Though talk of America taking over Greenland has died down recently, the bold foreign policy strategy has taken many of all political persuasions by surprise.

It should. Western political thought has long resolved that freedom and national self-determination are political goods that far outweigh security, regardless of the potential for danger.

Conservative political commentators often bring up George Washington’s “Farewell Address” in matters such as this, given Washington’s warnings against foreign entanglements, issuing caution regarding Greenland and other foreign ventures. But I think the reason for recent resistance toward military entanglements in Greenland is far more simple, namely, the importance of freedom.

We need look no further than the Declaration of Independence and founders such as Patrick Henry to see that the right to self-government and the liberty of a people are unalienable rights worth the ultimate cost – death – to secure. If this is the right attitude we should take regarding liberty’s importance, then we cannot abandon liberty at the altar of national security.

Washington is likely right that foreign entanglements ought to be avoided for practical reasons, yet we ought to esteem the principles of liberty and self government so highly that we do not dare infringe upon those rights as they pertain to any other people either, despite the potential for danger incurred.

This is not to say that there may not be an extraordinary time when a nation must resort to taking over another country for a short period, but that taking a people’s liberty for our increased security should be done only in the most extreme circumstances and the most existential of threats – if at all. The Western political thought upon which our nation was fashioned can suggest no other course.

It isn’t surprising, though, that we undervalue liberty on the international scene when we have been slowly trading it away at home. Our society has been inching toward socialism precisely because we sacrifice liberty for security in the domestic sphere as well. Whether that security comes in the form of welfare or other social safety nets and programs, it has eroded our personal freedoms and claimed our tax dollars, and likely will continue to do so under the banner of increased social welfare and benevolence. When liberty is sacrificed for security, societies slip into socialism domestically, and, likewise, when security trumps liberty in foreign policy, we betray our highest ideals and sew the seeds of despotism abroad.

I’m reminded of Aldous Huxley’s brilliant “Brave New World” novel, in which happiness and comfort suppress freedom and meaning. In arguably one of the most haunting lines of the book, Huxley writes, “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” [Emphasis added.] Huxley’s novel is a brilliant reminder that freedom is more important than comfort, and that like poetry, goodness, and sin, liberty is integral to the human psyche.

Judeo-Christian thought has long purported that the notion of self-agency – in the personal, political, and international spheres – is worth protecting at all costs. And while the current administration seems to have toned down its rhetoric (either persuaded not to embark on military occupation of Greenland or perhaps because the strong words were a bargaining tool all along), liberty is too fragile and too precious a blessing to grow complacent in our defense of it. We must be continually watchful lest we sacrifice freedom for security in our domestic and in our foreign policy, courting tyranny under one of its more beguiling guises.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.