What is not so obvious is the fundamental connection between the two, particularly between being a person and being free. It is in that connection where our dignity, indeed the dignity of each and every citizen, is founded. It is this fundamental dignity, our second core value, that has to be respected at all times and at all cost.

The first thing about being a person is that we are unique. We stand on our own. We each have our own identity: This can not be fully absorbed into another, and it should never be trampled upon.

Precisely because we are unique and stand apart from others we have the freedom to live out our life and carve out our destiny. Our unique personality and our individual freedom arise out of our soul: Each one of us has a soul, which is our very own, and which gives us our individual imprint. It gives us the capacity for thinking out our thoughts and seeking out the good we wish to have and hope to hold.

Our individual capacity for thinking and seeking, and eventually for acting according to our thoughts and desires, can and should never be taken away from us. It is this capacity that marks out our freedom and consequently also our responsibility. No one can think for us, seek the good things for us, and act for us: At bottom and in the end we should be able to do all these fully in our own behalf; and that is why we are all personally responsible for our thoughts, desires, and actions.

Precisely because we have a private core, which constitutes our private dominion, where we – and we alone – are responsible, into which no one else can enter (unless we freely welcome such entry and intrusion, and even then the intrusion can never be complete or absolute), we have a natural claim to a personal dignity that must be respected.

But how is such respect to be given? How are we to treat each and every individual citizen in our national community? The answer is straightforward: To take them for what they are; to respect their thoughts; to listen to their desires, and to the extent possible to facilitate the fulfillment of those desires; and to enable everyone to act freely and responsibly.

And how must everyone act freely and responsibly? Again, the answer is straightforward: For each one of us to become what we can be, given all our potentials, talents and opportunities; to think of others; to wish all the best for all others, starting with those closest to us and including those who share a common citizenship with us in the nation as well as in the world; and to act in solidarity with others in promoting the common good of the community.

Looking at the straightforward answers, we immediately realize that a free person, whose dignity must be scrupulously respected, is always for others. Our personal thoughts, desires, and actions should not be centered on ourselves: They must always be oriented towards others, our fellow citizens in the wider community for whose common good we are all responsible.

Respect for the dignity and freedom of each person is also a siren call for responsibility to, and solidarity with, others in society. Thus, freedom and responsibility are inextricably connected with each other.