The Importance of Limits

[Geee]

American Spectator:

“[Manifest Destiny was] part of this idea of boundlessness, of no limits. This was a romantic notion that through an act of will, Americans could achieve this greatness for themselves and for their nation.” — historian Robert W. Johannsen.

It is said that the United States were founded on a spirit of freedom and a rejection of limits. America was, after all, a place of boundless land, resources, and possibilities. And few laws to speak of. There was no telling what an individual, society, and the nation might achieve. This “Era of Unlimited Feeling” was a period of tremendous, exciting change and innovation.

Even today if there is one thing many Americans cannot abide it is any notion of self-restraint. Like adolescents who constantly test the boundaries imposed by parents or society, we find limits to be an affront to our sensibilities, and something that must be overcome.

And yet it should be noted that the denial of limits is the quintessence of liberal thought. The promise of Liberalism was that the individual had been liberated from bounds once imposed on him by religion and old-fashioned morality. The theory was that modern man was free to do as he pleased so long as he did not harm anyone else. That one may be harming society, his community, his family, his children was apparently too fine a distinction.