Sunday, April 10, 2022
Sunday Reflection: On Freedom
I have an op-ed in today's Minneapolis paper about bail-- you can read it here. It's a pretty simple piece really, rooted in the obvious connection between bail and the American principle that people accused of crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
There is another bit in there that expresses something that is simple, but has always been deeply meaningful to me:
There
is always a trade-off between liberty and safety; that's the underlying
dynamic of criminal law. If we deprive more people of freedom, we
achieve some measure of safety. After all, if we imprison half the
population, we would incarcerate a number of people who otherwise would
commit crimes.
Liberty is explicit in the Constitution; safety from crime is not. We are a freedom-loving people, but not so much a safety-loving people. And that's ok; there is inevitably a trade-off. Every crime that is added to the books takes away the freedom to do something, after all.
Even though I'm not one of those people waving around a flag that says "liberty!" I am pretty much all about it. I think individual citizens should be as little restricted by the government as possible. It's unpopular take when it comes to things like bail, but... I've got the freedom to have unpopular opinions!
