There are several ways in which we can protect our constitutional freedoms. Those ways, in which we can protect our constitutional freedoms, will be the focus of today’s article. We always have to remember that our constitutional freedoms didn’t come by chance. People fought for them. Some people had to pay the ultimate price, for us to enjoy these freedoms. Our part, as the people who are living now, is to protect those freedoms: so that the generations that will come after us will be able to enjoy them the same way we do. At a practical level, we can protect our constitutional freedoms by:
- Not taking the constitutional freedoms for granted: it is easy to fall into the trap of taking our constitutional freedoms for granted. Once we get to that point of taking our constitutional freedoms for granted, the next stage will be where we lose the motivation to protect them. And once we lose the motivation to protect them, they will start slipping away from us. By the time we realize what is happening, we may have lost all our freedoms.
- Being vigilant: we need to watch over our constitutional freedoms like sentinels – lest the freedoms be taken away from us. We need to watch the trends carefully. And once we note a trend where a certain constitutional freedom is increasingly being infringed upon, we need to raise our voices in protest. I will liken the level of vigilance that is necessary here to a debit card holder’s vigilance. If, for instance, you are a KPFprepaid debit card holder, you are inclined to be always vigilant about the card’s balance. That is why you find yourself visiting the card’s website (at KPFprepaid.com) from time to time, to check the balance. That is how vigilant we need to be about our constitutional freedoms – lest they be taken away from us by despots and tyrants.
- Being careful in the political choices we make: we need to ensure that we only elect leaders and political parties that are committed to the protection of our constitutional freedoms. This means that we need to interrogate all people who seek political office carefully. We need to interrogate them, so as to be able to understand their stand on matters to do with the protection of constitutional freedoms. If we have any doubts about a particular candidate’s commitment to the protection of constitutional freedoms, we will always be better off denying that candidate our votes.