Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Every sane person wants both security and liberty, but they're incompatible. To get more security, we must give up liberty. To get more liberty, we must give up security. Americans have always struck the balance on the side of liberty. We are a nation of individuals. We believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness rather than "liberty, equality, fraternity." We believe that the common good emerges, as if by an invisible hand, from self-interested conduct. The role of the state is merely to enforce neutral rules of competition and cooperation. Will young people continue to prefer liberty to security, as Americans always have? Michael Barone says that young people may already be moving away from Barack Obama, who is hell-bent on trading their liberty for security. I'm 52 years old, so I won't have to live with the consequences of this trade-off for more than 20 or 25 years, but today's young people will live with them for 50 years or more. Choose wisely, kids. You might think it's cool to have guaranteed health care, but everything has a cost, and the cost of guaranteed health care is your—and your children's—liberty.