It occurs to me that the problem that libertarians and Tea Party conservatives have is that they are confusing the communal and the individual. When our Founders declared our independence on July 4, 1776, they were making a communal statement. That statement was that we in the American colonies would no long submit to being governed by people whose authority derived from their birth order. They would, in the future, be governed only by those selected from among their fellow citizens and whose authority would come only from the consent to be governed by their fellow citizens, as reads: ”That to secure these right, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Consent meaning limiting a portion of one's freedom of action in order to achieve some level of civil order, i.e. the absence of chaos.
Is that the end of the story? No. By what authority did the the Second Continental Congress make this declaration? By a communal act. They state that as “representatives of” and “by the authority of the good People of these Colonies” they declare themselves free of British rule. But they go further, to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”...their way to say that they have their “skin in the game.”
Is that the end of the story? No. There is one thing more. What if a government goes bad? For all of prior history, people were told that they simply had to endure a brutal and despotic government until such time as God – not man – replaced it. Our Founders rejected that idea and said that an abused people have a right to “alter or to abolish...and to institute new Government...most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
What needs to be noted in all of this is that nowhere is individualism a part of the process. It is “representatives” of “the good people” acting on behalf of them – not themselves – and “mutually” - not individually – pledging to “each other” all that they hold dear. Nowhere are there people acting as self-selected autonomous individuals. In fact, from the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 to the adoption of the “Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791 none of the principals, the Founders, are acting as autonomous individuals. Their independence is not synonymous with their individualism.
And what is more, our Founders provided for a process by which their work could be “altered or abolish.” Not, by individuals acting on their own behalf but as representatives of legitimate bodies created within the law. Persons seeking to exert their authority by force are outlaws in an act of treason. Advocating disobedience to the laws of the country is an act of sedition. It is not a matter of “free speech.” No government is obligated to give people set on subverting it free reign. And no loyal citizen is obligated to respect those whose only goal is to destroy the government for which thousands have bled and died and which serves the majority! Minorities have no right to have a government of their choosing.
One last word. Nothing the Founders did or has been done as a consequence of their action, insures that everyone will be totally pleased with everything done by their government. What it does say is that there is an orderly and legal process by which grievances can be addressed, but, meanwhile, we are all obligated to submit to the authority of the government and to live peaceably and respectfully with each other. American government is about the consent of the governed not the oppression of them, which is why we do not have walls keeping us captive. In America, if we don't like it here, we are free to find a place that better pleases us.