Even hard-won freedoms come with responsibility to the greater good

HALIFAX -

Close to two years of pandemic, public health restrictions, mandatory masks and vaccination mandates, have set the stage for the rigorous debate about rights and freedom, which now rages daily -- particularly in social media.

It's good to assert rights and stand up for freedom. because these are the cornerstone values in a democratic society.

Many who noisily assert their freedom to not do what most others recognize as being in the self-evident public interest, point to those who served the country in the Second World War as having fought and died for such freedom.

Indeed, hundreds of thousands did fight and many did die to secure freedom from tyranny. But it was their great sense of duty, the recognition of responsibility, that inspired them to willingly risk and sacrifice their own lives for the greater good.

Only a few thousand were conscripted into overseas service. The vast majority volunteered to go. They opted not to exercise their right, their freedom to stay at home, safe and far away from the bloodied battlefields. They recognized their duty, their responsibility to act in the interest of the greater good.

And through their actions and valorous sacrifices, those who fought for freedom also defined the virtue and value of putting the well-being of the whole ahead of personal safety. Tens of thousands gave up their right to life. 

In Canada today, a legal charter enshrines our rights, subject only to reasonable limits, but it is conscience that defines responsibility.

Bob Dylan once reflected: "A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom."

Those who cite the heroics of the fallen and our veterans to fortify their own legal right to refuse a minimally risky shot in the arm or to defiantly refuse to wear a paper mask in public, might wish to ponder the courage that inspired the free and noble and selfless choice to put the public good ahead of personal freedom -- as our heroes did.