Courageously Defend Our Liberty by Jutice Antonin Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia - United States Supreme Court

Liberty is for the brave. From the Revolutionary War to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, our men and women at arms have responded to threats to our liberty with the courage that befits a great and free people. But preservation of our liberties requires not only the physical courage of our warriors. It demands as well moral courage or civic courage on the part of all our citizens: the courage to stand up against that tyranny most feared by the Framers of our Constitution, the tyranny of the majority. This is the courage of ordinary people like Rosa Parks, of great figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and of all those who resist popular moves to abridge constitutionally established rights, or to subvert the structure of our democracy.

Sometimes opponents of the popular will are wrong. Civic courage is not always conjoined with civic wisdom. But better civic courage that is sometimes misdirected than no civic courage at all. When that virtue disappears from our midst, the central liberty of our democracy on which all other liberties depend, the freedom of speech, will become in effect the freedom to agree with the prevailing view. Let us resolve always to be the home of the brave – that we may always remain the land of the free.