free exercise of Agency when those consequences were negative. He said that he would be our Savior- if we would CHOOSE to accept him.

But his counterpart, Lucifer, advocated Security as the more desired value. HE said that he would ensure that we would all return to live with Heavenly Father because he would take control of our lives and make our choices for us. The consequence of his plan would leave him with power and us with impotence. But there could be no growth without choice, without agency, without Liberty. And so the war began- and the value of Liberty was chosen as the more important value.