Balance

Taken from a Facebook meme.

Rights and Responsibilities go together. I am very protective of my rights. BUT I am very cognizant that for every right I also have a responsibility. 

Our very founding sentence (the Preamble) makes plain that liberty and the common good are BOTH key to a functioning republic. In theory the "pure" socialists subvert all rights to the "good of all" and in theory the "pure" capitalists put the individual rights of capital above the good of the whole. BOTH of those extremes result in tyranny. American small-r republicanism balances rights and responsibilities and seeks to ever improve (make perfect) that balance to maximize liberty AND the common good.

So I'm not sure I would word things quite like the Cherokee here, but it sure beats the attitude of those who would allow the paving of our paradise to put up a parking lot for the billionaires shopping center.

I believe with all my heart and mind in the principles a very imperfect Jefferson so eloquently wrote into the first sentence of our declaration and that Gouverneur Morris, also with eloquence, wrote into the first sentence of our Constitution. Everyone, including our posterity have rights to life, liberty, and their own pursuit of happiness and so we have an obligation to pass on those blessings of liberty to the next generation. 

Balance. 

Same with our Senate. Sure give the minority rights to be heard, but don't let them throw monkey wrenches into every damn thing the We the People approve. 

Balance! 

Capital & labor. Profit & common good. Responsibilities & rights. Progress & preservation. 

Balance.