It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong - Andrew P. Napolitano [48]
Even in the Bush years, this porn-or-grope choice was unthinkable. Today it is with us. However, worse than this Hobson’s choice is the repellant submissive acceptance of all this by millions of innocent flyers whom the government has duped into thinking it can keep safe. Question: Has the porn-or-grope regime discovered a single dangerous item of contraband at an American airport—a box cutter, a handgun, or an explosive—in or on anyone flying in America? Answer: No. But government propaganda works.
As this discussion shows, the right to travel enables the free exercise of so many of the other rights we most cherish, here the right to pursue lawful employment and freedom of speech. We should not have to check our constitutional rights at the curb simply because we decide to travel. Sadly, it is the right to travel which has been most disparaged throughout human history, our country being no exception. If we are ever to be free, then we must possess an absolute, uninhibited right to travel the world free from interference by government.
One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for mankind
Of all the inalienable rights we possess as individuals, none is as basic, fundamental, and natural as the right to movement and travel. As human beings, we enter this world bestowed with natural gifts: Two legs and feet, and the muscles needed to power them; or, in other words, body parts the essential purpose of which is to move from place to place. Furthermore, we are given a brain and the undying yearning to discover, to know the unknown, to see what lies hidden beyond the horizon. Thus, a fundamental right of movement is inherent in our very humanity. And after all, although we can become slaves in many different ways, none is more evident than by losing our ability to move about the world as we please. It is altogether fitting that a symbol of freedom is a broken chain.
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The freedom to travel is a part of our national psyche. Our European ancestors settled in America because they had the right to move freely from their homelands. The very history and trajectory of our nation’s colonization are testament to man’s inherent right to movement and travel. We are a country made up of travelers, wanderers, and explorers. Examples span from NASA to Thomas Jefferson’s selection of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the mysterious and unknown lands of the West.
More fundamentally, restrictions on the right to travel connote that the government is the individual’s master, and not his servant. As explored elsewhere, the right to own property includes when and which individuals may enter upon our property, and under what circumstances. If the government usurps this ultimate right from property owners, or grants itself a monopoly over certain modes of travel, then clearly the rights of individuals extend only so far as the government, and no one else, wills them. Thus, circumvention of the right to travel is particularly antithetical to the Natural Law, and the principle that the temporal is always subject to the immutable. Freedom subject to the government’s whim is no freedom at all.
The importance of the freedom to travel, however, extends much further than the ability to go where one desires. As mentioned before, movement is essential to the existence and recognition of other inalienable rights. If you are prevented from leaving your home, your speech is automatically repressed. If you are not permitted to travel, you are kept from practicing your religion in a community of believers. As a result, you are restricted from selecting who you meet, who you marry, and whether you have children with whom you associate. You are held back from potential employment opportunities and prevented from receiving the education you desire. Stated simply, the right to move and be present is inextricably linked to a host of other fundamental rights that you possess as a free individual. Liberty, at its core, is encompassed in the right to