Protect and Serve Whom?
Two Texas police officers. Two separate incidents. Two remarkably similar misinterpretations of the First Amendment.
At first glance, the stories seem unrelated. One involved a Christian preacher outside a Pride event. The other, a citizen holding a sign in protest. Different officers. Different circumstances. Yet both encounters reveal something more troubling than a disagreement over noise ordinances or municipal regulations. They both expose an understanding of authority that should concern every American.
The question is not whether the officers acted in good faith. The question is far more important than that.
Why are these officers thinking like administrators rather than constitutional guardians?
A police officer is not simply another city employee. They carry the lawful authority of the state. That authority exists for a specific purpose – not to shield the government from the citizen, but to secure the rights of the citizen through the enforcement of law. The badge is not a symbol of political power. It is a public trust.
Yet, that trust appears to be shifting before our very eyes. Americans caught a glimpse of this shift during the COVID years. Across the nation, emergency orders dramatically changed the role of the government in everyday life. Free citizens were told where they could gather, when their business could open, whether churches could hold services, and in some places, whether leaving home itself was approved by the government.
Whether one agreed with every policy was beside the point. What many Americans witnessed was a growing assumption that liberties guaranteed by the Constitution could be suspended whenever a public official deemed them inconvenient.
This week’s First Amendment dispute feels less like isolated misunderstandings and more like echoes of that same governing philosophy.
Rights become permissions.
Citizens become subjects to be managed.
Public servants become administrators of government priorities and not guardians of constitutional limits.
Perhaps that explains why similar misinterpretations keep appearing in different places, under different circumstances, among different authorities. The issue is no longer about a bullhorn or sign. Those are merely the latest instances forcing us to revisit a much older question about the proper role of government.
The American tradition begins with a simple promise. The government does not create rights. It exists to protect rights that already belong to the people.
Why do we outlaw murder, robbery, assault, rape, fraud, or theft?
The answer is simple. Each violates a right that belongs to another human being – the right to life, property, liberty, or personal security. The law does not invent those rights. It recognizes them and provides the means to defend them.
Government legitimacy starts there. Once the government forgets that its first obligation is to protect rights rather than administer society, it starts to reinterpret its own purpose.
Every legitimate exercise of government authority begins with the same question: Whose rights are being protected?
That is why these encounters deserve more than partisan outrage. They deserve careful reflection. Every generation inherits institutions. Every generation must also ask whether those institutions function according to their purpose.
Because if those entrusted with authority continue to see themselves as the enforcers of City Hall and not protectors of constitutional liberty, then perhaps the old motto deserves one final question –
Protect and serve whom?
DISCERNMENT:
Every exercise of government authority should begin with one simple question: “Whose rights are we protecting?” If that question cannot be answered clearly in City Hall, it should be no surprise when the officer on the street can’t answer it either.
For a deeper discussion of the proper role of government, read my essay The State Is Not a Moral Parent.
Sources:
Video – Police encounter with street preacher outside Fort Worth Pride event.
Video – Police encounter involving citizen displaying protest signs.
