Our Republic depends on it. Ask the average American if they believe in the Bill of Rights, and they will say yes if they know what it is. Ask what rights are in the First Amendment, and most miss it. So, how many know the Bill of Rights? Know the rights? More fundamentally, how many know they are all based on respect?
Maybe what ails us today is that citizens, especially those left-of-center, know little about history, fail to know what rights we have, and do not link them to respect.
In a recent FIRE poll (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) on the First Amendment, only 40 percent could name free speech. Only 26 percent could name religion, 20 percent assembly, 15 percent free press, and eight percent the right to petition. In short, few know even our First Amendment.
How many now the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, or 14th Amendments, which guarantee the “right to keep and bear arms,” freedom from “unreasonable search and seizures,” guarantees of “due process” and “equal protection” (federal and state), fair and speedy trial, impartial jury, freedom against “cruel” punishment,” or states’ rights? Very few.
Here is the kicker, and it explains much of what is wrong with America. If a majority do not know the First Amendment – free speech, religion, assembly, press, and petition – and other rights, who knows all are based on respect?
Our Bill of Rights is based on the Founders’ desire to avoid – ever again – loss of their God-given rights to speak, worship, govern, and protect themselves, be treated fairly, and maximize individual liberty. But they are also based on respect.
Think about it. You cannot acknowledge – or expect – the rights to free speech, worship, gun ownership, safe homes, fair treatment in courts, or limited government, unless you can give the same to all members of the society.
How do we do that? What does that require? What is unspoken in our Constitution, since it was elementary and assumed – yet without it we have no rights? Respect. We have to respect each other; otherwise, there is no right to be heard, right to worship, right to gun ownership, right to be treated fairly, right to be left alone.
In short, the entire Bill of Rights collapses without respect – for the assertion of rights it contains. This may sound simple, but it is at the bottom of why the left in this country shouts down others, acts illegally, suppresses what they do not want.
The left does not respect the Bill of Rights, the shared nature of rights, free speech, faith, or all rights asserted by conservatives. They eclipse the sun before it rises.
So, when you ask where common ground lies, where common sense begins, where harmony might – like a distant horizon – be found, you must begin with where we stand. It is unsettled, unfirm. We have lost perspective, lost mutual respect.
Everything – not just knowledge of rights, but making them real – depends on rediscovering respect, which boils down to “due regard” for the lives of others. All human behavior, from the simplest to the deepest, and all rights, start with mutual respect. Without it, relationships and republics collapse; it is the “sine qua non,” the “without which nothing” – so we have to rediscover the idea, teach it again.
Our Founders assumed we would never lose that “North Star,” mutual respect. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way: “Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect,” and society only works if we understand that. “We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.”
Albert Einstein was, as always, more direct. “Respect is a two-way street; if you want to get it, you have to give it.” The boomerang does not always return, but our Founding Fathers thought we would understand. Our Republic depends on it.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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