Is Our Decency Our Weakness? By John W. Howard

"The rise of Islam challenges our most cherished beliefs. The fundamental animating principle that defines us as a nation is that each individual is endowed with unalienable rights; that each citizen is entitled to equal dignity and the protective arm of government; that each individual is precious. From our earliest founding documents, we have defined government as having one primary function and that is to ensure the liberty of its citizens.

We see government’s most legitimate function as protective rather than constraining. The Bill of Rights, the portion of our governing document with which Americans are most familiar, includes a list (by its terms not exhaustive) of rights government cannot abridge. The presumption, enshrined in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, is against governmental power over the individual and in favor of the retention of rights. Government may not impinge on the rights of its citizens except under extraordinary circumstances. No other country so jealously guards or more zealously protects the rights of its individual citizens. The very purpose of the Bill of Rights is to emphasize the limit of governmental power that is our basic assumption. "

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