“We can either have a free society,” declared Governor Ron DeSantis at an August 4^th news conference, “or we can have a biomedical security state and I can tell you, Florida, we’re a free state” people will be free “to make their own decisions about themselves.”  Every time he makes one of these stand-up-for-individual-freedom statements, he is cheered by conservative commentators and moves up the line of GOP presidential contenders.  DeSantis’s words are a good example of how conservatives have responded to the pandemic in such a way so that their actions are in alignment with the primary value of modern conservatism:  individual liberty.

Another value, however, that defines conservatism is maintaining an intellectual connection with the past. Conservatives recognize that much of who we are is a result of the decisions made by our forefathers.  Their choices established stability and ensured continuity.   This is why the theory of constitutional interpretation that stresses the importance of the original meaning of words and ideas at the time they became law is typically associated with conservative politics. To be a conservative, after all, means that there are ideas worth conserving. 

A value that is worth conserving, one every bit as important to the founders as any other, is the belief that the welfare of the community must be balanced by the rights of individuals.   Our three most influential colonies—Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania—labeled themselves “commonwealths” because they were established for the promotion of the common good and NOT for the promotion of individual freedom.  From morals to the height of fences many aspects of everyday life were regulated in early America.   Above all, laws were based on what was best for the community.  Life was precarious and survival could only be assured when the community’s interests were deemed superior to personal liberty.    Eighteenth century Americans were quite advanced when it came to their understanding of individual rights, but it was understood that individuals must place their interests in a broader context when it came to the public arena.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the first paragraph of Federalist #1:

 It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

He wrote of “societies of men” operating through “good government” and making decisions “from reflection and choice.”  That might be an idea worth conserving, as opposed to DeSantis’s idea of everyone being free in the face of a pandemic “to make their own decisions about themselves.”